Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop

Just released! 🎉 Join us for virtual workshops, one-day and multi-week, reading events, and more this fall - start reading here: mailchi.mp/pioneervalle...

SLM IS LOOKING FOR FLASH AND FICTION READERS Apply Sept 24- Oct 1 splitlip.submittable.com

Reminder! We're looking for volunteer Fiction and Flash Fiction Readers! Join the SLM FAM! This weekend would be a great time to apply! 😉

On Saturday, we hosted Words Under the Stars, in Northampton MA! It was a FULL HOUSE! Thanks to all who attended, & to our phenomenal featured authors, who left us speechless: Allegra Hyde, Peter Medeiros, Ariel Delgado Dixon, Melenie Flynn, Yago Colas, Gail Thomas, & Joy Baglio. A magical night!

Loved hosting (and reading with) these incredible writers for the Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop fall literary reading, Words Under the Stars! Each reading was riveting. Thanks to all who joined us in Florence, MA!

Just hosted our first Writing Retreat at Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop and it couldn’t have been more wonderful! Such a lovely group of writers, perfect weather, a gorgeous venue, what felt like infinite coffee (first time brewing a giant urn of it!) Feeling grateful for creative community!

This Saturday, 9/20, 7-8:30, join PVWW for a night of poetry, stories & literary magic under the fairy lights on the lawn of the Florence Civic Center in downtown Florence MA! Featuring a lineup of local authors - including Perugia’s own Gail Thomas. ✨🌟✨ @gthomaspoet.bsky.social @pvww.bsky.social

We'd love for you to take a few minutes to fill out our Community Survey! We want to know what our community wants to see more of - and we're offering 10% off any/all workshops for those who take a few minutes to share their thoughts!

Survey here: mailchi.mp/pioneervalle...

Finding Your Ending | Pioneer Valley Write Finding the right ending for your story might be the most difficult part of the writing process — we need to thread the needle with theme, magic, metaphor, and character, all without being too preachy...

TOMORROW, Friday 4/25, join us on Zoom for a 2-hour workshop on Landing Your Ending, with novelist (and Manuscript Program Instructor) @bhurley.bsky.social! For
anyone writing narrative prose and/or struggling with writing an ending!

Some REALLY exciting (Zoom) workshops on the horizon at @pvww.bsky.social: Tomorrow (5/25), Landing Your Ending with novelist @bhurley.bsky.social! And Saturday 5/3, Whiting Award-winner Elwin Cotman teaches the Japanese Four-Act Structure (Kishotenketsu)! Info & links to signup in the comments!

Some thoughts on revision, for writers who struggle with or dread this part of the process - the key is to make it simple, routine, and somewhat technical!

14 Tips On Writing Speculative Fiction that I'm constantly reminding myself of, and coming back to, again and again

14 Tips on Writing Speculative Fiction, by me, for all who write and dabble in the magical! Biggest thanks to the amazing writers quoted throughout for sharing their wisdom! Hope you enjoy! Read here: joybaglio.substack.com/p/14-tips-on...

Fiction writers! Looking for a rigorous, feedback-centered workshop? Our 8-week Intermediate / Advanced Fiction Workshop with novelist @egjames.bsky.social begins 4/10! A few spots still open (limited to 8 writers). Live on Zoom. Financial aid available. Learn more: tinyurl.com/mw2z5cyr

PVWW Founder / Director Joy Baglio will be featured in this reading at @forbeslibrary.bsky.social in Northampton MA (also livestreamed)!

Call for essays, from emerging writers! Great opportunity!

PVWW Founder @joybaglio.bsky.social has an article in
@pw.org, on creating your own writing retreat, with friends! It's a great issue, with lots of resources on writing retreats, and featuring author Karen Russell and her incredible new novel! Learn more / read here: tinyurl.com/4dd5kvjf

Question for anyone who feels like contemplating this: How has your perspective of / relationship to your writing (and creativity in general) changed over the years?

The older I get, the more fun I'm determined to have in the writing process, no matter it's challenges. (Though also looking back, I had lots of fun as a child and teenager in the process. It's those young-adult years that ruined me, even though those years were part of the growth too. :)

NEXT WEEKEND, February 16! Join @poetmercurio.bsky.social for a one-day virtual exploration of Deeper Writing Through Etymology! Learn more / sign up: www.pioneervalleywriters.org/service-page...

Our 2025 virtual workshop schedule is up! New classes (with award-winning authors) added regularly! Check it out here: www.pioneervalleywriters.org/courses

A great writing prompts from @perugiapress.bsky.social!

Here’s a Friday writing prompt from Perugia Press, drawn from the poetry collection THE WORK OF HANDS by Catherine Anderson. Find more prompts, sample poems, and discussion questions in our reading companions, and check out Anderson’s book and others in our bookshop (linktree in bio).

This Tuesday, 2/11! PVWW instructor @poetmercurio.bsky.social hosts this all-star poetry reading series, virtually and free to attend!

Deep in novel revisions and had a revelation about why a scene isn’t working: it’s me trying to be mean, to humiliate my characters, instead of being genuinely curious about them.

"Most reckless things are beautiful in some way, and recklessness is what makes experimental art beautiful, just as religions are beautiful because of the strong possibility that they are founded on nothing."
- John Ashbery

"...such elegant sentences and sentiments that you find yourself immediately wanting to return to it..."
NEW REVIEW of Opacities by Sofia Samatar. Thanks to @lizharmer.bsky.social for the review! https://buff.ly/4aKG0KH

Want to learn about what we do at PVWW? Founder @joybaglio.bsky.social talks how we began, what we do, craft, the writing life, and more!

One of the constant challenges anyone writing sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc. will face is how and when to weave in crucial worldbuilding info so that we know what we must to understand the story's opening, yet also so pacing (and narrative pull) isn't undermined. Thoughts / tips on this?

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”
― Flannery O'Connor

Perspective is everything: When telling the story, and also when approaching the writing itself, the writer's life, the inevitable rejections, the needed rewriting. How we orient ourselves (and our mindsets) toward the work affects our ability to sustain it.

Rolling Admissions Now Open for PVWW's 10-Month Manuscript Program! (Decisions coming soon for those who've applied!)