WILLIAMSBURG — Chesapeake Bay Writers group member Sarah Collins Honenberger will offer a workshop using newspaper scraps to spark creativity on Saturday, April 29.
“I’ll share newspaper scraps and give a few brief sparks of tinder-ready advice, then you can start your own conflagration of characters and challenges. We’ll write and read and write some more,” Honenberger explained.
The workshop begins at 3 p.m. at the Settlement at Powhatan Creek Community Center.
“I am aware that current events/issues are subjects that publishers and readers are interested in. So yes, newspaper headlines do inform my writing,” Honenberger added.
Honenberger brings a lifetime of writing experience to the challenge. As the daughter of a librarian, she loved books from childhood.
“I was always a writer from an early age,” she said.
She began writing for a neighborhood newspaper at age 10, became a college and law school newspaper editor, and won her first contest in 1995 with a short story about the 500-year flood.
The Smith College history major practiced law for 30 years.
“My first book, White Lies, was about one of my clients in the small town of Orange where we raised our three kids,” Honenberger said.
After a battle with cancer in 2009, she shut down her law practice and started writing full-time. “I write ‘What If’ stories. They are character driven; voices speak to me, and I let them go where they will.”
“A small Virginia press familiar with my short fiction awards published my first two novels. When I was one of 100 semi-finalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, a big publisher called to buy a third novel, “Catcher, Caught.” They flew me to book conferences, introduced me to big city public librarians, promoted the heck out of the book, and sold the audio, German, and Korean editions,” Honenberger added.
The next CBW event will be “How to Create an Effective Critique Group,” presented by Sally Stiles on May 7 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. The joint presentation with the Williamsburg Regional Library will take place at the Stryker Center.
For more information about the Chesapeake Bay Writers and what is upcoming visit the official website.
