passed along by Melba Burns:

WANT TO WRITE?

“Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire.” W.B. Yeats
This writing group will light your fire!

Ever thought you could write a book — but have no idea how to start?

Want to get re-motivated on that story that’s been flitting through your brain?
What about all those experiences your friends keep telling you to write about?
You say? “Oh, later… One of these days, I’m too busy right now…I need more time.”
What about NOW?

· You will be re-motivated to write that book or story
· And achieve the goals you set for yourself.
· You will let go of blocks to your creativity.
· You’ll begin to trust that what you want to write you can, &
· You’ll gain more confidence in your writing.
· You’ll learn to write amazing characters too.
· You’ll be in a community of supportive, like-minded people.
· You’ll get to read at a literary cabaret.
· You will have the opportunity to be published on my new website.
· I invite you to join us in a great Writing Workshop.

It will nurture your soul and you’ll be amazed at your own creativity!
Please call Melba Burns, Ph.D.
604-736-6789
(soulwrites AT telus DOT net)
Tuesday, September 23rd, 7-10 p.m. for 12 weeks
St. Mark’s Anglican Church, 1805 Larch Street in Kitsilano.
$450
Or, Wednesday, Sept. 24th, 1-4 p.m. for 8 weeks, in False Creek
$300
(Post-dated cheques are acceptable – whatever works for you.)
Melba has been writing for over 40 years; articles, poetry, educational scripts for Disney, feature films,
a 13-week TV show, short stories & nonfiction books: she just completed Woo Your Writer Within Like
a Lover. She believes that the soul needs expression to be fully alive. For 20 years, she has encouraged
thousands to tap into their ‘natural writer,’ strengthen self-confidence, keep on writing, & get their
work out there.

This month we’ve moved our meeting to Monday so that we can have the brand-new Shebeen all to ourselves. We’ll play host to Sylvia Taylor, President of the Federation of BC Writers, who will give us an overview of the Fed and what it can do for its writers. Some of you will remember Sylvia from a our June meeting, when she spoke on memoir writing and editing.

Welcome to all the first-time Shebeeners! Our meetings are a convivial gathering of literary types of all sorts: editors, writers, publishers, booksellers, and students as well. All are welcome.

Go into the Irish Heather GastroPub, then through the back door to The Shebeen Whisky House,
212 Carrall Street in Gastown. If you get lost, staff can show you the way.

Note that this is across the street from the old location.

Meet and Greet 7-7:30

Listen and Learn 7:30-8

Signups, networking, and complaining about agents 8-9!

Just a reminder to all literary types that this Tuesday will be our first Shebeen Club meeting in Ye New Shebeen, directly across the street from Ye Olde Shebeen. The theme for this meeting is new horizons, and I will be presenting a selection of readings and discussion topics for your delectation. If you have a reading, quotation, or exercise on the topic to contribute, please contact me by email before Tuesday, so I can work you into the schedule.

Join us and check out the Irish Heather and the Shebeen in their brand-new home. As always, $15 includes a fabulous dinner and a refreshing beverage, and the full menu is available to order from additionally.

Meet and Greet: 7-7:30
Listen and Learn: 7:30-8:00
Gossip and Algonquian One-Liners: 8:00-9:00

As some of you are aware, there’s a large power outage in the downtown area; this has affected the Irish Heather and the Shebeen, so unfortunately we have to reschedule our meeting. It will now be on the 29th, two weeks from tonight.

I’ll head down there and redirect people who don’t get the message in time.

FYI:

more cat pictures

Tonight will be a free-form evening where we simply catch up on one another’s projects. There are also lots of great events coming up, and if you know of one please bring details so I can post it later.

Next month will be Sylvia Taylor on Writing Your Life: crafting the memoir. That should be a very popular one, as I seem to be the only person not memoir-ization-ing lately! Perhaps I’ve missed a trend?

The Shebeen Club: Gonzo Vancouver!

When: 7-9pm, Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Where: the Shebeen, 7 Gaoler’s Mews, behind the Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street, Vancouver BC

How Much: $15 includes dinner: limited to 40

What: mingling, door prizes, eating, drinking, fornicating!

Who: Heather Watson (Civixen), Gonzo Journalist and founding columnist at Terminal City

“We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-coloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Well, we probably won’t have that, but we will have a great introduction to indigenous Vancouver Gonzo journalism with the hyperkinetic and internationally infamous Heather Watson, alias Civixen (http://www.civixen.com/ and http://cvxn.tumblr.com). Coming at you straight down the Mojo Wire at 95 miles per hour, it’ll be an evening of raw, uncut literary power. Bare-knuckling her way up the ladder from the wide open frontier of the Wild West to the mean streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Heather has seen it all, done most of it, and has a damn hell solid alibi for everything else.

Bio: Heather Watson created the satirical op/ed column “Civixen,” which became a source of enjoyment and irritation for political bright lights and dim bulbs alike (including the current mayor) in the four years it ran in two local alternative newspapers. Besides a brief tenure as editor-in-chief of the 30,000-circulation Gonzo-inspired Terminal City (now sadly defunct), Heather Watson also presented a popular seminar on Gonzo Journalism at the request of the Western arm of the Canadian University Press in 2006. She is a published poet, a produced playwright and her essay “Vancouver Today” is featured in the Time Out Guide to Vancouver. In addition to a few years at Vancouver’s éminence grise of independent bookstores, Duthie Books, some of her more surreal side jobs have included voice-over and motion capture for a video game and six years spent hand modeling toys from Star Wars figures to Barbies in dozens of TV commercials.

Meet and Mingle 7-7:30
Listen and Learn 7:30-8
Drown Sorrows and Vow to Buck the System 8-9 or, really, the rest of your life.

What: The Shebeen Club Presents: Screenwriter’s Alert!

When: 7:30pm-9:00pm, Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Where: Upstairs at The Shebeen, behind The Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street in Gastown

Why: Vancouver Film School will be making a very special announcement of keen interest to all aspiring screenwriters and anyone hoping to break into the business of movies, games, or animation.

Who: Contact lorraine.murphy AT gmail.com for more information. Note that, as this announcement is embargoed till delivery, we cannot give out many details.

How(much)? $15 includes presentation, dinner of bangers and mash or vegetarian pasta, one celebratory beverage, and mingling.

Our March meeting will be of intense interest to anyone with celluloid ambitions. Alice Zhou from our world-renowned Vancouver Film School will be making a very special announcement about a worldwide VFS event of major interest to those with a desire to become involved in the industry.

Bio: Alice Zhou Alice Zhou is a recent winner of Cultural DiverseCity Youth Enterpreneur Business Award, a graduate of Simon Fraser University with a degree in Communications. Her career has focused on Corporate Events Management and Seminars, and she is currently the Events Coordinator at Vancouver Film School. Her passion lies in building relationships and creating a massive network, to provide resources and information to help facilitate additional entrepreneurship. Alice is a board member of the International Special Events Society (ISES). She teaches several Events Management courses at Vancouver Community College, and is a regular columnist in the Vancouver View Magazine. She currently is the event coordinator, public relations and sponsorship coordinator for Vancouver Film School.

7-7:30: meet and mingle
7:30-8: listen and learn
8-whenever: David Mamet/Nora Ephron/Joe Eszterhas three-way cage match! Okay, not really, but you’d pay to see that, wouldn’t you?

Cross-Posted from raincoaster.com. Notice it doesn’t say whether I’m an em dash or an en dash; damn quiz needs an editor!

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest. You’re often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly. You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well.You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well. You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives. (And while you’re the most interesting person they know, they can’t help feeling like they don’t know you well.) You excel in: Anything to do with money You get along best with: the Exclamation Point

What Punctuation Mark Are You?