As the World Burns
sending prayers for peace and sanity
I couldn’t post the Substack I was going to post this week. I barely know what to write. As a long-time Anti-Zionist, the genocide continues, and though I do what I can, I continue to struggle to understand humanity. Now with the fires in Los Angeles, a city where the mayor defunded the fire department to increase funds for cops, (reminds me of Cuomo getting rid of hospital beds in NYC before the pandemic), with inmates forced to fight the fires as slave labor, it feels as if the genocide has come home.
Zooming with a friend in LA, my first reaction to seeing the sky was, “it looks just like Gaza.” The fact that the US has been sending billions to fund genocide while so many people in the US are in dire need (for multiple fires as metaphor) has not escaped the people of LA who are suing their public officials for misuse of funds.
Can we write about this? Can we document our lives in this moment?
The bitter cold and the intense winds in NYC this week sting. I run bundled. As I crested the hill toward the Hudson yesterday, I was shocked to see huge piles of leaves, as high as my waist, covering the path. Only a small space against the hill, the width of my foot, for me to pass. When I turned around to run back minutes later, all the leaves had shifted to the river side in a brand new configuration, all the piles were gone. How quickly things can change. This gives me hope.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on Instagram
The Prompt:
Crafting Revelations - making the most of the moments when things are revealed. A revelation is an event. Events push your story forward, but they must feel earned in order to be meaningful. So how can we earn a revelation?
When things are revealed easily they feel unearned, therefore nothing should be revealed without some kind of pressure acting upon it. Craft that pressure. There must be a NEED TO SPEAK, if it’s a spoken revelation. Like when Darth Vader says, “I am your father,” this reveal is earned because Luke is about to kill him. If Darth doesn’t spill the beans, he may never get another chance. This is a revelation under pressure.
The pressure is a Strong Obstacle: Luke as protagonist against Vader as antagonist. We don’t want easy. We want to enjoy the Struggle. It’s our job to create obstacles via strong antagonists who will work to put obstacles in the protagonist’s way.
You want your protagonist actively trying to do whatever they are trying to do. Trying is a magic spell that attracts our attention like a magnet. And then things also happen to protagonists: the inciting incident and the moment that causes them to question everything. This second moment often makes them realize what they actually NEED instead of just driving toward what they WANT.
Pay attention to what you’ve already written, especially the specific details of place (what’s there) and what you can actually use to forward the action. Difficulty, failure, setbacks, everything must be built around what the protagonist wants and making it hard to get. Don’t invent anything new: flesh out the world of your protagonist. The more you can use what is already there, the better off you’ll be. It won’t feel forced if difficulties (or solutions) arise from what’s already there.
If revelations are secrets a character is keeping, what are the stakes? What are the consequences of revealing this? Increase the stakes. Create new tougher consequences. Think strategically. Reverse engineer it.
Who is keeping the secret and why? Let them do everything else they can think of instead of revealing their secret. Make lists of strategies. How can the protagonist get what they want? How can they avoid revealing what they don’t want to reveal? How can they get someone else to reveal what they need to know? What will happen if the secret is revealed?
When something is revealed, give it space to land. Let your characters react to it. Make it a moment. Or more. Each character present will have a response or a reaction. Layer these in, focusing one at a time on each character. Who reacts out of character? Who surprises everyone? What changes? Write the transformations. We need them.
With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space invites playwrights, poets, painters, potters, novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium to make meaning in a safe community. Begin and/or bring your projects to completion. $5-25 suggested per session. 4+x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins welcome. Try it!
Brave Space Schedule: (it’s warm in Brave Space!)
1/10 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/12 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
Sunday 730pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
1/13 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/15 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
1/17 Friday NO Brave Space
1/19 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
1/20 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/22 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
1/24 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/26 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
1/27 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
1/29 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
1/31 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
Each week Wednesdays includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@300 words) of writing or you can bring in a craft issue/ask for help with your project.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
I’m offering 3 different Sunday classes this winter via Zoom:
Artistic Statement Seminar January 26th 2 PM - 5 PM ET Magical Dialogue February 23rd 2 PM - 5 PM ET Writing Events & Reversals March 9th 2 PM - 5 PM ET More Information HERE
Take a Poetry Workshop with Only Poems.
The Femme Collective presents January, The She-Wolves and Broken Thread at the 14th Street Y this coming January! Get Your Tickets! The Femme Collective is a groundbreaking partnership between MultiStages, The Neo-Political Cowgirls, and Eden Theater Company. Together they represent a united front in reimagining the theater industry’s future. Born out of the financial and cultural challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, this innovative collaboration between three women-led companies seeks to redefine theater through shared resources, amplified diversity, and community resilience.
Robin Rice’s play PECKING ORDER opens at 59 E 59 - get your tickets here!
Opportunities:
I’m organizing Brave Poets, a free weekly feedback group for poets who are focused on publishing their work and putting together manuscripts. We are seeking a few more people who are female-identified or nonbinary & want to welcome LGBTQIA & BIPOC writers, social justice poets, neurodivergent folks, spoonies and survivors. We’ll be meeting Tuesdays at 7pm ET via zoom. Reach out to me directly!
Playwrights and Screenwriters: so many opportunities, you’ll have to go see for yourself! Check out: Women in the Arts Coalition for theatre, film/video opps!
The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis offers the following programs to apply to:
-Core Writer Program - open to any committed professional playwright, deadline in January 2025
-McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting - open to mid-career Minnesota-based playwrights, deadline in January 2025
-Core Apprentice - open to playwrights in or recently graduated from undergrad and graduate programs, deadline in February 2025.
By 1/31/25 New Voices Theatre Festival seeking stories from underrepresented communities.
By 1/31/25 submit your original full-length play of 8 actors or fewer for the Wild Imaginings Epiphanies Festival
By 1/31/25 Women in Arts and Media submission deadline has been extended for the WAM Coalition Collaboration Awards - STILL OPEN! Women in the Arts & Media Coalition is extending the deadline for submissions for the 2025 Collaboration Awards. Established in 2006, the $1,000 award and other honors are designed to encourage professional women from different arts and media disciplines to work together on the creation of a new artistic work. Artistic disciplines include but are not limited to playwrights, directors, composers, choreographers, filmmakers, actors, singers, and dancers.
By 1/31/25 The Hatchery New Play Development Festival A Paid Performance Residency! More info
By 1/31/25 Autistic Oral History Project is offering grants of $3K to Autistic folks and Autistic-adjacent folks who want to participate in collecting oral histories.
2/1/25 Wave Farm Transmission Art Residencies in Hudson, New York This residency will emphasize “A Radio Art Hour.” During a 10-day residency at Wave Farm, artists will develop new transmission artworks informed by access to a research library, equipment, unique workspace resources, and on-site staff support. An artist fee of $1,000 will be provided to each resident artist.