Indigo's Day of Workshops

It's true, we're beginning to offer non-writing workshops for writers to help them navigate the editing and publishing worlds. Please join us on Saturday, May 15, for our first day of workshops featuring:

Breakthrough Writing Playshop
10:30 a.m.–Noon
Instructor: Susan DeFreitas
Cost: $45*
This inspiring workshop will help you break through the constraints of left brain logic and into the fascinating chaos of the deep creative or intuitive mind. We’ll incorporate a series of prompts garnered from found images and objects, quotes, Surrealist-style writing exercises, and more, drawing on layering techniques designed to unhinge habitual patterns of meaning-making and arranging, with the goal of jogging the subconscious mind into loosing its gems of association through intriguing and unexpected combinations of words and images.

All participants will leave with a series of free-writes that may serve as seeds for future pieces and creative dynamite aimed at breaking through current writing blocks.

Susan DeFreitas is a writer, editor, multimedia artist and poet who enjoys the way different art forms can influence writing. She has an interdisciplinary degree in Arts and Letters from Prescott College for the Liberal Arts and the Environment; her prose-poetry natural history (influenced by classical music) was recently published in Southwestern American Literature.

Impress Your Editor—All of Them
1–2:30 p.m.
Instructor: Kristin Thiel
Cost: $45*
If someone’s opinion is important enough for you to share your manuscript with that person, it’s equally important that you prepare your manuscript to its best before you hand it over. Learn how to ready your manuscript for your writing group. Save time and money by following a few simple tips before you hire an independent editor. Support—don’t sabotage—your manuscript before the acquisitions editor or agent finally slices open your promising box of twelve-point Times New Roman.

Kristin Thiel has been an editor for almost a decade, and sharing her own writing with other editors for longer than that. An excerpt of her writing is an example of what to do right in the reference book Don’t Sabotage Your Submission: Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D.O.A.

Publish Before You Publish
2:40–4:10 p.m.
Instructor: Andrea Deeken
Cost: $45*
If you have dreams of becoming a published author but don’t know where to start, this is the class for you. Submitting to contests and journals is a great way to begin building a platform for your writing that can easily be carried over into further publication. Learn the basics of how and why to submit, as well as the kinds of submissions to avoid. There will be time set aside for free writing and feedback. All skill levels welcome.

Andrea Deeken has studied writing for almost fifteen years and has been an editor since 2005. A veteran of submitting to contests and journals, she has won first place in writing contests sponsored by Richard Hugo House and Portland Pen and Pie. Her work has most recently appeared in The Bear Deluxe.


*Attend all three workshops for just $100. Each class is limited to nine students. All classes will be held at the Indigo office, 519 SW 3rd Ave., Fifth-floor conference room, Portland, Oregon.

Take advantage of these great prices to add to your knowledge base and to get to know our editors! Visit www.indigoediting.com for more information. E-mail workshops@indigoediting.com to register.