A workshop for those who love words

Deirdre Newman

Writing is the kind of craft in which anyone can participate.

Doing it well, however, requires finding one’s voice, carving out a

niche and, if publishing is in your future, procuring a literary

agent.

Writing, from inspiration to publication, including fiction and

nonfiction, will be discussed at a writing conference today at UC

Irvine.

The conference, sponsored by UC Irvine Extension and the American

Society of Journalists and Authors, features an eclectic array of

writers, including Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective sergeant

and best-selling author, and Andrew Winer, a UCI master’s program in

writing graduate who published his first novel this year.

The conference is geared to appeal to a variety of writers -- from

those at the beginning of their careers to those ready to publish.

“There really is something for everyone,” said Barbara

DeMarco-Barrett, conference chair and writing instructor at UC Irvine

Extension. “We really wanted it to be for writers of various genres

and stages.”

Winer helps kick off the conference as one of three panelists

discussing how to jump start your writing. For him, a career in

writing was more of an evolution than an epiphany.

A former painter, Winer spiraled into a depression and clawed his

way out by watching films.

“I couldn’t afford a therapist so I started renting films,” Winer

said. “I became addicted to narrative -- German, Italian, American.”

Drawing on the familiar, he originally tried to make his paintings

narrative, but realized the art form was not conducive to telling

stories. So he turned to writing screenplays instead. Eventually, the

artistic soul within him realized poetry or fiction was more of his

niche and he applied to UCI’s ultra-competitive graduate writing

program.

“It was a life-changing experience, really,” Winer said. “For

those two years, you can call yourself a writer and you were

surrounded by incredibly talented people -- not only professors, but

your peers. The quality of the work you were reading and the analysis

of your own work was very high.”

He started a novel when he first entered the program, and it was

published four years later.

Because Winer’s path to writing fiction was a challenging one, he

hopes sharing his story will inspire would-be novelists to persevere.

“I hope to connect with the people there by sharing that part of

it, how difficult it is and sharing a few stories of how it worked

out, how I overcame procrastination,” Winer said.

As conference chair, DeMarco-Barrett will interview Wambaugh. His

down-to-earth, self-effacing attitude should be encouraging to

writers facing bouts of insecurity, DeMarco Barrett said.

“He has that Irish sense of humor, an upbeat way of being, like

‘it’s no big deal,’” DeMarco Barrett said. “He does things

differently. He doesn’t do conventional plots and outlines. Writers

feel that if they’re not doing things according to how they think

they should be doing, then they’re not doing it right.”