William John Bert

Tuesday night was the final workshop of the three-part Caught in the Act series that I’ve been leading at 826DC. I played trombone in high school band, and I remember the teacher telling us that the most challenging pieces weren’t the flashy allegro fortissimo showpieces (however much we enjoyed them) but rather the lento piano [...]

Fellow 826DC volunteer and all-around awesome person Anna started a Tumblr to collect photos of people’s morning commutes. I thought that was a great way to turn what can be one of a day’s most unremarkable stretches into something seen anew, so I contributed a couple photos and plan to send more. At the moment [...]

I’m going to do something I haven’t done before: post some of my writing, but not a finished piece. I just finished John Gardener’s The Art of Fiction a few days ago, and I’ve decided to do some of the exercises he provides at the end of the book. For example: Take a simple event: [...]

Tuesday night was the second installment of Caught in the Act, the creative writing workshop series I’m leading at 826DC. It went really well–class size doubled (to two!) and we produced an entire new draft, this time from the point of view of the person who did the catching. My involvement with 826DC goes back [...]

So I’m actually not new to blogging–I blogged for about a year from 2003-2004 and, though it may lead to embarrassment, I’ll even link to the old thing, which is still up: Pleonastic Ephemera. (I’ve also participated in several private group blogs for sharing writing with geographically-dispersed friends.) Pleonastic Ephemera was on Blogspot, which is [...]

I’m leading a workshop entitled Caught in the Act at 826DC tonight: Sometimes the best essays are the ones about breaking the rules. In this workshop, you’ll write essays about the times you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t have. We’ll talk about how to set the scene, narrate character actions and motivation, build suspense, [...]