Workshops
What are RTW workshops?
One of the major initiatives of Round Table Writers is to provide tools for success in the writing and artistic life. Our members come from all backgrounds and degrees of professional experience and that knowledge base creates a powerful pool from which every member can benefit.
Our workshops are open to everyone, you just need to join our Discord server.
Workshops are practice-based, meaning that we concentrate on applying what we've just been learning directly to our work, either through free-writing, guided exercises, or intuitive work on longer projects we hold dear.
Workshops are led by two members of our community who, together, represent different aspects of our eclectic experience.
Socialization is valuable: artists never create in a vacuum and the RTW Workshops highlight this. You'll learn from the workshop leaders and connect with the writing community during our community Q&A period. (You can also join a weekly write-in which always include socialization and provide us with a chance to share our work aloud with our peers).
Workshops Offered
The Art and Business of Scriptwriting workshop
February 5th, 2021
In the RTW Discord, live on video
(participants are encouraged to keep video on during the interactive periods of the workshop).
This workshop will specialize in practical advice for scriptwriters of all backgrounds - whether you write stage plays or screenplays. The format for this workshop is as follows:
Workshop leaders will discuss the art and business of scriptwriting with each other and then provide participants with two possible scriptwriting prompts to pursue.
Participants will have a set writing period to explore their prompts after which they return for discussion and a community Q&A with the workshop leaders and each other.
RTW workshops are always free but if you would like to support our work you can donate to us here to help with website costs.
Workshop Leaders
Carson Brand
Carson Brand is a screenwriter who worked his way up through the Hollywood production ranks on "Modern Family," making the climb from Intern to Writers Assistant in just a few years. He found his first writing credit on the sitcom "Outmatched," and desperately hopes that Fox cancelling the show soon after wasn't an omen over his career. Find him on Twitter, here.
Katrina Ray-Saulis
Katrina Ray-Saulis is a writer and creator living in Maine. She has a BFA in Creative Writing from the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and an MFA from Stonecoast USM. Katrina lives with her wife and their pets in a 200 year old house that was once used as the local undertaker. She thrives off of coffee and literature and uses sitcoms to quiet her overactive mind. Visit her website, here.
Plotting the Plot workshop
February 20th, 2021
What is plot and how do we get there? Plotting a plot is no easy business... or is it? In this workshop, we discuss techniques for creatively tackling this part of the writing process, staying on track, and building the dramatic tension that keeps a reader hooked to the page. The format for this workshop is as follows:
Workshop leaders will discuss the plot techniques and theory with each other and then provide participants with two possible plot prompts to pursue.
Participants will have a set writing period to explore their prompts after which they return for discussion and a community Q&A with the workshop leaders and each other.
RTW workshops are always free but if you would like to support our work you can donate to us here to help with website costs.
Workshop Leaders
Brendon Phipps
Brendon Phipps is a screenwriter and novelist based in Seattle, WA. An avid world traveler and jack-of-all-trades, his interests abound into the wacky, the ancient, the linguistic and even the astra-theoretical. A lover of SciFi and fantasy, creating and exploring fascinating worlds has become a favorite pastime of his. He created the dual-edition anthology series The Apocrypha Files, a science fiction miniseries Restoration, a string of Dungeons and Dragons RPG campaign books collectively called The Oracle Planes, and is currently working on a space opera series called Stardancer. You're more than welcome to track him down on several social media and blog sites, but he's rarely active on any of them as much as he should be.
Dyani Sabin
Dyani Sabin is a freelance science journalist and current MFA student in popular fiction at the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine. Originally from Ohio, she studied biology at Oberlin College, and has a master’s in science journalism from NYU. She has published non-fiction in Inverse, Scientific American, The Washington Post, National Geographic, and Popular Science, among others. Her micro-fiction appears in Story Seed Vault , and she has a space opera novel in the works. She’s gotten equally lost in both cornfields and libraries. You can find her on twitter @DyaniSabin