Creating Your Writing Practice, Led by Mindy Friddle, Rebecca T. Godwin, J.C. Sasser & Michel Stone

Four award-winning novelists–Mindy Friddle, Rebecca T. Godwin, J.C. Sasser, and Michel Stone–will share their instructive insights on how to cultivate resilience, stoke your creativity, and find success as a writer.

Writing anything—be it a short story, a poem, or a novel—takes courage, and self-doubt is a natural part of that process. In the early stages you may feel daunted by the blank page, or mid-way through, find yourself discouraged. Even success can cause you to stumble. Perhaps you are struggling with finding ways to do meaningful creative work while also earning a living, raising a family, or after retiring. No matter what phase of writing you’re in, you can create and finish any project through a consistent writing practice that brings you joy. In this workshop, four authors share how they’ve learned to build sustainable writing practices through daily rituals, goal setting, and inspiration from each other. Whether you’re writing, or just considering it, this workshop will give you the tools to create a powerful writing routine that will keep you motivated, productive, and primed for success.

In this workshop, you will learn:

• How to build rituals and routines that preserve your willpower and nurture your creative energy and enthusiasm

• How to avoid distraction and procrastination and discover best practices for using social media

• How to find or start your own writing group

• Why keeping a notebook, a “playground for the mind,” is vital to your project

• How to set goals and grand gestures that cultivate resiliency and lead to success

• How to use recommended tools for creating and submitting your writing for publishing

Afterwards, you’ll have a better picture of how to use your time, focus, and energy to do your best work through your writing practice.

This interactive writers workshop will be held as an in-person class at the Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort) on January 21, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.. Limited to 15 participants. $45/person. Register at https://patconroyliterarycenter.eventbrite.com

A reading by all four instructors will follow at 5:00 p.m., free and open to the public, with books available for sale and signing.

About Our Instructors:
Mindy Friddle’s novel, SECRET KEEPERS (St.Martin’s/Picador), won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. THE GARDEN ANGEL (St. Martin’s/Picador), her first novel, was selected for Barnes and Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program. The South Carolina Arts Commission granted Mindy a Fellowship in Prose, and she has twice won the South Carolina Fiction Prize. Named a Walter E. Dakin Fellow in Fiction at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Mindy has been awarded residencies at Ragdale and Bread Loaf. Mindy’s short fiction has appeared in storySouth, Orca, LitMag, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Southern Humanities Review, Phoebe, and many others. Regal House is publishing Mindy’s third novel, HER BEST SELF, in 2024. She lives on Edisto Island, South Carolina. Visit www.mindyfriddle.com for details and to sign up for her newsletter.

Rebecca T. Godwin has just been awarded the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Prose Fellowship for 2023. She has published two novels, KEEPER OF THE HOUSE (St. Martin’s), and PRIVATE PARTS (Longstreet). Her work has appeared in Paris Review, Oxford American, The Sun, Epoch, South Carolina Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She received MacDowell and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in the early 2000s. For 13 years she taught literature and writing at Bennington College, during which time she conceived and was faculty editor for plain china, an online journal showcasing undergraduate writing from around the country. She has recently completed a collection of linked stories and is revising two novels. More details may be found at rebeccatgodwin.com.

Born and raised in Metter, Georgia, J.C. Sasser started her professional career at age 12, working as a dishwasher, waitress, and cook at a truck stop off Georgia’s I-16. Over her life, she has worked as an envelope licker, tortoise tagger, lifeguard, Senate page, model, editor, water-polo coach, marine biologist, plant grower, software consultant, and 6-Sigma Black Belt. She is the award-winning author of GRADLE BIRD and her short stories have been published in multiple anthologies. She currently lives in the south Georgia woods in a WWII barracks with her husband, Thomas, along with their two sons, T.C. and Robert Esten, four dogs, Boo Reedy, Batman, Jethro, and Lola Faye, and a flock of frenzied chickens.

Michel Stone is a writer, educator, and community volunteer. Her novels BORDER CHILD (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday) and THE IGUANA TREE (Hub City Press) have been compared by critics to the writings of John Steinbeck and both books have been optioned for film. She is the winner of the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Letters, the Patricia Winn Award for Southern Literature, and the South Carolina Fiction Award. Michel has published numerous stories and essays and her novels have been favorably reviewed by The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Charlotte Observer, Kirkus (starred review), Publishers Weekly (starred review) and others. Michel is a past board chair of the Hub City Writers Project and she has been awarded fellowships to Ucross, Wildacres, and Rowland Writers Residencies.