FOR BEGINNERS AND PROS
Develop your skills
Build confidence
Get moving!

Do you want to write fiction, nonfiction, an article, a play? Have you been talking (and thinking) about it for a long time, but just can't seem to get it done? Here's help for you - a seminar with a writing coach who just won't take No for an answer. Judy has heard every excuse (and tried most of them!) and knows how to give you the nudge you need.

Shut Up and Write! is a highly individualized program in which Judy focuses on your particular goals and finds ways to help you meet them. She's had a lot of experience doing this, so be prepared to make progress.

The first few sessions include a fair amount of stand-up teaching about the craft. Whatever your level or area of interest, you'll learn more about writing - fiction and nonfiction, characters, dialogue, scenes, setting, structure, point-of-view, language, project management and publication.

As you learn helpful techniques, you will apply them to a project of your choice. If you don't have a project in mind, Judy will help you find one. By the end of the course, you will have completed a number of pages and gained confidence and skills you can use to reach the goals you set.

Plan on having homework and on sharing your enthusiasm with others in the group.

"I am absolutely loving the class - it's going by much too fast! I'm writing, and learning more than I ever have, and that includes writing classes taken in college in the distant past." ~ Mary Montgomery, about Shut Up and Write!

Prior to founding Redbird, Judy Bridges earned her living writing articles, stories, plays and business communications. She holds a bachelor's degree in writing and a master's in adult education.

In the darkest interior of almost every poet's computer or file drawer lurks a dog-eared folder with a depressing-sounding name on it-- something like Needing Revision, or Hopeless Cases, or Dead in the Water. Poets know it as the damp and chilly place where unfinished poetry goes to die -- a halfway house for poems that might get nourished occasionally by a linguistic scrap or two, but that ordinarily don't even come up for air.

Are there ways such poems can be carried back into the sun (or moon), and nursed back to health? Positively yes! In the new, Poetry Critique Group at Redbird, facilitated by award winning poet Marilyn Taylor, a group of energetic, creative poets will convene to pinpoint problems, analyze, and very often heal the ailing poem.

The format will be informal; the atmosphere supportive. A warm welcome will be extended to all poets, whether they are new to the art of poetry or experienced practitioners. Hope to see you there

MARILYN L. TAYLOR, Ph.D., teaches for the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and at many other venues throughout the region and beyond. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The American Scholar, Poetry, Iris, The Formalist, and Poetry magazine's 90th Anniversary Anthology. Winner of the 2003 Dogwood Prize, she also took first place in recent competitions sponsored by Passager, The Ledge, GSU Review, and Anamnesis Press. Her second full-length collection, Subject to Change (David Robert Books), was nominated for the Poets Prize in 2005. Marilyn is a contributing editor for THE WRITER magazine, where her columns on craft appear six times a year.

Cover Letter
a poem by Marilyn Taylor

Dear Sir or Madam: In this envelope
please find some poems that I have written.
I send them to you in the earnest hope
that you will read them and be wildly smitten.
In fact, you'll jump up, cheering, from your chair
And holler out, Hey, get a load of these!
We've got the poems of the decade here,
we'd better print them in our journal! Jeez,
is this a little miracle, or what?
And then you'll fax or phone me right away
to tell me that you're breaking out a split
of Taittinger, to toast your lucky day
and call me back to say you might as well
FedEx my check this minute, what the hell.

First published in the journal FREE VERSE

ROBERT VAUGHAN has 25 years experience teaching and writing plays, poetry and fiction. His plays were produced in New York, Los Angeles and San Franciso. His poetry was included in an anthology of Best Poems and Poets of 2004. An active participant in Redbird Studio workshops, he is currently working on his first novel.

THURSDAY EVENINGS
6:30 to 9:00 with Robert Vaughan
Summer Session: May 22, Jun 12, July 17, Aug 21
Fall Session: Sept 18, Oct 23, Nov 20, Dec 11

Prior to founding Redbird, Judy Bridges earned her living writing articles, stories, plays and business communications. She holds a bachelor's degree in writing and a master's in adult education.

WEDNESDAY EVENINGS
6:30 to 9:00 with Judy Bridges
Summer Session: May 7, Jun 11, July 16, Aug 6
Fall Session: Sep 17, Oct 1, 15, 29
Winter Session: Nov 5, 19, Dec 3, 17

• Attend whether or not you have work to share. You  will learn much from trying to help others.
• Bring 1-10 pages (double spaced, large type, wide margins) of your manuscript to share with the group. Bring extra copies so the others can give you added feedback by writing notes in the margins.
• When you arrive, put your name on the reader's list, noting the number of pages you wish to read. If you want to use your time to discuss a writing problem, write "talk" instead of a page count.
• Write your name on a tent card. Pour a cup of tea and settle in to enjoy the space and good company.
• When others read, notice what you like and how you think the writing might be improved. Try to focus on the craft rather than the content. Make notes on the manuscripts.
• Join the discussion when you want to. Remember that no one is expected to do as you say, only to consider your suggestion.
• When you read, try to skip explanations and defenses. Listen carefully during the feedback session. Decide later which suggestions you will and will not use.
• During the session or by appointment, you are welcome to use the studio market guides and resources.
• Bring rewrites in when you feel it is appropriate. We never tire of seeing how a writer improves.

WOW! Over 100 guests attended... Redbird's 15th Anniversary Showcase/Wisconsin Book Festival's Milwaukee "Spring Celebration". Thursday, May 1st, at 6:30 pm In the Social Room at the Marian Center 3195 S. Superior St. in Bay View. The celebration featured: Showcase readings; an author "talkback" moderated by studio founder Judy Bridges; book signings by Redbird authors; a social gathering with refreshments. About the Authors Shauna Singh Baldwin Shauna's first novel, What the Body Remembers, the story of two women in a polygamous marriage in occupied India, received the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book (Canada - Caribbean). English Lessons and Other Stories received the Friends of American Writers prize. Her second novel, The Tiger Claw was inspired by the life of Noor Inayat Khan (codename: Madeleine). The story of a Sufi Muslim secret agent who searches for her beloved through Occupied France, it was a finalist for Canada's Giller Prize. Shauna's awards include the 1995 Writer's Union of Canada Award for short prose and the 1997 Canadian Literary Award. We Are Not in Pakistan is her second collection of short stories. She is currently working on a novel. More info at www.ShaunaSinghBaldwin.com. Kirk Farber Kirk has been a member of Redbird Studio for over 3 years. Two of his short stories workshopped at Redbird have been published, one of which won 2nd place in the Wisconsin Academy of Arts & Sciences statewide fiction contest. The other is online in Hobart Literary Journal. His first novel - Postcards from a Dead Girl - spent many hours in Redbird roundtable sessions and was recently picked as a semi -finalist in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest. He currently lives in Colorado Springs, where Pikes Peak Writers awarded his excerpt from Postcards from a Dead Girl "Best Overall" in their "American Icon" writing event. He works at the Pikes Peak Library District. Doug Jacobson Doug is an engineer, business owner and World War Two history enthusiast. Inspired by the war -time experiences of his Belgian relatives and his own Polish ancestry, Doug began a five -year research effort that resulted in his debut novel, Night of Flames, a story of courage and resistance among common people caught up in the catastrophe of war. Doug has traveled extensively in Europe and is currently working on a sequel. Publications, etc.: - Night of Flames: A Novel of World War Two, published by McBooks Press, October, 2007 - "Profiles in Courage: Comete Kinship in Belgium" 3 -part series on the Comet Line of World War Two published in Gazette van Detroit, January, 2008 - Polish First Armored Division in WW2, 4 -part series published in AM -POL Eagle, January, 2008 and Polish American Journal, May, 2008 "Lives on the Line for Freedom" Feature article in The Bulletin - Newsweekly of Europe, Brussels, Belgium, January ,2008 Alison Polivka Alison is a sophomore at Pius XI High School who has been coming to Redbird for five years. She has participated in the Young Author Summer Programs as well as the roundtables during the rest of the year. Involved in her school newspaper, creative writing magazine and theater, Alison also finds time to work on the many novels she has started. She writes, "I haven't won any awards, but a few of my pieces of poetry have been put in Exploding Pens (that's our creative writing magazine), and a short story I wrote was put in a collection that the Art Museum did once. That's about it..." (That's a pretty good "it," Alison!) Carol Wobig Carol writes short stories, humor and monologues, usually set in small town Wisconsin or the convent. In her youth, she planned to be a nun. When that didn't work out, she planned to be a writer. In her 60's, she joined Redbird and finally finished a story and sent it out. Her latest award was an Honorable Mention in the 76th Annual Writer's Digest Competition in the Mainstream/ Literary Short Story Category. Awards - First place for "Love" - Florence Lindemann Humor Contest sponsored by WRWA, 2007 Honorable Mention for "Ravishing Red" - Mainstream/Literary Short Story Category, 76th Annual Writer's Digest Competition,2007. Honorable Mention for "The Haircut" - Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition in 2006. "Wheel of Fortune Monologues" - part of Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa One Act Festival in 2006. Judith Zukerman Judith, Chicago native and long time Wisconsin resident, enjoys returning to places she loves by writing poems. She has practically made Redbird Studio and Milwaukee her second home. Recent work includes publication in The Deronda Review Fall/Winter 2007, monthly Mind's Eye Radio Broadcasts, and reading at the Woodland Pattern Poetry Marathon. Earlier publications include her book Amsterdam Days, a journey through poetry (2004), Calliope, Free Verse, Peninsula Pulse, and Cobblestone. She was a semi -finalist in the New Millennium Awards contest and Discovery Nation Poetry Contest, and had a Norcroft Writer's Residency in 2004. Her new book, Caraway, to be published in 2009, is like Stanley Kunitz's, Wild Braid, set in a Jewish world.

Fiction Critique Services

Registration Information

• Register early. Workshops fill quickly.
• Returnees get first dibs in wait listed classes, then "Shut Up" grads, then new friends.
• Send registration and fee to Redbird Studio.
• If you cancel more than two weeks before class begins, your fee will be refunded, less a $25 processing fee.
• If Redbird cancels your class, you will receive a full refund.
• Acknowledgments are sent on request.
• Please refrain from wearing scented products into the studio.
• We are located in the Marian Center, formerly St. Mary's Academy, in the Bay View area of Milwaukee. The Center is on the Lake Michigan shoreline, two blocks south of Oklahoma Avenue.
• The studio is upstairs in an historic building. Sorry, there is no elevator.
• The view is great. The atmosphere is casual.

Click here to print Registration Form

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