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Marla Brown

^[2]Playwright and performance artist Marla Brown will be the guest speaker at the Jan. 7 meeting of Charlotte Writers’ Club North. Also, a new year of workshops is beginning at Weathers Creek Writers Series.

BROWN AT WRITERS CLUB

On Thursday, Jan. 7, Charlotte Writers’ Club North will welcome playwright and performance artist Marla Brown as its guest speaker. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. The Sanctuary of Davidson gallery, 108 S. Main St.
Founder of The Warehouse Performing Arts Center ^[3] in Cornelius, Marla Brown received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of Texas, Austin.  Her satirical solo pieces “Why I’m Stark White” received the Marjorrie Davisson Parker performance award.

She also won Best of Fest placement at Hyde Park Theatre for her original piece “Dietrich.”  Along with playwright Kelly Rowett and director Jules Odendahl, Brown founded Bold Maids Theatre Co. In 2002, she joined Playwrights in Progress, a resident playwrights group of Theatre Charlotte.  Nine of her short plays have been produced through Theatre Charlotte’s “9×9” Series, including “A Dress To Go Out In,” which received a Media’s Choice pick.

Along with her passion for playwriting and new play development, Brown is a staunch advocate for using the arts for self-expression & community building.  She has created writing and movement workshops that allow participants to explore their own experiences and develop stories and performance pieces.

Her most recent collaborative community project was “Mother Journeys,” performed in May 2008.  Through a project grant from the Arts & Science Council, 20 participants took part in guided memory and writing exercises on themes of mothers and motherhood, developing a montage piece for performance.
Founded in 1922, Charlotte Writers Club is a membership organization whose mission is to support Charlotte’s community of writers.  Charlotte Writers’ Club North meets at 7 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month at The Sanctuary of Davidson, 108 S. Main Street.  The public is welcome to attend.  For more information, please visit our website at www.charlottewritersclub.org ^[4].

WEATHERS CREEK WRITERS SERIES

The Weathers Creek Writers’ Series continues in January with workshops on songwriting, fiction and making money with your writing. The sessions offer free-lancers, published authors and aspiring writers a one-day get away to a lovely farm located between Cleveland and Mooresville.

The 2010 workshops begin Jan. 9 with C. Hope Clark, founder and editor of www.fundsforwriters.com, a well-known writer’s reference that reaches over 28,000 readers weekly. Her workshop, “Funding Streams: How Serious Writers Plunge In,” will help you take your writing to the editors and websites that pay and that help you reach your target audiences.

Subsequent sessions will be held on the second Saturdays of February, March and April. They include: Feb. 13, award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker Georgann Eubanks on “Many Beginnings”; March 13, a songwriting workshop with singer/songwriter/producer Don Dixon; April 10, novelist and former newspaperman John Jeter  leads a session on “Be The Camera: Showing The Story and Reporting The Fiction.”

The Weathers Creek Writers Series grew out of talks between area writer/editor Ann Wicker, photographer and writer Susan Campbell, and marketing and sales specialist Cindy Campbell. Sessions are $75 each and include lunch. All sessions will start promptly at 10 a.m. and end at 3 p.m.

For a registration form, directions and other information, go to our website, www.weatherscreek.net/. ^[5]

LITERARY EVENTS CALENDAR

THURSDAY, JAN. 7, 7 p.m., The Sanctuary of Davidson, 108 S. Main St – Charlotte Writers’ Club North meeting hosts playwright and performance artist Marla Brown. Free and open to the public. www.charlottewritersclub.org ^[4].
THURSDAY, FEB. 25, 8 p.m., Davidson College Duke Family Performance Hall – Annual Conarroe Lecture, by Margaret Atwood, the Booker Prize-winning author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Blind Assassin.” The lecture will be free, but tickets will be required. Details to come.