Please visit Manchester Community College  website to register:  www.mcc.commnet.edu or call Credit-Free Phone-In Registration (860) 512-3232

Three classes beginning February 23

Course Description from catalog

NEW!        Creative Writing: Discovering Fiction
This fiction workshop will invite lively discussion toward the practice and discovery of both the stories and the language necessary to write effective and illuminating fiction. By examining the work of a variety of successful writers and through open discussion of students’ work, the course will address the methods of structuring plot, developing character, descriptive writing, and assembling stories, both long and short. Exercises and prompts will be used to initiate creative writing in class. Each writer’s voice is distinct and unique, and the course should help the beginner or more experience writer of fiction discover or refine their own. Please note: the instructor will read and comment on up to ten pages of student work per week, for those interested. Please register early; enrollment is limited.
CRN #11963 6 Mondays, 2/23-4/6 (does not meet 3/16), 7-9 p.m.
MCC Bldg. LRC A108 Fee: $99
Instructor: Jeff Hutton received his B.A. in English and Creative Writing from the State University of New York and pursued graduate study in literary criticism at the University of Denver. He also studied horticulture and landscape design at City College of San Francisco. His historical novel, Perfect Silence, was published by Breakaway Books and was a Book Sense 76 Selection in 2000.

Maybe it’s because our lives are so much more quiet that this third golden retriever of ours, seems so much louder. She barks. I rarely remember our second dog barking except in the most extreme circumstances… the unexpected presence of cats, for instance. That could’ve been because we had teenagers around most of the time…with friends…those loudly joyful or strangely belligerent young people who pass through this phase of life as if they are riding a skateboard through a china shop… (more…)

There is hope. It’s barely noticeable but the daylight of each  twenty-four hour period gets about two minutes longer. There is, more often than not, the amber haze of a lingering sunset as we sit down for supper where only weeks ago the windows were opaque with darkness. This has been an old fashioned New England winter with plenty of snow and some frigid temperatures. As I write this morning, it’s registering below zero. Outside the window, all the plants are coated in white and the Blue Atlas Cedar has never looked more beautiful, with its narrow, outreaching, descending branches and the upright silver needles embracing snow and ice pronouncing its extraordinary character. (more…)

among the many silences
like prayer – like pause,
or the collected moments
between the movements of symphonies

there are none like this –

these seconds before sunrise,
the light of someone else’s morning
still and swelling,
gathered just beyond the dark.