• Craft of writing: skills workshops for all ages
• Songwriting
• Telling the story
• memoir and personal writing
• spiritual groups
• social service groups and non-profits
• Writing as a healing tool
• Getting your message into the media

Kate tailors workshops for the people and situation.

• 24 years as a professional writing coach.
• Performing songwriter and storyteller
• National awards for radio features, newspaper stories, songwriting, fiction.

Craft of writing: 

All sessions are writer-tested, hands-on, practical, and full of ready-to-use advice. They can last from an hour to several days. People leave with useful handouts.

• 

  “Kate was amazing in her ability to draw people in (and out).”

  --Appalachian Writers Workshop participant evaluations.

  
  Writers’ Toolbox. Invaluable overview. Participants leave with writing tools they can use the rest of their life. Drawing on 24 years of experience, Kate gives writers ready-to-use ways to take their work to the next level. This workshop can be geared to any genre: journalism, memoir, playwriting, whatever.
• Same idea, many approaches. Participants start with an idea, then draft many approaches, starting in different points in time and space, employing close-ups and wide shots, starting with different points of view.  A workshop guaranteed to sharpen participants’ ability to find fresh approaches to an idea.
• Flash forward, flash back. Sharpen your ability to weave the past and present: another tool from the writers’ toolbox. Practice writer-tested tricks of time travel. Flash forward, flash back as you tell the story. Cover a century in two sentences or stretch two minutes into two pages.
• Think like a screenwriter. Your readers visualize as they read. Learn to sharpen what they see on their mental screen.
• Right brain writing.  Why write with half a brain? Learn new ways to defeat creative resistance and involve your right brain in your process. This is a creative writing class, but can be adapted for journalists. In that case, we will not be making things up!
•  Right brain writing / movement.  Kate teams up with movement instructor Judy LaPrade to show how you can use body movement to create more productive writing sessions. What quick exercises clear your mind if you only have 15 minutes to produce? Participants will experience the benefits firsthand.
• Creative non-fiction: Draw from a lifetime and/or the last five minutes. Gather material and weave it into a readable story.
• Any of the above, with Appalachian focus: Kate produced a 14-part series for West Virginia Public Broadcasting on West Virginia’s best-known writers. Participants leave with craft tools, plus a greater appreciation for Appalachian literature.

Workshops for specific ages

• 

  “Many of us feel that, in two days, you changed our writing forever.”

  --Thank you letter from the West Virginia Scholars’ Academy

  
  Teenagers.  Any adult workshop adapted for teenagers. Kate has been the creative writing teacher at the West Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts and the Governor’s Honors Academy. She taught workshops at the National Youth Science Camp and the West Virginia Scholars’ Academy.
• Children.  A former second-grade teacher, Kate loves to work with children. Most children’s workshops also include music and visual art.
• Elderhostels.  Kate has taught elderhostels on Storytelling, Appalachian Culture, and Singing the Decades. She facilitates more than she teaches, drawing out stories of a lifetime.

Cross-genre workshops: 

Kate loves to weave other artistic genres into a writing workshop: visual art and music, for instance.  As a fellow at the University of Texas Communications School, she taught creativity across genres. At the Governor’s School for the Arts, she showed students in visual arts, drama, dance, writing, and instrumental music the creative-process parallels in the various disciplines. “When you see the parallels, you understand your own medium better,” she says.

Telling the Story:

• Storytelling:  Kate has performed at the West Virginia Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro.  She sets up a safe, comfortable atmosphere that dispels inner barriers and hesitation. People have a great time while they hone their ability to flesh out a story and tell it in a compelling way.
• New ways to look at your life story.  This workshop is for those who want to look at their own life story in fresh ways. Most of us have one set way we tell our life story to others or to ourselves. Often, the story we tell ourselves is harsher or even less inaccurate than it could be. In reality, there are many ways to tell any story. Using tools of the writing craft, Kate helps participants look at their own story with fresh eyes. Participants leave with new insight into their own story.
  

  “Can I give this workshop higher than a 10?”

  --Evaluation from Augusta Heritage Center elderhostel workshop (scale of 10)

  
• Storytelling in sermons.  Ministers who are looking for fresh material can find deep (and often entertaining) inspiration in the stories from their own lives and communities. This workshop, for pastors who are looking for new ways to make their messages relevant, will start with the story, rather than the message and find messages hidden in stories you enjoy telling.
• Non-profits: Getting your message into the media. Often, people who work with non-profits gather reams of useful information, but fail to connect with the public because they don’t write it up clearly. Kate shows you how to distill complex material into clear, compelling writing.
• People who are going through any kind of trauma: domestic violence, cancer, Alzheimers.  Writing can help. We review the research and experience the benefits of telling our stories, rather than analyzing them.
• Appalachian / West Virginia literature.  Kate is also a public radio producer. In 2002, she produced a 14-part series for West Virginia Public Radio on West Virginia Public Radio. It won a national award for programs that lift the human spirit. 

Songwriting:

Kate draws examples from a variety of songwriters and styles, not just her own work. She chooses songs that fit the interests of your group. Every student gets individual attention.

• Craft tools: take your lyrics to another level.  Songwriters leave this class with craft tools they can use the rest of their lives. Kate knows how to pinpoint steps that will take students to the next level. Her success shows in her student evaluations.
• New songs that sound old: Sharpen your ability to take any tradition and create credible songs in that tradition. Rooted in Appalachian traditional music, she has used her own tools to create new/old blues, jazz and swing songs.
• Same idea, many approaches.  Participants begin with one song, then draft (and maybe finish) several versions of the same idea, using different points of view, different points in time, different tempos and musical styles, close-ups/wide shots, etc. An illuminating class.
• 

  Kind, supportive and constructive treatment of everyone, gave dignity to everyone’s work. We all longed (no pun!) for more.

  --AugustaHeritageCenter participant evaluations

  
  What you take out is as important as what you put in.  The title is self-explanatory. Many songwriters put a syllable (or more) on every beat. What happens if you scrub your lyrics and give the music room to breathe? What if you change the tempo or music to give listeners? Sometimes less is more.  
• Writing rounds. We have fun singing rounds, dissecting them, then writing our own.

A capella singing

Kate will teach you valuable vocal licks you can use, with or without instruments. Improve your ability to add vocal percussion to a song and use your throat muscles to vary vocal tone. “When you sing a capella, you learn to listen more closely to what your voice is doing,” Kate says. “You become more conscious of your voice as a genuine instrument.”

You’ll practice characteristic hallmarks of Appalachian a capella singing, then apply that style to jazz standards and other styles. You’ll leave with lyrics to a variety of new and old Appalachian songs, and you’ll know how to sing them with increased skill and feeling. 

A class designed for you.  

Kate sets up a workshop to suit your needs.

A conference or program organized for you.

In spring 2007, Kate organized a writing workshop for the West Virginia Division of Culture and History. With strong organizational skills and contacts, she can do the same for your organization.