You want to get into horror but you don’t know where to start. This is your sign. This is an intensive, boot campy, crash course 4 week program that will throw you head first into reading, writing, talking, screaming, digesting, sweating, and bleeding horror content. It’s going to be a blast!

We will meet on the following Thursdays: May 4, 11, 18, 25 from 7-9PM EST. Over those 4 weeks, participants will read a number of stories from various subgenres with the intent to identify tools and techniques used by the author. Implementing lessons and notes from class, students will workshop one story they’re passionate about over the duration of the course. At the end you’re going to have a story you’re proud of, but also you will have had a little tapas of what horror can be. Welcome to the fold!!

Week One: Building the Scary Premise and Your Scared Characters

After introductions we’ll talk about what brought us to this class and what stories (if any) are something we want to pursue. Through a series of generative exercises we’ll make your protagonist and the scary thing for them to encounter.

Reading: TBD

Writing: The first draft of your story!

Week Two: Setting, Secondary Characters, and the Talking about the Monster

We’ll workshop our pieces. Then we’ll go over the role of setting, the importance of characters for your protagonist to interact with, and how information can build suspense about the monster.

Readings after Class: “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood, “Bulldozer” by Laird Barron

Write: The second draft of your story!

Week Three: The Villain’s Perspective and Your Character’s Agency

We’ll workshop your pieces again. We’ll discuss the importance of the villain’s perspective and how nailing it down can make the conflict clearer. We’ll also go over agency and what it means for your character being agentic vs. passive.

Readings: “The Cabbit” by Maria Dong, “No Matter Which Way They Turned” by Brian Evenson, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates.

Write: The third draft of your story!

Week Four: One More Workshop

This is the last class! What a doozy! We’ll workshop everyone’s pieces and talk about what techniques and tools we enjoyed, utilized, didn’t quite mesh with.

Should You Have the Time…

Read: “The Jaunt” by Stephen King, “The Boogeyman” by Stephen King, “Rainy Season” by Stephen King, “Hairy Legs and All” by Stephen Graham Jones, “The Moths” by Elina Hawkinsons, “The Coward II” by M. Gira, with more to come.

*

Alex Gonzalez is a WGA screenwriter, author, and instructor. He teaches fiction writing at various platforms and teaches MFA level screenwriting at Long Island University. He is one of the creators of PoC satire site Flexx Magazine, horror-zine youarenotalone, and has been published in various magazines and anthologies, with his novel Land Shark debuting in 2020. He has been a consultant on novels, treatments, and screenplays. His feature script Negative Space is currently in development with Extra A Productions (The Giant, Little Woods) and his second novel is on submission through FinePrint Lit.

Join us as we celebrate the 2023 cohort of Start:ME Spartanburg. At 9am we will gather to annouce the top three winners of Start:ME. Afterwards, guests are able to shop with our new alumni members.

Global Transplant Solutions, Inc. was established in 2017 in Spartanburg, SC as a provider of preservation solutions used in the human organ procurement and transplant market. The company’s vision of “Fostering the Mission” of organ donation is ingrained throughout everything we do and starts with each employee being a registered organ donor.

As a start-up company, the owners, John Bruens and Tim Bruce, understood the importance of partnerships for a successful business and quickly aligned themselves with organizations such as SC Launch and Spartanburg Community College’s Spark Center. The support of these, and other organizations, has been a major contributing factor in propelling the company to success.

Make plans to attend May’s Caffeinated Conversations to hear about the impact that Global Transplant Solutions, Inc. has made in the organ procurement and transplant market worldwide.

Make plans to attend this Power Up Spartanburg Workshop on How to Start Your Business and How to Access Capital. Offered every month in partnership with the SC Small Business Development Center, join Jay Jenkins, Director of Small and Minority Business Development, to learn about the topics below.

Training Topics: Business Start-up/Preplanning; Accounting/Budgeting; Business Financing
Description:

Join Ten at the Top and the Urban League of the Upstate for an informal networking event to be held from 9-10:15 a.m. on Friday, May 12 at Pronk Studios

The Focus Topic for this session will be: Bringing the Entertainment Industry to the Upstate.

Topic Leaders for the session will include: Will Stewart, Pronk Studios; David Entrada, Cargo Agency; Kwadjo Campbell, African American Tourism Conference; Edgar Bravo, No Restrictions Entertainment; David Stapp, 9/8 Central & Pronk Studios; Kathy Dickson, Apprenticeship Carolina.

Upstate Connect is a free event, but registration is required as we will be limiting the number of participants to 30 people to allow for group conversation and social distancing. Wearing a mask is welcome at all times. 

If on the day of the event you are experiencing any COVID symptoms or if you have been in contact with someone with COVID, please plan to visit us for another Upstate Connect event throughout 2023. Symptoms include: cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, chills, muscle pain, fever, sore throat, or new loss of taste and/or smell.