Jean Robbins, Seneca, SC – Winner the 2008 South Carolina Fiction Project.
“Scott Gould assigned a story for the Writing Room’s Fiction workshop, ‘Good Lies.’ He was great, and he workshopped it with the class. He said my story, “Heavy Machinery,” reminded him of a particular style of writing and handed me an Alice Munro short story collection to read. He probably doesn’t know how much his instruction and encouragement influenced me, but I am very grateful for the Writing Room workshops. I always come away from Writing Room workshops and seminars inspired and a better writer.”
John Jeter - Owner of The Handlebar, Greenville, SC
“The Writing Room proved to be an invaluable experience thanks to Ashley Warlick, a richly read genius who also happens to be a brilliant and generous teacher, and a thought-provoking and lively roomful of people with more advanced degrees than a common thermometer.”
Note: John’s novel, The Plunder Room, was published by Thomas Dunne Publishers, a division of St. Martin’s Press, in 2009.
Elizabeth Drewry
Landrum, SC
“The Advanced Fiction Writing Workshop with Ashley Warlick was just what I needed. I’m new to South Carolina and wanted exposure to a community of writers. I felt fortunate to be able to enroll in Ashley’s class. I had read her latest novel and loved it. Ashley is an astute reader, offering incisive and helpful comments. She is encouraging, without sacrificing rigor. The class was a mix, with people working on memoirs, novels, children’s literature, and short stories; Ashley managed to find lessons for all of us in each session. I learned a great deal from her critiques of all the submissions, as well as from the exercise of critiquing each submission myself.”
David Hartman
Greenville, SC
“Writing is something I have always done. But Mindy’s workshop provided an objective audience of fellow writers in a structured setting, which is difficult to find. Our group allowed me to venture down new avenues for my own writing while providing focused feedback to let me know what was working and what needed work. Not to mention the opportunity to read and critique some excellent works of other members of the group. Participating in the Writing Room has been an extraordinary boost to my creativity and my enthusiasm for the process of writing. I’m currently polishing a short story begun as a workshop assignment and hope to begin my next novel in the next couple of months. Of course, a lot depends on where my next workshop takes me.”
Charmi Shroeder
Greenville, SC
“I am a systems analyst by day, aspiring novelist by night, and I am more focused and more directed in my writing since participating in the fiction workshop with Scott Gould. I didn’t fully appreciate the importance of reading while I write. That was an incredibly valuable lesson that Scott reinforced with reading assignments every week. The only problem with this workshop was that it came to an end! ‘Good Lies’…GREAT experience!”
Charmi was recently published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.
Ulrike Bonn
Germany
“Since I worked in Germany as an IT Specialist for the last 15 years, I hadn’t written anything for decades, except for business mails, Christmas cards and thank you notes. I wanted to find out if I could write something more creative. Mindy Friddle’s Writing Room workshop started my writing. I found myself in a room together with 12 people full of energy and positive attitude. We represented all levels of beginners and intermediates, had completely different backgrounds and experiences and we were all eager to learn the fundamentals of writing or get new ideas.
“Before the workshop started I was a bit nervous because I had only moved to South Carolina from Germany two month earlier. I was not sure if I could write anything in English without making a fool out of myself. Well, I found out that it is not only possible but great fun.I found cameraderie, constructive and good feedback, I learned a lot about the fundamentals of writing and the spirit of the people from the South.”
Jennifer Bacon
Greenville, SC
“I’ve been writing my entire life and majored in creative writing in college. As a writer for three nationally published magazines, I sometimes don’t have time for exercises that I previously learned to prompt me into launching a story. In the Writing Room prose and fiction workshop, I found myself in a class with writers of all levels and backgrounds. Not only did we perform writing exercises, I was able to finally get my personal memoir out of my head and onto the page, and my classmates were the first to read it. I loved their feedback and loved helping others by critiquing their stories. It was nice to feel creatively challenged again.”
Elaine Cantrell
Pickens, SC
“How was my writing changed by the workshop? My workshop gave me a new perspective on my writing. After the group members critiqued my manuscript I found some errors that I made over and over. Hopefully, I won’t the same mistakes again.”
David Acker
Greenville, SC
“I was a member of Scott Gould’s fiction workshop. The experience was very rewarding. I felt I learned a lot from Scott about writing contemporary short fiction including some key points regarding character development, story telling techniques, use of dialogue and more. The goal was to get a story out of our heads and onto paper and in this I feel like I succeeded. It turned out the story I developed was more of a novel in progress than a work of contemporary short fiction. I have since modified it into chapter one of a novel I am working on. The Writing Room experience was a real positive for me and not only provided some motivation to put my thoughts down on paper but also inspired me into action.”
Mari Ramler
Mauldin, SC
“Joining The Writing Room was the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long time. The atmosphere was welcoming and supportive. It was fascinating to read about other people’s lives and hear their ideas. It was butterflies in your stomach when they held your manuscript, and then relief when they nodded or laughed at the joke. It freed me to write what I wanted, not what I thought I should. I discovered that others were kinder to my characters than I was. Right now, I’m working on a play. It actually started out as a long short story that I workshopped in the prose/memoir class led by Mindy Friddle. The characters became so interesting to me that I just couldn’t let them move on with their lives.”