Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "writing"

Intro to Photojournalism Workshop Feb. 21

2012-02-07T01:08:27Z

Photographs are an important part of storytelling and can often tell a story on their own. After a brief workshop hiatus, our first Sacramento Press workshop for 2012 will be on photojournalism. (The Journalism Open workshop wasn't a typical workshop for us.)

John Hernandez will teach an introductory photojournalism workshop from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21 at the Sacramento Press office called "Introduction to Photojournalism."

Hernandez is a Sacramento-based photographer. He has professional experience in wedding, portrait and social documentary photography as well as various multimedia platforms, including audio slideshows. He has freelanced for ABS-CBN, a Filipino American news channel, and interned at The Sacramento Press. He has a journalism degree and Asian American studies minor from San Francisco State University.

He will discuss photojournalism – what it is and what it isn’t. Hernandez will also talk about equipment, tips for shooting and demonstrate how to make an audio slideshow.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Sacramento Valley Station station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges, and we cannot cover the cost of parking.

To RSVP, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you here!

The Sacramento Press is hiring: Reporter interns

2012-02-06T20:24:20Z

We are currently seeking highly motivated reporter interns to cover local stories in our community.

Your Role:
As an intern at the Sacramento Press, you will be a huge part of our day-to-day success. Function as a writer and cover local beats. Explore a variety of story types – profiles, sports and event coverage, reviews, press conferences and more. Meet story deadlines and generate story ideas. Be a resource for our other writers, encourage and recruit. Form and cultivate relationships with local businesses, clubs, and resource providers (PIOs, librarians, ombudsmen, historians). You will be armed with the resources (digital cameras, voice recorders, professional photographers) to do on-the-scene reporting and really fine-tune your journalism skills. Most of all, this is an opportunity to be creative and find new stories to tell and identify the people who can best follow those stories.

In addition to writing and editing, build skills to:

Create videos that tell stories
Learn how journalists use Twitter
Better understand your audience
Dialogue directly with your audience

These are the skills you will need to be successful in a changing media climate.

Hours
This position is 15-20 hours per week for 15 weeks. If you are a CSUS student you can earn 3 units of credit, per the guidelines for approved CSUS internships. UC students can also earn units for completing the internship. This is an unpaid position.

Location:

Downtown Sacramento

How to Apply:
To apply for this position, send your resume, cover letter and up to three relevant writing samples to colleen@sacramentopress.com.

The Sacramento Press is hiring: Editor-in-Chief

2012-02-06T20:18:34Z

The Sacramento Press is seeking a dynamic editor-in-chief to oversee the day-to-day operations of the newsroom. This position will play a key role in expanding the presence and reach of The Sacramento Press into the surrounding media market.

We’re looking for someone who is ambitious, confident in their ability to learn quickly, and focused on creating compelling content for the local communities. Excellent writing and reporting skills and good editorial judgment are essential.

The ideal candidate will bring lots of ideas for new ways to present stories online, through text, photos, or videos.

Experience in using a content management system is a plus, as is experience in podcasts, editing video, conducting and moderating panels. Experience working with technology teams is also preferred. Ability to edit HTML and other light coding would be outstanding.

Ideal candidates will have:

Passion for journalism and an understanding of how it can transform a community

At least three years previous newspaper and/or other publication experience

A bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university

At least two years editing experience

Experience with online publications

A deep understanding of the demands of 24/7 websites

Experience leading a team

Ability to edit copy quickly and always improve stories

Understanding of how to promote stories via social media

Ability to speak confidently when appearing on TV and radio

Enthusiasm to create and sustain relationships with stakeholders and neighborhood leaders

Excellent news and editorial judgment

Strong diplomatic skills and ability to interact with journalists at all levels of the newsroom

Excellent organizational skills and ability to work under pressure

Proven ability to break news and generate outstanding story ideas

Excellent communication and presentation skills

Enthusiasm for working with a technology team to envision the future of news

Light coding skills and competence at HTML manipulation

Your job responsibilities will include (but are not limited to):

Make Sacramento a better place to live
Maintain engaging and relevant splash pages that are refreshed daily
Seek out ways to incorporate graphics such as surveys, charts, video, etc. in content
Write editorials
Will help maintain site and produce weekly electronic newsletters
Track daily and weekly deadlines
Compile monthly analytics and reports
Adapt to changing organizational forms and help other department heads meet goals
Supervise, train and develop a staff of two reporters, an intern coordinator and up to six unpaid interns
Plan scope and content of all editorial content and assign stories
Ensure content is factually accurate, and does not violate copyright laws or contain libel
Identify and pursue ways the Sacramento Press can increase editorial outreach into local communities
Responsible for quality of online content and layouts
Curates journalism workshops

The Sacramento Press offers a competitive compensation and benefits package including medical, dental and vision plans.

This is a fast-paced role in a high potential growing company. This is a unique opportunity to be a critical piece of our growth. This position is located in Sacramento, CA.

Compensation:
This is a full-time contract-to-hire position.
Upon hire, it is a full-time salaried position.

Ready to apply? Submit your resume, portfolio or clips and any other helpful information to colleen[at]sacramentopress.com.

CROCKER ART MUSEUM & ACCESS SACRAMENTO present - "A Place Called Sacramento" - Thursday 6:30 PM

2012-01-31T06:28:49Z

Access Sacramento is excited to kick off PCS 2012, our thirteenth year, on this Thursday February 2nd at the wonderful Crocker Art Museum. If you would like an opportunity to see all 10 films on the big screen in the museum's theatre, now's your chance. It's a one night only event and rare chance to see all the films from 2011 together again. We hope to see you there!

The Crocker Art is pleased to present an encore screening of the 2011 "Place Called Sacramento" film festival. Friends of Access Sacramento, PCS filmmakers and fans are invited to celebrate, again, the 10 short films first premiered last October at the Crest Theatre.

Crocker Art Museum

216 O Street

Thursday February 2, 2012

Show starts at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets: $4 for Crocker Members

Advance tickets: Non-member $8.00 (online at crockerartmuseum.org or Admission Desk)

At the door: Non-members $10.00

"A Place Called Sacramento" (PCS), is the original, local scriptwriting and short film production project for local writers and producers. PCS challenges local scriptwriters, new and experienced, to write 10-minute scripts about the people, places, and events that make our community such a unique place to live (entry forms and submission guidelines are available online at www.AccessSacramento.org. The deadline for script submission is 5pm Tuesday April 10, 2012 in the Access Sacramento office. The Crocker screening serves as the official launch of the 13th annual "PCS" production process.

Want to know more about making a movie this summer? Do you have a good story but need to write a script? All scripts entered are reviewed by local professionals and 10 are selected. These 10 scriptwriter/producers are then introduced to volunteers, actors and technicians at The PCS "Cast and Crew Call" Wednesday, May 23, 2012. Production teams are formed and shooting - editing commences during the summer months. Finally, after weeks of hard work and great fun, friends gather at the World Premiere to a packed house at the CREST Theatre 1:00 PM on Sunday, October 7, 2012. All films are family friendly. The PCS production process is unique to Sacramento.

To view the films completed for the 2011 & previous PCS film festivals, go to the web site www.AccessSacramento.org. In the twelve years of PCS, over 119 short films have been created.

Access Sacramento is a nonprofit, community media organization building better communications between individuals and groups in Sacramento County for 25 years. With our TV studio, radio and television production equipment, media lab, and mobile production truck, we train and manage volunteers, programming cable radio and television channels 17 & 18.

CONTACT: Ron Cooper, Executive Director, Access Sacramento

4623 T Street, Suite A - Sacramento, CA. 95819

(916) 456-8600 ext. 112

Disclosure: Ron Cooper is Executive Director of Access Sacramento

Journalism Open Workshop Jan. 17

2012-01-11T01:13:59Z

Need a push getting started on your article for The Sacramento Press Journalism Open 2012? We've got a workshop for that.

Bring your story ideas and questions about the writing contest to our Journalism Open workshop Tuesday, Jan. 17.

We will go over how to enter photos: standalone or accompanying, judging criteria, past winners and how to develop your stories by including sources and doing research.

The workshop will be from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. at The Sacramento Press office.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Sacramento Valley Station station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges, and we cannot cover the cost of parking.

To RSVP, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you here!

New 'To Catch an Error' contest starts today!

2012-01-02T00:04:11Z

The Sacramento Press’ “To Catch an Error" contest has ended for the month of December. We are excited to announce our winner, Steven Chea!

Chea received a total of 46 points for catching minor spelling and grammar errors in stories by community contributors and editorial interns.

Thanks to everyone who entered!

If you missed last month’s contest, it’s time to start hunting again. Beginning today, we will wipe the slate clean and start our January contest. January’s winner will receive two tickets to see Paula Deen in the meet and greet section. One runner-up will receive a $15 gift card to Monsoon.

The deadline for entries will be midnight on Jan. 31.

See below for complete rules. If you have any feedback or questions about the contest, please email support@sacramentopress.com.

What is the contest all about?

"To Catch an Error” is a monthly contest that we hope will improve the quality of content on our site. We know mistakes are inevitable, but we want to do our best to eliminate as many as possible.

That’s why we're asking for your help to catch errors in articles on The Sacramento Press! Each month, we want you to submit any spelling, grammar or factual errors you catch to contest@sacramentopress.com.

Errors will be accepted until midnight on the last day of each month (unless stated otherwise). Throughout the month, errors will be evaluated and corrections made to articles at our discretion.

At the beginning of each month, we will announce the winner from the previous round along with the errors he or she caught, wipe the slate clean and start all over!

Errors will be assigned different values, using the following point system:

* Minor grammar and spelling error = 1 point
* Misspelling name of person = 3 points
* Factual error = 5 points
* Error in editorial intern story = 3 bonus points
* Error in staff reporter story = 5 bonus points

Note: The Sacramento Press follows Associated Press style for most spelling and word usage.

Each month, the person with the most points will receive a prize, a merit badge on his or her profile and a little bit of social media love. Prizes will vary from month to month.

Official contest rules

Eligibility: To be eligible, contestants must be registered as a user on The Sacramento Press.

Note: The same person cannot win two months in a row.

Deadline: All errors must be submitted by midnight on the last day of each month, unless otherwise stated.

How to enter: You can enter as many times as you like each month, and multiple entries can be submitted at the same time. Entries must be submitted by e-mail and will not be accepted through social media or as comments on articles.

To submit an error, send an email to contest@sacramentopress.com with the following:

* Your first and last name, along with your Sacramento Press user name
* A link to the story where you found the error
* Copy and paste the entire sentence or paragraph as it appears in the article, along with the error

If clarification is needed, a Sacramento Press staff member will follow up with you. When an error is submitted to us, a reply will be sent, verifying the number of points earned within 24 hours.

Submit errors as soon as you catch them! If an error has already been caught and a correction issued, points will not be given for the error.

Corrections: Errors will be verified by the Editorial and Community Outreach departments, and normal editorial correction policies will be applied. We will edit minor spelling or grammatical errors. More serious errors, such as factual inaccuracies, will be investigated on a case-by-case basis. Please note, we are under no obligation to issue a correction for every error submitted.

Note: The Sacramento Press has the final say in all errors being submitted.

Prizes: Prizes will change every month, and we reserve the right to change a prize at any time without notifying contestants.

Good luck!

The Sacramento Press Journalism Open 2012 begins Jan. 1

2011-12-05T07:22:58Z

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to publish your first article, consider the rewards of doing it on The Sacramento Press.

Last year we gave out thousands in cash prizes to winners of The Sacramento Press Journalism Open, and we’re ready to do it again.

This is the third year that we’ve hosted The Sacramento Press Journalism Open. The contest is pro-am, meaning writers of all skill levels are welcome to enter.

If you aren’t familiar with The Sacramento Press, we’re a hyperlocal online newspaper that focuses on community news. We aim to be the best source for local news and we would like you to help us achieve that by sharing your stories. No reporter knows more than you when it comes to issues affecting your neighborhood, your stance on why your daughter’s school should stay open, or an event you witnessed firsthand.

More than 1,700 people have written articles on The Sacramento Press since the site launched in October 2008. We look forward to seeing many new bylines – including yours – as the contest heats up.

We awarded prizes to 12 individuals last year, and this year we have $2,000 in prizes to give away.

The winning article for the Journalism Open 2011 was about the state of Sacramento’s bridges and was written by Isaac Gonzalez.

To see the list of last year’s winners, click here.

Before you publish your story, we highly recommend submitting your story for copy editing. We offer free copy editing to catch spelling errors and/or grammatical mistakes in your articles. To submit your story for copy editing, email the story to journalism@sacramentopress.com. Your edited story will be returned to you within 24-48 hours.*

*Depending on the volume of submissions being sent in for copy editing, it might take longer than the normal 24-hour turnaround time.

If you have questions about the copy editing process, email support@sacramentopress.com.

Publishing an article on The Sacramento Press is easier than you might think. To start writing, simply go to the top of this page and click the "Sign Up" button and follow the prompts. You will be asked for information and to accept our terms of use agreement. After you are signed up, click the "Write" button at the top of the page, create a Storyline and start writing.

We suggest that you write your story in a separate writing application (i.e. Word) and then, when you've finished and had it copy edited, cut and paste it into our site.

Important: Every story you enter/post on the site must be tagged "Open2012" in the tag section. Just write those words in the space provided under tags. You should also add tags to you story, especially choosing one of our “section” tags – Culture, Business, Politics and Sports – depending on which ones fits the story best.

Hit "Publish," and you have posted your first story on The Sacramento Press. You've also been entered in The Sacramento Press Journalism Open!

To enter a photo that is accompanying someone else's story, tag the story with the following: open2012yourname (example: open2012JoshRamsey).

Remember, no story is too small. Are you concerned about the safety of your neighborhood park? Do you have insight into the upcoming City Council election? Have a favorite landmark that you’d like to share? Write about it on The Sacramento Press and you could be walking away with the $600 grand prize.

So, what are you waiting for? Commit acts of journalism and be a part of the growing community of citizen journalists.

CATEGORIES & CRITERIA FOR JUDGING

Entries will be judged by our editorial staff, and that judgment will be subjective. But we will be using criteria for what we think good journalism is. Among those criteria are:

Accuracy: Facts, spelling and quotes should be correct. Double-check everything and use your computer’s spell check.
Writing style: Writing should be clear, concise and enjoyable.
Local focus: Stories should be set in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer or El Dorado counties.
Sourcing: Include a minimum of two living, breathing sources in your story. Quotes from people who know what you’re writing about will always enliven and improve your story. Aim to include different perspectives. Wikipedia, About.com, press releases and book or newspaper excerpts are not acceptable sources.
Impact: Your story will also be judged on how readers react in the conversation on The Sacramento Press, as well as how it is received in the real world.
Mostly though, we’ll judge entries based on how interesting they are, if they’re news or a new approach to an old story, how well-researched they are, the quality of the writing and the quotes.

Stories can be any length, but they must be original nonfiction about the Sacramento area.

Stories may not be re-posts from blogs or other publications, print or online.

Finally, we will give extra weight to high-quality photographs, either accompanying stories or standing on their own with explanatory captions.

RULES

To be eligible, stories must be posted on the site, by you (using your real name), between 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2012 and 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2012. We will be able to help you post either over the phone or in our office.*

*Appointments must be made for in-office help. Contact support@sacramentopress.com to arrange an appointment.

You must live or work in one of our four home counties listed above, and be at least 18 years of age. High school students under the age of 18 can enter if they have a parental consent form.*

*Parental consent forms must be signed in person by a parent or legal guardian of the minor entering an article. To arrange for this, please email support@sacramentopress.com.

You may enter as many different stories as you like, but please enter/post each story only once! Make sure to tag it "Open2012" in the tag section or it will not be counted as a submission. There is no charge to enter.

Be sure to reread and double check what you've written; once it is published on the site, it cannot be modified.

PRIZES

First Prize $600
Second Prize $400
Third Prize $200
Three $100 prizes for honorable mentions
$500 in prizes awarded to best photos

Entries will be judged by The Sacramento Press editorial and community outreach departments. All decisions will be final. Limit one prize per entrant. Winners will be announced on the site, Feb. 13, 2012.

Addendum: You must be 14 years of age or older to publish an article on The Sacramento Press and to enter the Journalism Open.

See what stories we're working on at The Sacramento Press

2011-10-27T20:03:11Z

After seeing that The Guardian newspaper had made its list of stories public to its readership for a two-week trial and invited them to participate by contacting its reporters, we thought it would be a good idea to do the same at The Sacramento Press.

Often, our editorial team learns about important facts and sources after our stories have been published. We value the knowledge and contributions that our readers and commenters add to the conversation thread, and we’d love to incorporate that into our stories as we are reporting.

We would also like to encourage more people to get involved as community contributors. Casey Kirk, director of community outreach, works closely with a group of community writers to coordinate press passes and interviews for concerts, arts events and other shows happening in the Sacramento region.

A live list of stories has been published on The Sacramento Press site. By going to the footer, where it says “Assignment List,” you can view stories our reporters and editorial interns are working on, as well as upcoming assignments that will be covered by our community contributors.

On that same page, there is also a list of assignments that have not been claimed yet. We reserve the privilege of arranging press passes for only our top community contributors. To learn about how to become a top community contributor, please contact support@sacramentopress.com.

Above or beside each story assignment, there will be a name of the reporter/contributor who will be doing that story. If you click on the name of the writer, you can email him or her tips, suggestions for sources or other information you feel is pertinent to that story.

For unclaimed stories that you are interested in covering, please email support@sacramentopress.com.

The lists will appear like this:

With your help, we can further develop stories and report on a broader range of hyperlocal news that is important to our readers.

To access the list of stories, please click here or visit this URL: www.sacramentopress.com/site/assignmentlist

Not all of our stories will be published to the web, as we want to keep some of our breaking stories private until they are posted online. Additionally, some of the assignments on the community contributor list will not be made public, so that our top community contributors are given precedence to the bigger-name events.

Please note that there is a lot of switching around on the reporters’ stories. Sometimes sources don’t get back to us in a timely manner or the story doesn’t turn out how we thought it would, so we assign a different story in its place and either push back the date or abandon the story altogether. We will keep the assignment list as up to date as possible.

We look forward to your input and suggestions in our reporters’ and interns’ stories. It is our hope that more of you will be encouraged to sign up to cover assignments when you see the list published online.

Franzen speaks at Mondavi Center

2011-10-10T04:24:57Z

Jonathan Franzen, National Book Award-winning author, acquaintance of Pres. Barack Obama and face of the August 2010 cover of Time magazine next to the caption “Great American Author,” proved to the audience at the UC Davis Mondavi Center Saturday night that he is human.

Franzen stepped up to the podium and pulled several sheets of paper out of his briefcase. After rearranging some of these sheets, pausing to find a water bottle, and finally beginning to read from the sheets word for word, it became clear that the critically and commercially successful author was nervous to speak in front of a live audience.

“This would be a lot easier if I was doing a reading,” Franzen said.

The talk was themed as a writers workshop. Franzen said he was to answer, “The four perennial questions for writers: Who are your influences, what time of day do you work and what do you write on, when do the characters take over, and is your fiction autobiographical?”

“These questions are the price we have to pay for appearing in public,” he said.

Franzen rolled through the questions quickly, giving slightly more care to some than others, and even responding with one sentence to the question regarding his writing environment.

“When I’m writing, I don’t want anyone in my room, including myself,” he said.

But as this portion of the talk came to end only 10 or 15 minutes into the event, Franzen dropped the sarcastic tone he had used to answer the questions, and told the audience he was going to use the remainder of the evening to speak about shame.

“I’m going to be talking about shame, because by my mid-30s I was ashamed of almost everything I’d done in the past 15 years of my life,” he said.

Franzen began with his marriage in his early 20s that led to a divorce in his 30s. He spoke about the couple’s poverty, depression and eventual separation. These events, painful as they were for Franzen, clearly shaped the success of his later novels.

“After you’ve written your best book, you have to become a different person to write the next best,” he said. “Writing is a way of being and becoming.”

He finished the talk by describing his multi-year struggle to write “The Corrections.” After initially envisioning it centering around a character that emotionally resembled himself, he scrapped the main character and focused the novel on the family members who had initially been secondary characters. The novel ended up winning the National Book Award for Fiction.

After Franzen finished his talk, UC Davis history professor Eric Rauchway moderated a question-and answer with the author.

When asked a question regarding why his novels don’t feature African-American characters, Franzen struggled with words for several minutes before responding that his novels, focusing on predominantly white upper-middle-class suburbs, presented a reality that he does not promote but feels bound to portray with the utmost honestly.

“The subjects of my novels cannot strive to be as moral as I can try to be,” Franzen said.

Franzen is currently working on a collection of short stories to be published in 2012 titled “Farther Away.”

Real Relationships: Stay true to thine self

2011-10-03T14:36:27Z

Q: I have recently taken up writing as a new hobby. I am not really sure if you would call it a hobby — it is more of a passion that I have always had but have never really explored, but now I am really getting into it. Problem is, my boyfriend is not really supportive. I guess it is because I have been spending a lot of time with my head bent over notebooks or pecking away on the computer and not as much time with him.

I don't want to hurt his feelings or make him think he isn't important to me, but I really feel I need to nourish this growing need until I am more comfortable with it, and then I can settle into a routine. Is that unfair to him?

A: Well, it is going to be hard for me, as a writer, to give an unbiased answer to this one, but I will try.

Any hobby/passion/extracurricular activity is part of the person that is you. Although, as you say, this is something that you have only been recently pursuing, it sounds like it has been in your heart for quite some time. Every person, whether a part of a relationship or single, deserves to have something that is uniquely theirs. That doesn't mean you cannot express it to your partner, but don't lose yourself.

If writing is the way you express your heart, your passion, your happiness, your sadness, or aggression, then you need that outlet. If your boyfriend is not supportive of that, then it sounds like he is being a bit selfish. I encourage you to sit down with him and explain to him what writing means to you, how important it is to you. If he still feels like it is taking away from "couple’s time," then maybe set one or two times a week that you dedicate solely to him that you won't lose to writing.

That said, a relationship is about supporting your partner's passions and desires — accepting the person for who they are and encouraging them to pursue the desires of their heart. Sometimes it even means personal sacrifice to see the people you love achieve their goals. If you think you would do that for him, but he isn't willing to do that for you, then maybe this is not the right relationship for you. Give him a chance to adjust to this situation, and then reevaluate how he is handling it. If you find yourself loving writing more than you love him, well, there is your answer.

Good luck in your relationship and in your writing.

Have a relationship question? Email sacpress@live.com. Questions will be answered every Monday in “Real Relationships.”

Ten Local Films - Sunday 1:00 PM Crest Theater - 12th "A Place Called Sacramento Film Festival

2011-09-27T08:52:05Z

For the twelfth year, Access Sacramento is planning the world premiere of “A Place Called Sacramento” (PCS), a scriptwriting and short film production project for local writers and producers. PCS challenges local scriptwriters to write ten-minute scripts about the people, places, and events that make our community such a unique place to live (submission guidelines on-line at www.AccessSacramento.org).

Neighbors and friends will gather at the 2011 World Premiere at the CREST Theatre on Sunday October 2, 2011 at 1:00 PM. $10 (general seating) is a fundraiser for community media. Advanced ticket purchase is recommended at Tickets.com, the Crest Box Office, or the offices of Access Sacramento during business hours.

Special highlights for the 2011 “Place Called Sacramento” Film Festival --

10 more films completed this year means in the 12 years of the event, 119 (out of 120) approved scripts have been completed and shown on the Crest big screen.
2011 featured our oldest filmmaker (78) - Burt Wilson "CSI Sacramento" and our youngest (9) Claire Elizabeth "The Chozen"
6 of the 10 films were written and produced by women and region-wide with films from West Sacramento, Cameron Park, Grass Valley, Fair Oaks, Carmichael, Davis, Citrus Heights, and Sacramento.
All films are volunteer created with only out of pocket expenses for incidentals and food.
"A Place Called Sacramento" is unique – local films created by volunteers and professionals.
Opening the PCS event at 12:45 will be a performance by "Cheap Therapy" - a local improv comedy team organized by SAG actor and local acting teacher Charlie Holiday.
Immediately following the showcase of the ten films, "Sister Swing" will perform in the Crest Lobby. They sing a modern up-tempo version of "Andrews Sisters-style" harmonies.
We will be visited once again by infamous Hollywood shark, the big fish director - Quentin Sacramento – the mascot of the festival.

To view the films completed for previous PCS film festivals, go to the web site www.AccessSacramento.org. Access Sacramento is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using community media to build better communications between individuals and groups in Sacramento County on cable radio and television channels 17 & 18.

CONTACT: Ron Cooper, Executive Director
Access Sacramento
4623 T Street, Suite A
Sacramento, CA. 95819
(916) 456-8600 #112
www.AccessSacramento.org

Disclosure: Ron Cooper is Executive Director of Access Sacramento

Video Storytelling Tips and Shortcuts Workshop Sept. 22

2011-09-07T21:17:19Z

Thank you to everyone who attended Jeffrey Callison's workshop on "The Art and Craft of Interviewing" last month. If you missed the workshop, you can read the recap and watch the video here.

The Sacramento Press has another first-time workshop presenter for September: KXTV News10 Reporter George Warren.

Multimedia journalist Andrew Nixon taught a workshop in July titled "Intro to Video Storytelling;" we'll resume the topic of video storytelling with Warren's workshop: "Video Storytelling Tips and Shortcuts."

The workshop will be from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, at The Sacramento Press office.

Warren will discuss how to produce memorable stories with minimum time and effort. Warren will go over how to do more (interviewing, shooting and editing videos) with less - a staff of one.

Warren just celebrated his 30th anniversary as an Emmy-winning reporter/multimedia journalist with KXTV News10.

He started in the business by shooting his own stories in a small market (on 16mm film!) and in recent years has come full circle - working by himself once again.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you here!

New digital magazine features creative nonfiction

2011-08-16T00:56:40Z

“Telling stories without shame” is the goal of a new digital magazine published by Sacramento writer and editor Janna Marlies Santoro.

The premiere issue of Under the Gum Tree was released this month, and Santoro said she asked contributors to write creative nonfiction that showcases important moments in people’s lives, as told by them.

One writer, Sarah Heffron, wrote about her own unplanned pregnancy.

“It’s a snapshot of the days just before and the moments after finding out I was pregnant,” she said.

While the “creative nonfiction” genre leaves some question as to how much is true, Santoro said all of the stories are true, but sometimes dialogue is written from memory and timelines are compressed to make the stories more compelling and readable.

The first issue includes the work of 11 contributors in more than 80 pages, and the writers come from places including Sacramento, Oakland, Seattle and Ohio. Some are professional writers while others are people with a story to tell.

“These are stories people often try to hide because they are embarrassing or uncomfortable, and they’re hard parts of life,” Santoro said.

“But those stories are compelling. They make us who we are,” she added.

The reason for the magazine’s title is apparent after reading her own article in the issue, she said, adding that the title works as a metaphor that becomes evident after reading the story.

Another story is from Santoro’s fiancé, Jeremy Maron, who works with her to run the ThinkHouse Collective co-working space on 11th and Q streets.

Maron said he wrote about film, which is something that has always resonated with him.

“Even as a young kid, I looked at movies really differently,” he said, adding that he was raised by a single mother who took him to films from an early age.

In his article, he discusses the impacts the films “Being There” and “Top Gun” had on him, explaining that the individual scenes in “Top Gun” are well-done, but the movie doesn’t connect and flow well for him.

“Moviegoing is a communal experience,” he said. “(When I saw ‘Top Gun’), I really separated myself from the audience experience, and I found myself watching them watch it. It just didn’t work for me.”

Under the Gum Tree will be published quarterly, and it is free to view online, Santoro said. Those who want a hard copy can have it printed on demand through a link from the magazine’s website for about $24.

“The printing costs cover the costs of producing the magazine,” she said.

Santoro has two editors who help select articles for the magazine and work with the writers during the editing process. Design work is handled by an intern.

The contributors are not paid for their work, but that is something Santoro said she wants to change as the magazine goes forward.

“I’m going to be introducing a subscription service for 2012, which will be something like $40 for a year, including both printed and online copies,” she said, adding that the subscription rate works out to less than half the cost of the “newsstand” rate.

Santoro has worked in the publishing industry for both a small community newspaper in El Dorado Hills, The Village Life, and the Folsom-Based Style Media Group, but having her own magazine is more satisfying, she said.

“When I got the first issue, it really exceeded my expectations,” she said. “Just the look and feel of it is gorgeous. I was completely speechless.”

Heffron, who used to teach elementary school in the Natomas Unified School District but is now a full-time stay-at-home mom, said she had a similar reaction to seeing her article in print for the first time.

Santoro said she wants the readers to be able to be drawn into deeply personal stories through Under the Gum Tree, and she also wants to hear the stories of others.

While she does seek out writers she knows who have engaging personal stories, submissions are accepted through the website for a fee of a little more than $6.

Maron said he is also happy with the finished product.

“I think it’s compelling journalism to examine those parts of our lives,” he said. “Telling stories without shame is a great tagline. We, as writers, go back in time to find those moments that are the foundations of who we are.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

The Art and Craft of Interviewing with Jeffrey Callison Aug. 9

2011-07-25T18:27:39Z

The Sacramento Press is excited to announce that Jeffrey Callison will be teaching a workshop at our office in August.

Interviewing is part of the foundation of journalism. It’s how reporters get a lot of their information, including the personal angles and anecdotes that make stories come alive.

But how do you conduct a successful interview?

There are some simple rules, but you also must know when and how to break them.

Jeffrey Callison has interviewed many thousands of people over the years – both as host of Capital Public Radio’s daily program “Insight” and as a reporter. On Tuesday, Aug. 9, from 6:30 - 8 p.m., he’ll discuss “The Art and Craft of Interviewing” in a workshop at the Sacramento Press.

Callison was born in Scotland. He majored in English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and studied improvisational theater at L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

He moved to California in 1989 and started his radio journalism career at public radio station KUSP in Santa Cruz. He joined Capital Public Radio in 1996 as a classical announcer, but soon returned to radio news as a reporter and local "All Things Considered" host. He became KXJZ's news director in 2000, and he was named the first host of “Insight” in 2004.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

To RSVP, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you here!

Intro to Video Storytelling Workshop July 27

2011-07-18T22:13:19Z

We had a great turnout for our sports writing workshop earlier this month. Thanks to Sam Amick and those who attended. To read the workshop recap, click here.

Video is an important part of storytelling that can be difficult to incorporate without the right equipment and editing knowledge. Andrew Nixon will teach a video workshop from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 27 at the Sacramento Press office called "Introduction to Video Storytelling."

Nixon is a Sacramento-based multimedia journalist. He has professional experience in photojournalism, as well as various multimedia platforms, including motion graphics, web platforms, and video journalism. He has freelanced for Patch.com and interned at the Sacramento News & Review. He also worked as a staff photographer for Gold Country Media.

He will discuss the capture and editing of footage to create compelling video stories. The workshop will be geared more toward Mac compatible programs, but he can answer questions about other equipment and editing software.

In August, Capital Public Radio's Jeffrey Callison will teach a workshop called "The Art and Craft of Interviewing." A separate email invitation will be sent for that workshop later this month.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

This workshop is filling up fast and will probably have a waiting list. To RSVP, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you here!

A Busy Day in the Life of Access Sacramento

2011-07-17T05:05:41Z

Each day Access Sacramento's studio and office are filled with activity but this week has been particularly busy. Yes, T.D. Trice and Shane Carpenter continued to schedule television and radio programming 24/7. Yes, volunteers came and went with new programming and were busy with their focused production efforts. The phones continued to ring as Amy Lawrence signed up new members. Whew! Here's a snap-shot of a very busy day in the life of Access Sacramento - let the "name dropping" commence.

Studio production was busy with Richard Langley renovating the small room and working with community producer Bob Crimmins on using the "green studio" for a new program in partnership with Senior Magazine. He and Liz Harrison then welcomed public radio's "Insight " host, Jefferey Callison to read a chapter from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for the Sacramento Bee "One Book Project". Simultaneously in the large studio, volunteers from the local Republican party interviewed citizen tax advocate Ted Costa. Evening production in the big studio continued with two local musical artists, Parie Wood and also Zach MacLachlan, recording individual episodes of "Listen Up, Sacramento!" under the watchful eye of co-producers Michelle Barbaria and Erika Kjelstrom.

Production knowledge also kept us busy as training sessions and staff recordings were conducted in a variety of locations throughout the County. Monday night found T.D. helping record Roseville's park and recreation department public meeting in their City Council chambers. Carlos Hernandez and Liz Harrison worked Tuesday morning with Sacramento County Public Health personnel training on the use of Skype. Liz finished the afternoon training staff and youth at Asian Resources on the fundamentals of Neighborhood News video production. Steve Bourasa welcomed 7 students to the latest Digital Camera class to finish a long "training day".

Video editing sessions were productive as well. The Media Lab was busy with multiple volunteer projects. Bhim Kumar-Reyes recreated the opening for the Little Capital Miss Pageant recorded on-location last Saturday night and commenced editing on the two-day "Disability Summit" Conference recorded in partnership with the California State Department of Rehabilitation. Carlos H. finished the editing on five one-hour programs capturing the day-long entertainment provided at the recent Pacific Rim Festival.

Your truly was busy making recommendations on a national e-mail thread on how to improve the national "Hometown Video Awards" judging procedures while simultaneously completing the minutes for last week's successful Neighborhood News and Youth Media Task Force meeting. I finished the day in a meeting with other local film festival leaders, celebrating the publication of a new "rack card" promoting the year-round film festivals - including Access Sacramento's Twelfth Annual "A Place Called Sacramento" in October.

And the fun continues this morning as the "green studio" welcomed Carlos Alcala, Bee reporter, to the Tom Sawyer project. Richard and I are leaving shortly for a production site survey at Fairytale Town for an upcoming Hometown-TV shoot. Later today, we will have a new member orientation session with more than 30 participants immediately followed by a quarterly radio producers meeting to discuss future LPFM applications for community radio, "The Voice". Livewire will have special guests from the "Restitution Project" and celebrate another weekly episode in this long-running series (since 1992).

But as busy as we currently are, there is always room for you - join us and you too can "make a difference, one voice at a time."

Disclosure: Ron Cooper is Executive Director of Access Sacramento

Sam Amick to teach Sports Writing Workshop July 12

2011-06-29T08:48:50Z

Thanks to those of you who came to our Bias in Journalism workshop earlier this month. If you missed it, you can read the recap here.

For July, we are excited to announce a new workshop presenter – Sam Amick.

With the Sacramento River Cats season well under way, the Sacramento Capitals tennis team starting in July and the buzz building for the next Sacramento Kings basketball season – there will be plenty of sports stories to be covered on The Sacramento Press and on blogs, etc.

Amick will teach a workshop on sports writing at the Sacramento Press office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. July 12.

Amick is currently an NBA columnist for Sports Illustrated at SI.com.

He received his degree in journalism from Sacramento State in 2000. He began working in The Sacramento Bee's sports department on a part-time basis during his final two years of school, then returned after a short internship at The Record in Stockton during the summer of 2000.

He became a full-time member of the writing staff in 2002 and covered everything from high school sports, college sports, pro baseball and pro football before turning his attention to the NBA in 2004.

He was the beat writer for the Kings from 2005-2010 before taking a national job covering the league at AOL FanHouse and eventually landing at SI.com.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here – one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP for this workshop, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Youths will report on South Sacramento community

2011-06-28T06:55:07Z

A group of South Sacramento teens will get the chance this summer to learn the ins and outs of basic news writing and reporting. The goal is to get the youths to become advocates for their community and to give voice to the issues that are particular to South Sacramento.

The Neighborhood News Bureau was established by a partnership between Access Sacramento, a nonprofit organization that provides access cable television, and the La Familia Counseling Center to teach approximately 20 teenagers, ages 14 - 18, grassroots, community-based journalism.

La Familia is one of five community centers that Access Sacramento has partnered with to develop Neighborhood News Bureau sites. Other sites include Asian Resources, Florin Creek, Pannell Center and Valley Hi-North Laguna Library.

“One of the critiques is the only time you hear about South Sacramento is when there’s a murder or a violent assault. There’s a lot of good, and the good far outweighs the negative reception that has been placed around this area,” said Vidal Gonzalez, universal youth specialist at La Familia. “By giving the kids the tools to put those positive issues forth, it’ll help to shape that perception of their neighborhood.”

According to Gonzalez, Access Sacramento is providing the NNB at La Familia with two Flip cameras, a PC with Vegas video editing software and technical support workshops.

Isaac Gonzalez, local writer and community advocate enlisted by Access Sacramento, will serve as a mentor to the 20 core youths participating in the La Familia Neighborhood News Bureau.

“Me and my father didn’t get along so I found myself as an adult aways looking to mentor figures and I feel this the part of me giving back to that. To mentor kids is a huge opportunity for me to do the same favor that other men did for me,” Isaac Gonzalez said. “To help a kid out and to give positive constructive criticism – I owe it.”

During the summer, Isaac Gonzalez will be working with youths at La Familia to help them focus their ideas and to frame the stories for their community. The story concepts and the writing will be provided by the youths, but Gonzalez will be editing the submissions and uploading the stories onto www.accesslocal.tv.

At a June 24 meeting, the NNB convened and was still in the beginning stages of developing story ideas. Each of the youths have been enlisted to develop their own story ideas. One of the youth wanted to write about the death of her 3-year-old cousin who died in an alcohol related crash.

“The inability to think about the consequences on other people when you are having fun can have dire consequences,” Isaac Gonzalez said.

High school senior Ramon Castellanos, 18, is writing a piece about juveniles on death row and he explained that the frontal lobes of young people are not fully developed.

“A lot of these youth have very real experiences in their communities - very harsh experiences and sometimes their minds are more open to things because of what they’ve been through,” said Apolonia Cortez, a youth leadership coordinator at La Familia. “I just believe they have completely different perspectives and they should be heard.”

Despite the dismal job setting for teens this summer,Vidal Gonzalez said he sees opportunities for youths participating in NNB. Statewide, the public school system has reduced summer school course offerings and La Familia has reduced teen job programs.

“I think a lot of youths are upset that there aren’t jobs out there – that there aren’t enough activities and programs for them. The majority of parks have been closed. A lot of pools are on very minimal schedules. The kids don’t have a lot of good, positive things to do and speaking to the youth, they want to express that,” Vidal Gonzalez said.

The Neighborhood News Bureau is part of Youth Voices, a program made possible by funding by the California Endowment.

Food Talk chronicles culinary highlights

2011-06-20T06:11:21Z

Armed with craft supplies, writing utensils and fond food memories, attendants at Saturday’s “Kitchen Diaries” event, the third in a series of four Food Talks held at Cafe Bernardo, set about creating their own “cookbook journals:” keepsakes meant to preserve and honor the recipes and culinary experiences that shape us.

Author and writing coach Janice Kelley, along with illustrator and art instructor Joy Gee, guided the group through the writing and crafting process.

Kelley began the workshop by engaging participants in a writing exercise meant to stimulate their creative writing skills as well as their memories.

“One of my favorite things to do is help people tell their stories,” Kelley said.

She suggested getting started by asking yourself questions like: “What does my favorite food smell like?” and “How did I learn to make a certain dish?” She said these sorts of prompts can function as “triggers” for the writing process, often acting as the catalyst for a string of memories or details that will eventually evolve into a full story.

Kelley described the way that a memory of her mother’s strudel was once able to spark the writing process for her.

“That memory helped me tell the story through (my mom’s) eyes and eventually became a book,” she said.

After a 15-minute free-write, participants shared their own food memories with the group.

The exercise prompted SacPress contributor Bill Burgua to recall the “cookie factory” his mother and aunt used to create in the kitchen every year at Christmastime. He remembered that the women’s tempting sweets, like the labor-intensive rosette cookie, formed with a snowflake-shaped iron, deep-fried until crispy and dusted with powdered sugar, covered every inch of available kitchen space.

The torturous catch, Burgua said, was that no one could touch the treats until Christmas Eve.

Gee described the way she and her siblings used to help her mother with the time-consuming task of crafting Chinese tamales, filling them carefully with ingredients like peanuts, Chinese sausage, sweet rice and eggs.

Food Talk regular Larry Fox reminisced about his grandma’s peak-perfect lemon meringue pie, made with Sunkist lemons and the hand of a culinary perfectionist.

“(The pie) had to be perfect because that’s what the food deserved,” he said.

During the hands-on portion of the workshop, participants were exposed to a variety of do-it-yourself book forms, including the “accordion” book that unfolds to reveal its contents, and a book with hand-sewn binding.

Gee provided a tutorial on watercolor techniques, including wax resistance (an effect created by laying down a crayon base and “washing” over it with watercolor), and “salting,” where one sprinkles salt onto wet watercolor to achieve a snow-like texture.

Images from magazines, clip art and even the label off a favorite bottle of wine can all serve as cookbook artwork, Gee said.

With a variety of paint, stamps, specialty paper and pens to choose from, food talk participants had the opportunity to create one-of-a-kind cookbooks to be filled with illustrations, anecdotes and recipes.

First time Food Talk attendee Gin Yang, a self-described foodie who enjoys crafting wine and cheese, said her favorite part of the talk was being around people who “share a passion for food.”

For Yang, a cookbook journal is a good way to document the memorable role that food has played in her familial relationships.

“It’s a good time to start chronicling my parents’ adventures with food,” she said.

For Food Talk organizer Maryellen Burns, the discussion of pivotal culinary moments can be just as powerful as the process of capturing them on paper.

“Just telling stories, even if they never makes it to the page, is important,” she said.

The last installment of the Food Talk series at Cafe Bernardo, a cookbook sell and swap, will take place Saturday and costs $15.

Access Sacramento Annual Meeting - "LIVE" on Channel 17 Thursday at 7:00 PM

2011-06-15T05:07:07Z

Celebrating our 25th year of incorporation, the nonprofit community media center Access Sacramento hosts the annual membership meeting Thursday June 16 7-8 PM . You are invited to attend the event in the television studio at the Coloma Community Center or just watch the event on cable TV channel 17 or streamed on the web site www.AccessSacramento.org to any computer in the world.

The 15 member Board of Directors will offer highlights of the year past and look forward to another year of Hometown-TV events, Game of Week football and basketball, "Listen Up, Sacramento" local music, and arts and entertainment reporting weekly on "Livewire". Ten new films are in production in the 12th Annual "Place Called Sacramento" film project.

Learn more about the latest project - South Sacramento's five Neighborhood News Bureaus (NNB). To check out new online stories from underserved communities, go to www.AccessLocal.tv and join in the year-round training workshops.

Want to learn more? Tune-in and watch or call (916) 456-8600 ext.0

Food Talk at Cafe Bernardo

2011-06-06T06:41:34Z

“I love to eat, obviously.” Maryellen Burns makes a motion with her arms, indicating that she’s talking about her figure, then laughs. Her eyes are bright, excited. Burns is wearing a colorful, souvenir apron that reads “Mallorca Island” and large, painted wooden pigs dangle from her ears.

She’s addressing the group of individuals who have shown up for her and Lynn Gowdy’s FoodTalk@Cafe Bernardo, the first in a four-part series running every Saturday this June.

The talk is entitled “Blind Tasting.” And who’s in attendance? A man with no sense of smell, a man with poor sense of smell, a women who says she gets hives every time she enters the kitchen and, of course, plenty of foodies.

“Where do you think the importance of taste lies in someone’s decision to go to a particular restaurant, on a scale of 1 to 20? On a list that includes things like ambiance and convenience,” Gowdy asks, a slight smile curving just the ends of her lips.

Individuals start to guess,
“Three.”
“Sixth.”
“Ten.”

Gowdy’s smile grows wider. “Seventeenth.”

She goes on to talk about the general components of taste (smell, mouth feel, texture, sensation, finish), addressing information from a folder that each person received upon their arrival. The contents of the folder is original, written completely by Gowdy and Burns,
and touches on subjects such as the physiology of taste, the influence of temperature on taste and building a food vocabulary.

“Write down all the words you would use to describe a lemon. Then describe a lemon without using any of those words.”

A plethora of tips, such as the one suggested above, are given throughout the talk and, after a discussion about umami, cheeses and why they taste better at room temperature, and several exercises to get everyone used to “using their palates,” both Gowdy and Burns happily inform everyone, “We’re going to have to get to the blind tasting!”

Individuals are told to pair up. Some do so easily, others awkwardly. One person is blindfolded, and the other is instructed to help their sightless partner partake in the tasting, then write down the words their partner uses to describe each “component of taste.” Afterward, the partners switch.

Unbeknownst to the blindfolded, Cafe Bernardo’s head chef Shannan Berg personally brings in tasting rounds one and two: a sampling of bacon, flavorful potatoes, fresh and spongy rosemary bread, yogurt, granola, fruits, a tart jam and creamy butter.

“It’s surprising that foods we’re so familiar with, that we eat often … something as common and good, as beloved as bacon, can be so hard to describe,” a FoodTalk participant says in a conversation after the tasting.

And while participants add to that and describe their own tasting experiences, Berg brings in more food, this time to eat without the blindfold. A giant pile of thinly sliced mushroom and Jarlsberg cheese salad, an even bigger pile of Thai noodle salad and a variety of crispy crust pizzettas.

“We didn’t get to all the writing exercises, but we were talking and that’s the point. We want people to go to our Tumblr, to e-mail us any questions they might have. We want to be accessible, and,” Burns pauses for a moment and walks over to the man with no sense of smell, who appears to be leaving.

“I’ll e-mail you that material,” she says, referring to information on improving the palate and retraining the brain to associate taste with other senses, beside smell.

He nods, then smiles. “Thank you.”

She returns and sits down. “Anyway. It’s a conversation.”

FoodTalk@Cafe Bernardo will be held at 10am every Saturday in June. Tickets are $15.00 and help pay for free programs held at the McClatchy Library.

Wadlin speaks on balanced living at California Writers Club

2011-06-05T02:40:51Z

The first Friday of every month, the Sacramento Branch of the California Writers Club gathers for development opportunities, social interaction and solidarity among area writers. This past Friday, June 3, a group of 25 writers hosted Dr. Caroline Wadlin, a local, award winning physician specializing in women’s health and holistic medicine.

Wadlin’s recently published book, “A Woman’s Guide to Balancing Life in Today’s Fast Paced World,” is dedicated to all women:

“May you be blessed with more energy, less stress and more fun.”

Her compact guide to balancing life includes tips on how to reorganize your priorities so that you can lead a happier life.

“It’s not selfish to do that,” Wadlin reasoned.

The presentation began with five quick minutes of standing movement to help energize and invigorate “without coffee,” said Wadlin.

Whether it was discussing Qi gong, gossip, multivitamins or hot flashes, Dr. Wadlin encouraged living a happy, healthy and balanced life. Perhaps her most admirable trait was her overall likeability. Wadlin is a physician, a woman, a writer, a mother and a grandmother. If she can lead a balanced and healthy life, anyone can.

While the book and the session were seemingly geared toward women, Wadlin provided important and valuable advice for the men in the room too.

Wellness is so easily neglected in today’s fast-paced world. Your response to something, Wadlin explained, is generally a combination of your knowledge, thoughts, feelings and past experiences. Personal wellness is a dynamic that can greatly contribute to all of these factors, either positively or negatively.

“When you’re well,” said Wadlin, “when the tsunami hits, you know how to get through it.”

Wadlin’s Wellness Pyramid presented all the elements needed for a healthy and happy life. Total wellness requires sleep, nutrition and exercise, with relationships at their heart, all based on a strong platform of positive attitude.

It is obvious that this group, in particular, knows the importance of relationships. Throughout the presentation, group members were sometimes so exuberant and full of one-liners that the meeting had to be called back to order. The intimate presentation for the writers’ club soon became an interactive Q & A session. Dr. Wadlin answered questions and discussed the health benefits of topics such as magnesium, B vitamins, sun and laughter.

“If you feel like you have a cold coming on, rent two comedies and call me in the morning,” said Wadlin, explaining the many benefits of laughter.

Encouragingly, this group’s gatherings are all about mental health. Following the presentation, many lingered to chat. Members from ages 26 to 88 discussed their ideas, edits and trials and tribulations in the publishing world, all the while offering each other their support, advice and encouragement.

“A writer has to keep their hope, whether they’re 80 or 50 or 20,” said Bob Quinlan, a member of the CWC Sacramento Branch Board of Directors and author of “Earn It: Empower Yourself for Love,” a nonfiction book on love and relationships.

There are many challenges in the complex and uncertain literary world. Almost half the group works from home, and while some have outside jobs as well, most write full time.

Besides the many social benefits of the club, the CWC helps writers to stay abreast of the current trends in the world of writing and publishing. The California Writers Club was founded in 1909 and now has over 1,300 members. The Club keeps members informed on current relevant events including competitions and conferences, in addition to hosting their own.

The Sacramento Branch group hosts a monthly meeting, usually featuring a speaker or presenter, and a monthly open mic night where writers can present their best and receive feedback. In addition, writers collaborate, some providing editing, revision, and technology support as well as other services necessary when making a book into a successful published product.

Open Mic nights are held on the second Friday of the month at Barnes & Noble Birdcage on Sunrise Blvd. The next open mic event will be held on Friday, June 10 at 7:00 p.m. Signup begins at 6:45.

The next meeting of the Sacramento Branch of the California Writers Club will be August 5. There will be no July meeting due to the holiday weekend. Visit the CWC Sacramento Branch website for additional information or to join the California Writers Club.

For more information on Dr. Caroline Wadlin and her work, visit her website or email her at wadlin@sbcglobal.net.

Sac Press Tools and Tricks workshop May 26

2011-05-13T23:28:51Z

Thanks to those of you who attended our review writing panel Thursday with Rachel Leibrock, Carla Meyer and Nick Miller. Read the workshop recap here.

We will have another workshop this month titled, "Sac Press Tools and Tricks." Geoff Samek, vice president of product for The Sacramento Press, will highlight some of the newer and lesser-known features of the website.

Samek will also give a quick overview of important web technologies that come in handy in the current media world. He will answer any questions you may have about the site and its functionality and features.

The workshop will be from 6:30 - 8 p.m. May 26 at our office.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here – one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Review writing panel May 12 with Rachel Leibrock, Carla Meyer and Nick Miller

2011-05-04T05:45:12Z

With Concerts in the Park kicking off Friday and the California Music Circus season around the corner, there will be lots of opportunities to review shows, both indoors and outdoors.

Looking to share your great or not-so-great experiences with others? The Sacramento Press will hold a panel on review writing at our office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12. Three panelists will teach you the do’s and don’ts of review writing and share some of their own experiences.

This is a great opportunity to ask the pros how they review concerts, theater, comedy and other performances.

The three panelists are Rachel Leibrock, Carla Meyer and Nick Miller.

Leibrock writes about arts and culture for the Sacramento News & Review. She also teaches journalism at Sacramento City College and previously worked at The Sacramento Bee as an arts and entertainment writer. You can find some of her work at thursdayafternoongirls.wordpress.com and www.writegrrrl.com.

Meyer is an entertainment writer at The Sacramento Bee. She was The Bee's movie critic from 2005-2009. Carla came to The Bee from the San Francisco Chronicle, where she wrote film reviews and features and co-wrote "Stein & Meyer: Movie Insider," a twice-weekly column about film and the film industry. Meyer also once worked as an assignment editor for the datebook and sports sections of The Chronicle.

Miller edits Sacramento News & Review's news and arts sections and writes a weekly column on the local music scene. He got his start as a distribution driver and is now associate editor.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here – one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

"Make a Movie" This Summer - Attend the "Cast & Crew Call" May 18 6-9 PM

2011-05-03T22:12:36Z

“Cast & Crew Call” from ACCESS SACRAMENTO
2011 “A Place Called Sacramento” Film Project
Wednesday May 18 from 6 – 9 PM
“Make a Movie This Summer” -- All Are Invited

For the Twelfth year, Access Sacramento launches “A Place Called Sacramento” (PCS), a scriptwriting and short film production project for local writers and producers. PCS challenges local scriptwriters to write ten-minute scripts about the people, places, and events that make our community such a unique place to live (details and past films on-line at www.AccessSacramento.org).

Script evaluation and judging have been completed. Dozens of scripts have been reviewed by local professionals and ten have been selected for production. Meet the ten scriptwriter/producers May 18 (Wednesday) at the “Cast & Crew Call”.

2011 “A Place Called Sacramento” Film Festival
Cast & Crew Call
May 18, 2011 - Wednesday
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Coloma Community Center Courtyard
4623 T Street
Sacramento, CA. 95819

All potential actors and production teams experienced and inexperienced are invited to attend. Ten production teams shall be formed and production continues on the films during the summer months. Finally, after weeks of hard work and great fun, friends gather at the CREST Theatre on Sunday October 2, 2011 for the World Premier of all ten films. The PCS production format is unique to Sacramento. In the previous eleven years, 109 films have been successfully created.

To view the films completed for the 2010 & previous PCS film festivals, go to the web site www.AccessSacramento.org. Access Sacramento is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using community media to build better communications between individuals and groups in Sacramento County.

CONTACT: Ron Cooper, Executive Director
4623 T Street, Suite A Sacramento, CA. 95819
(916) 456-8600 #112
Postmaster@AccessSacramento.org

Disclosure: Ron Cooper is the Executive Director for Access Sacramento.

Interviewing Techniques workshop April 7

2011-04-04T21:48:26Z

Thanks to those of you who came to the "Writing about Wine and Spirits" workshop in March. Read the recap here.

We have two journalism workshops planned for April.

Clare Noonan will teach a workshop on interviewing techniques at The Sacramento Press office from 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, April 7.

Noonan has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Kentucky. She currently edits 11 East Bay Patch.com sites. She worked at The Modesto Bee for more than 20 years as a reporter for business, news, feature and sports while also copy editing. She also worked as assistant news editor and assistant city editor in charge of the Crime and Safety beat during her time at The Bee. She has been a copy editor for The Sacramento Press.

Noonan has taught other workshops for The Sacramento Press, including "Research and Fact-checking," and "Improve Your Writing with Self Editing."

The workshop will focus on conducting a successful interview, including how to prepare, techniques for putting people at ease and getting them to talk to you, and how to end the interview on a high note.

"Intro to Journalism" is the title of our second workshop in April. Doug Herndon will teach the workshop which will also be held at The Sacramento Press office from 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, April 19.

Herndon was an English and journalism professor at Sacramento City College and adviser to the college's newspaper, The Express. He has been a professional writer for more than 15 years and has worked for Sacramento Magazine, The Sacramento News & Review and The Sacramento Bee.

A separate invitation will be sent later for the "Intro to Journalism" workshop.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP for this workshop, email workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an email to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Writers get words of wisdom on wine

2011-03-25T20:17:01Z

Local writers and budding wine enthusiasts gathered at the Sacramento Press office Thursday evening for a workshop on how to write about wine presented by author and former Sacramento Bee columnist Rick Kushman.

“We generally associate wine knowledge with ‘class’ or as a social status of some kind,” said Kushman as he opened the workshop. “Really, people just want to know what wine to choose for dinner.”

As more than 20 eager writers listened and took notes, Kushman gave the class his “Three Rules of Wine Tasting:”

* Wear dark colors.
* If you love it, you’re right; if you hate it, you’re right.
* Always bring a swimsuit.

“That last one doesn’t have anything to do with wine, but it seems like a good idea,” added Kushman, illustrating his main point of the evening: Don’t take it too seriously.

“Wine isn’t a great mystery, and it isn’t anything to be afraid of,” Kushman said. “Embrace it! Don’t be afraid to be cheery or funny when you write about wine. It doesn’t always have to be stuffy and dry to be good.”

With that, Kushman got to the core of what writing about wine is all about.

“Wine is a confidence game,” Kushman said. “People just want to feel confident about the wine they choose.”

To develop that confidence, they look to wine writers for guidance, and this is where most wine writers start to take the topic to places they don’t really need to go, he said. All too often, wine writers use (and perhaps overuse) industry jargon and insiders’ lingo that only leaves the reader confused.

Attendee Tammi Korbmaker, 51, a writer and Sacramento Press community contributor from West Sacramento, noted this, too. “People in the industry seem to talk down to readers about wine,” she said.

It isn’t necessary to be a wine snob to write well about wine, Kushman told the audience. We need to remember that our job as a wine writer is to help people trust our judgment – something we can’t do if we are condescending or trying to show off our wine aficionado status.

“Don’t be a snob, don’t sneer, don’t talk down to the reader,” Kushman said. “Assume that it’s OK for people to like what they like.”

Which brings up Rule No. 2 of Kushman’s Three Rules of Wine Tasting: “If you like it, you’re right, and if you hate it, you’re right.”

“Just because something is popular doesn’t make it good or bad,” Kushman said. “Your job as a writer is to explain it.”

How does a wine writer do that? First, get out of your reader’s way. “It’s not about you, it’s about the wine,” he said.

Writers may have some past experience with wines or the wine industry, and that’s just fine, but unless it’s relevant to what they’re saying about the wine being discussed – if it doesn’t really add anything to the reader’s experience – leave it out.

Instead, writing about wine is all about describing. Creatively use words to convey taste, feeling, flavor, emotion and myriad other things included in the experience so that others can taste and feel it too.

“Describe it like you would a man getting off a train so someone would recognize him at the station,” Kushman suggested.

That means more than just the label or the brand name or the type of grape. Does it smell of fruit or fields of flowers or butter or chocolate? Does it have a “zing” to it, or is it soft or rich or smooth? Does the taste linger or have a crisp finish?

Use descriptive, evocative words to bring your reader to the same place you are with the wine.

It’s true that food and wine are emotional experiences to a large degree, so the way you describe wine may be very different than the way someone else would describe that same wine. To one person, it may be reminiscent of a summer garden, while to another it evokes sensations of autumn leaves and overcast skies.

There are no wrong answers, Kushman said. “You taste what you taste, and that’s OK.”

As long as you give the reader your honest and consistent evaluation of wine, you’ve done your job.

As the workshop came to a close, one audience member talked about feeling better prepared to write about wine.

“This has really whet my appetite to go out and go through the wine tasting process so I can put it into words for other people,” said Mike Tate, 52.

Tate, an artist from Sacramento, aspires to make his own wine and write about it from an artist’s perspective in a new wine and art blog he’s developing.

“(Kushman) got me thinking about how to write about my passion but keep myself out of it,” Tate said. “It’s a skill to artistically describe flavor.”

The Bee, Sac Press present 'Table Talk Sacramento' April 13

2011-03-23T19:01:04Z

Do you love talking about food? Do you flip to the food section of the newspaper before even reading the front page? Is a trip to the grocery store an excursion? For all you foodies, bloggers and lovers of Sacramento’s restaurants and food: The Sacramento Bee and The Sacramento Press have teamed up to bring you “Table Talk Sacramento: The region’s food community comes together for an evening of lively discussion.”

There will be two panels addressing different topics, including “What Sacramentans Eat” and the quality of local food writing.

Chris Macias will moderate the food writing panel. Macias has served as the Bee’s food and wine writer since 2008. The panelists include:

Niesha Lofing, who writes food and family stories for the Bee as well as a parenting column, Mom.me.
Catherine Enfield, a state worker by day and a local food blogger by night – or whenever she can sneak away to a computer. She is also a food truck advocate and co-organizer of the SactoMoFo mobile food festival scheduled for April 30.
Micah Rousey, who eats out at least five times per week and shares his experience on Yelp. He has contributed dozens of restaurant reviews and been named a member of the “Yelp Elite Squad.”

Allen Pierleoni will moderate the second panel, “What Sacramentans Eat,” which will cover local food trends. This panel consists of:

Rick Mindermann, an internationally known grocer and wine merchant and store director of Corti Bros. Market. He has 34 years in the food and wine business and acts as a personal assistant to Darrell Corti, who has been called “the man who knows the most about food and wine in the world.”
John Paul Khoury, the corporate chef for Preferred Meats, Inc., a premium meat company in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a focus on sustainable husbandry and smaller farm operations. He is also certified as a chef de cuisine with the American Culinary Federation.
Kelly McCown, the executive chef at Ella restaurant and a 1990 graduate of the California Culinary Academy. He was worked in the kitchens of Martini House, Flying Fish, Fleur de Lys, Hayes Street Grill and others, and he has been named “a rising star” and “top young chef” by several magazines, including Bon Appetit and Japanese GQ.

“Table Talk” will be at The Sacramento Bee, 2100 Q St., at 6 p.m. April 13. Source Global Tapas will provide light snacks.

The event will be live-tweeted by @sacramentopress using the hashtag #SacTableTalk.

The event is free, but registration is required. If you do not register, you will not be allowed to enter. Registration is limited to 160. To sign up for “Table Talk,” click here.

Come join the conversation as we discuss Sacramento’s rich food and restaurant culture.

Writing about Wine and Spirits workshop March 24

2011-03-17T17:56:51Z

The Sacramento Press will be hosting a new workshop for the month of March. We are excited to have our first "Writing about Wine and Spirits" workshop, taught by Rick Kushman.

The workshop will be at the Sacramento Press office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Thursday, March 24.

Kushman will discuss techniques for writing about wine and touch on how to write about spirits and beer. The primary focus of the workshop will be wine. He will also discuss terms and phrases to avoid when writing about wine or food.

Kushman is an award-winning journalist and former columnist for The Sacramento Bee, where he spent two decades. For the last five years he wrote about wine, food and life in Northern California. His writing has appeared in publications ranging from Time Magazine to Sommelier Journal and Daily Variety.

He is a founder of the new California Wine Marketing Group, a unique business that teaches wineries, wine groups, restaurants and others how to market and talk about wine in real English sentences, not winespeak. He believes that anyone who makes wine too complicated or too scary should be sentenced to drinking low-carb beer.

Kushman earned his Certified Wine Professional credential from the Culinary Institute of America and teaches culinary journalism at the Art Institute of California.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP for this workshop, e-mail workshops@sacramentopress.com. Space is limited to 20 people. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Access Sacramento's 25th Anniversary Celebration March 12

2011-03-10T23:17:04Z

News is no longer designed for idle consumption: It is becoming more and more interactive as bloggers, community journalists, Twitter users and witnesses equipped with smart phones make their mark in distributing news. Access Sacramento will be hosting its 25th anniversary celebration Saturday and invites you to be seen and heard by telling your stories through digital media.

The event also kicks off “Sunshine Week” (March 13 - 19), a national effort promoting the freedom of information and open government. To help celebrate Sunshine Week, Congresswoman Doris Matsui and city, county and state agency representatives will be in attendance.

Access Sacramento is having an open house from noon - 4 p.m., where you’ll have the chance to learn how to make your own TV or radio program, write stories about your neighborhood and meet local media organizations like The Sacramento Bee, KCRA, News 10, The Sacramento Press and others.

For 25 years, nonprofit organization Access Sacramento has been “making a difference, one voice at a time,” through its commitment to covering local entertainment, high school sports and cultural events. Saturday’s event will showcase what local media has to offer the community and how attendees can play a major role in community reporting.

Participants can get a taste of streaming radio programs live on the Internet, posing as an anchor in the television studio, recording musical performances and using the new Neighborhood News Bureaus’ website, accesslocal.tv.

Bring your best Ron Burgundy or inner DJ voice while you try out the Access Sacramento equipment and facilities.

Nonprofit organizations are also welcome to attend, as demonstrations will be given on how to create public service announcements using the green studio.

The Sacramento Press will have a booth at the event, encouraging citizen journalism and answering questions about the site and how we operate.

Whether you’re looking to learn more about community journalism, or have been wanting to create your own TV or radio program, or you’d like to meet some of the local news organizations, Access Sacramento is the place to be Saturday, from noon - 4 p.m.

The Coloma Community Center is located at 4623 T St.

For more information, visit www.accesssacramento.org.

Words in Bloom writers' conference coming to Midtown

2011-03-05T04:09:55Z

The UC Davis Extension Words in Bloom writers' conference is coming to Midtown for the first time this spring, and it promises a fertile writing environment for area wordsmiths.

“There’s great power in coming together with a group of people to set words on a page, words that you never thought you could or would write,” said Kate Asche, Words in Bloom program director and UC Davis Extension associate director of arts and humanities.

Words in Bloom will be held the weekend of April 29 to May 1. Writers who register by March 15 receive a $150 discount. Three persons registering for Words in Bloom together as a writing group each receive a further discount of $100. The full tuition before discounts is $745.

One of the chief aims of Words in Bloom is to provide a conference experience for writers without the time or money to attend UC Davis Extension’s other writing conference, the Tomales Bay Workshops, Asche said.

“I’ve seen Tomales Bay change so many people’s writing lives and their lives in general,” she said. “I wanted to bring a conference of that quality to Sacramento.”

Tomales Bay is twice as long as Words in Bloom. Before early bird or other discounts full tuition for Tomales Bay is more than double that of full tuition for Words in Bloom.

Asche coordinates both events, and she noted key differences between Words in Bloom and Tomales Bay, which is in its seventh year.

“Words in Bloom is expressly focused on creating new projects,” Asche said.

Another important goal of the conference is networking.

The new conference was kept to two weekend days, so local writers would not need to take time off work, Asche said. They can rejoin their families in the evening and avoid paying for lodging.

In contrast, faculty at Tomales Bay provide critique for writers with working manuscripts within a retreat setting. There is some networking.

Words in Bloom features the same high-caliber faculty as Tomales Bay.

“Our reputation is built upon the quality of what we deliver,” Asche said. “I wanted to make sure that that same extremely high quality is observed.”

Words in Bloom faculty include Dana Levin (poetry), Pam Houston (fiction), Ehud Havazelet (fiction) and Brenda Miller (creative nonfiction). Levin has previously spoken at Tomales Bay. Houston is director of creative writing at UC Davis and program director for Tomales Bay.

UC Davis Extension instructors recommended Havazelet and Miller, Asche said.

Words in Bloom participants select the writer of their choice and attend that writer’s workshop on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. Afternoon and evening sessions will feature readings and panel discussions with local authors, emerging writers and agents. There also will be an opportunity to meet with publishing professionals for an additional fee.

The conference will take place at Time Tested Books in Midtown. Parking is available at the UC Davis Extension Sutter Square Galleria parking garage on 29th and K Streets. From there it is about a 10-block walk to Time Tested Books.

Several restaurants are located in the vicinity of the bookstore.

“One of our hopes is that (students) would be able to continue the conversations by going to lunch and seeing where it leads,” Asche said.

Both Words in Bloom and Tomales Bay fulfill a portion of the elective requirements for the UC Davis Extension Creative Writing Certificate Program. For Words in Bloom, payment for units of academic credit is included in the conference fee, whereas there is an additional fee for academic credit for Tomales Bay.

“This is my way of getting a UC education,” said Brenda Nakamoto, who is pursuing the Specialized Studies Program in Nonfiction Writing at UC Davis Extension.

Nakamoto said she was attracted to Words in Bloom because of its lower cost and closer proximity than Tomales Bay.

“I thought I’d give myself two days to just be creative,” Nakamoto said.

Nakamoto has admired Miller’s work and said Miller was another draw to Words in Bloom.

She said the description of Miller’s workshop in the Words in Bloom program appealed to her: “Be prepared to check your critical mind at the door, and put on your play clothes instead.”

Nakamoto received a fellowship to attend Tomales Bay in October 2009. Roan Press will release her creative nonfiction book “The Peach Farmer’s Daughter” in April.

Words in Bloom is the only writers’ conference with offerings for writers in different genres in Sacramento, Asche said.

“As of right now we have an eye to the future for it,” Asche said. “We want to see this year’s conference succeed, but it’s a longer-term vision than that.”

The Northern California Publishers and Authors conference will not be happening this year, said Ken Umbach, NCPA communications director.

“(Words in Bloom) looks like a very promising conference for writers,” Umbach said. He said the NCPA conference focused more on the publishing side of the business.

Another Midtown writing conference is Our Life Stories, which focuses on memoir writing. The Ethel MacLeod Hart Senior Center will host Our Life Stories at Cosumnes River College on May 7.

UC Davis Extension is holding a free information session about its writing programs Monday night from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the UC Davis Extension Sutter Square Galleria branch at 2901 K Street. Topics will include Words in Bloom, the Tomales Bay Workshops, the Nonfiction Writing Specialized Studies Program and the Creative Writing Certificate Program. The information session will conclude with a panel discussion entitled “Marketing Yourself as a Writer.”

Attendees will receive a $50 coupon which can be used toward a spring class, but not Words in Bloom.

The early bird registration deadline for Tomales Bay, which will be held October 19 through 23, is May 6.

Opinion Writing Workshop Feb. 24

2011-02-21T06:17:12Z

The next workshop hosted by The Sacramento Press will be on opinion writing. It will be held at our office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Feb. 24.

Sacramento Press Editor in Chief David Watts Barton will discuss the importance of backing up your opinion, doing reporting and keeping your column focused.

Barton worked at The Sacramento Bee from 1985-2007. He was the pop music critic until 1994 and in addition to writing reviews, he wrote weekly columns called Poplife and The Beat.

As editor in chief of The Sacramento Press, Barton writes editorials on a regular basis.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2.00 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP for this workshop, e-mail workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Congratulations to the Journalism Open winners!

2011-02-14T08:34:20Z

The results are in and we’re very excited to announce the winners of The Sacramento Press 2011 Journalism Open.

More than 50 community contributors accepted the challenge to commit acts of journalism. In January, 134 entries were submitted, many by writers who are new to The Sacramento Press.

Thank you to those of you who participated and those who helped spread the word about the contest.

There were three Sacramento Press judges who reviewed the entries and determined the winners: Casey Kirk, Recruitment Manager, Brandon Darnell, Copy Editor and Reporter, and Colleen Belcher, Managing Editor.

We were looking for stories with a minimum of two sources, stories that incorporated research and stories that kept us reading. Each winner could only win one prize. Click here to read the complete judging criteria.

Without further ado, the winners are:

Isaac Gonzalez, whose story, “A Towering Challenge,” won first place and $700.

Laura O’Brien, who wrote “Fave moms mag stops presses,” won second place and $500.

Corinna Fish, the third place winner of $200, wrote a two-part story titled “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land: Looking Back at 50 Years of the Capitol Area Plan” on the Mandella Garden and the history of the Capitol Area Plan.

There were five $100 prizes, which were awarded to Eileen Wilson, who wrote about domestic violence and its lasting effects on children, Deb Belt, Mary Nares, Ron Nabity, who wrote about the heroes of the Red Cross and Brandy Tuzon. Click on each name to see the winning story by that author.

The $350 in photography prizes was divided into four amounts: three $100 prizes and one $50 prize.

The winners, in no particular order, are David Alvarez for his photo of the Sacramento Electronic Music Festival, Marc McLaughlin for his photo of the Professional Bull Riders show at Arco Arena, and Kati Garner for her photo of the Wells Fargo building in the fog. Steven Chea won an honorable mention for his photo of Deerhoof’s drummer playing a show at Harlow’s.

Click here to see the winning photos laid out side by side.

We asked the winners how they felt about winning the competition. Here are some of their responses.

Mary Nares, who wrote about the Crocker Art Museum’s new Education Center, said in an e-mail, “I'm amazed and honored to be selected. I was really impressed with the caliber of the submissions for the Open. I saw some great writing and photography, and the wide range of intriguing topics was inspiring.”

Marc McLaughlin said in an e-mail, “It is always an honor to be rewarded for the work you do. Being able to document our community through photos is something that I am thankful for.”

We were also curious to find out what each winner thought about citizen journalism.

Deb Belt, who wrote about an alley project in Boulevard Park and the controversy it created, said in an e-mail, “Citizen journalism is a new frontier and gives people the power to bring a story to light. It places responsibility in writers' hands to be accurate, fair and ethical and provides support for them. When citizen journalists meet this challenge, they forge new territory.”

Brandy Tuzon is the publisher of the Natomas Buzz and the author of the story on Natomas Unified School District’s fiscal crisis. She said in an e-mail, “I believe independent, citizen journalists are capable of providing some of the best local news coverage in the Sacramento region. We are not sitting at a desk in an office being assigned a beat to cover, instead we are living in the community and experiencing stories first-hand, as they happen.”

David Alvarez said in an e-mail about citizen journalism, “I think it's great. It's the voice of the people that can inspire, make you laugh, let you see life through other people's eyes, make you think or help get an important story to light. As a sole voice or as a voice for many in our community, citizen journalism has its place if nothing else to read another person's perspective.”

Thank you to everyone who entered. We enjoyed meeting new people, like Mama Cobb, hearing new insights, like what current students think about Sacramento High School, and discovering new places, (Firehouse 5), or history (stone sisters houses), and seeing Sacramento and its surrounding areas through many lenses (written or camera).

Screenwriting Community Grows in Sacramento

2011-02-13T21:43:45Z

The motion picture industry may be centered in Hollywood, but if screenwriter Gary Weinberg has anything to say about it, Sacramento’s burgeoning collective of aspiring screenwriters will soon draw plenty of attention northward.

On February 22nd, from 7 to 9pm, the fourth installment of Weinberg’s popular course, Write Your Screenplay, An Eight Week Intensive, will begin at the Tangent Art Gallery, adjacent to the Coffee Garden at 2900 Franklin Blvd in Curtis Park.

Since May of last year Weinberg has been facilitating the development of nearly fifty fledgling screenwriters, all with aspirations of seeing their ideas manifest on film. His three-class program has been developed to cater to the needs of writers at all stages of their growth, from pure beginners, (Screenwriting 101, an Intro to Art and Business of Screenwriting) to writers ready to pen the first draft of their story ideas (Write Your Screenplay) to writers looking to move beyond the first draft and really perfect their stories (Advanced Screenwriting).

The goal of Write Your Screenplay, An Eight Week Intensive is to have every student finish the course with a completed first draft of either a screenplay of teleplay (television script). The eight classes are spread out over twelve weeks, which gives students the time to incorporate the lessons they’ve learned into their own writing.

In addition to his group classes, Weinberg offers private sessions that provide more personal in-depth analysis. He dissects the writer’s work in a comprehensive evaluation, looking at everything from structure and format to dialogue and character development. He even counsels his clients on how to make the project more accessible to the industry insiders who decide whether or not to “green light” a project. This level of detailed “coverage” helps writers of all levels move their screenplays to the next level. As Weinberg says, “I’m not just looking to help people write a screenplay. I want to help them write a great screenplay. Because the better the script, the better chance you have of actually seeing it made into a movie. And that’s why we’re all here. The movie is the thing. Otherwise, you might as well right a novel.”

With cutbacks at local colleges and universities, Weinberg has seen interest in his classes skyrocket. “There are many great writers in this town. And it’s a personal honor that so many of them have allowed me to guide them. My goal is to help make Sacramento an entertainment industry destination.”

Like Memphis is to “the blues,” Austin to country music, and Seattle to the world of theater, Weinberg envisions Sacramento as a future mecca for screenwriters. “Why not? To do something big, you have to think big. Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars!”

For more information about Weinberg’s classes and programs contact him at cpmaurice@hotmail.com or call him at 818-458-6637

Upcoming workshop: Write Smarter Feb. 16

2011-02-07T22:38:42Z

We have two new workshops scheduled for the month of February.

The first is scheduled from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Feb. 16 at The Sacramento Press office.

JT Long will teach this workshop, titled "Write Smarter."

Long is an independent journalist and SEO copywriter for publications such as Engineering News-Record, Comstock's Magazine and PublicCEO. She creates communities by telling stories.

Long will discuss how to get the most out of your stories so you can use them in different publications. She will cover how to improve your interviewing skills, so you can gather enough information for multiple stories, how to come up with targeted leads and other tips that will benefit freelancers.

Sacramento Press Editor in Chief David Watts Barton will teach a workshop on opinion writing from 6:30 - 8 p.m. Feb. 24. More information on this workshop will be available later this month.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $2.00 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP for either workshop, e-mail workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

ACCESS SACRAMENTO presents Short Form Script Writing Class with Screenwriter Matt Perry

2011-02-01T05:54:20Z

Sign-up today for three, 4-hour workshop classes on writing “short form” film scripts. Polish your “Place Called Sacramento” entry or further your film script writing skills and practical knowledge. Limited enrollment - $50 Fee per session. Register in advance at Access Sacramento by calling (916) 456-8600 “0” with a credit card. Need not be an Access Sacramento member or Sacramento County resident to sign-up for this class. Sign-up early – class will fill fast.

DEADLINE FOR PCS FILM SCRIPTS IS TUESDAY APRIL 12 AT 5:00 PM IN ACCESS SACRAMENTO OFFICE. For submission guidelines, go to: www.AccessSacramento.org

Session #1 – Saturdays – February 19, 26, & March 5
- 10 AM-2:30 PM (30 minute lunch break) Coloma Center
Session #2 – Saturdays – March 19, 26 & April 2
- 10 AM-2:30 PM (30 minute lunch break) Coloma Center

Biography
Matt Perry received an MFA in filmmaking from New York University’s graduate school of film and is the author of several screenplays. He teaches Screenwriting and Film Studies at the Art Institute of Sacramento and Cosumnes River College. He is a devotee of yoga, running and the mighty Michigan State Spartans.

Disclosure: Ron Cooper is Executive Director of Access Sacramento

Today's the last day to enter the Journalism Open 2011

2011-01-31T21:06:14Z

The procrastination must come to an end. There are only hours left to enter The Sacramento Press Journalism Open 2011.

Entries must be published by 11:59 p.m. You must tag your article open2011.

There are hundreds of dollars in prizes waiting to be doled out to the winners. First place prize is $700, second place is $500 and there are cash prizes for photos, too!

If you would like to have your article copy edited, it must be sent to journalism@sacramentopress.com by 6 p.m. Any articles sent after 6 p.m. will have to be published without copy editing.

One last thing: there are three judges for this year's contest. One of the judges changed from what we announced at the Journalism Open Workshop. David Watts Barton will no longer be judging. The judges are Managing Editor Colleen Belcher, Copy Editor/Reporter Brandon Darnell and Recruiment Manager Casey Kirk.

Check out the splash page for any last minute questions. Below the page are all of the entries we've received so far for the contest.

The clock is ticking. Entries published after 11:59 p.m. will not be counted as part of the contest.

Winners will be announced Monday, Feb. 14 on our site.

Good luck!

Sac Press Journalism Open workshop Jan. 12

2011-01-10T20:23:34Z

The Sacramento Press Journalism Open is well underway and we're very pleased to see new bylines popping up on our site because of the contest.

The contest ends at 11:59 p.m. Jan. 31, so make sure you've posted all of your entries and tagged them open2011 by that deadline.

First place wins $700, second place $500, and there are many other cash prizes, including prizes for best photos.

For those of you who have questions about the contest, we will host a workshop Wednesday, Jan. 12 from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. at our office. We will be happy to give advice and suggestions on how to develop your story ideas.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour, and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

To RSVP, send an e-mail to workshops@sacramentopress.com.

For the complete rules of the contest, click here.

Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you at the workshop!

How to enter photos that accompany someone else's article in the Journalism Open

2011-01-03T23:52:38Z

Many articles posted on our site are a collaborative effort, with one person writing the text and another person taking photos.

This brings up the question of how a photographer can enter his or her photos in The Sacramento Press Journalism Open 2011 if the article has the byline of the writer.

To enter your photos from an article with someone else's byline, use this tag:

photosyournameopen2011

So if your name is Joe Schmoe, the appropriate tag would be: photosjoeschmoeopen2011

E-mail support@sacramentopress.com if you have any other questions.

A thank you to our community contributors

2010-12-24T02:14:13Z

We have a lot to be grateful for at The Sacramento Press. We celebrated our two-year anniversary in October, and we expanded our office over the summer. We are most thankful for our community contributors – you take the cake.

Your comments fill in the blanks of questions unanswered. You keep us honest and accurate by pointing out errors. Your thoughts and opinions spark a stream of community dialogue.

Your stories and photos document Sacramento’s history in the making. Your firsthand accounts often break stories like the evacuation of the Roseville Galleria Mall or give us an up-close at, say, a fire in Midtown.

A lot of what comes in is unexpected: a letter written by Thomas Enterprises addressing the foreclosure, video of political sign stealing, photos of an upside down rainbow or a lunar eclipse. We’ve had stories about rescued animals, commentary on a Second Saturday Art Walk shooting and plenty other unique and extraordinary stories.

There are a dozen or so community contributors who we work with on a regular basis. These all-stars take on multiple assignments, many of them working around their full-time jobs. We’ve been happy to work with them as they prepare for a big interview with a celebrity, or give them feedback on their sports coverage or emphasize the importance of meeting deadlines.

As a way of saying thank you to those who have really gone above and beyond in volunteering their time and energy to The Sacramento Press, we created “splash” pages to highlight some of their articles.

Lindol French, a new Sacramento resident, has entertained us with his musings on just about everything. We’ve been there for his first breakup with a Sacramento bar. We got to share his interview with Anthony Bourdain and experience the Neo-Crocker Party. And who could forget his Lindol-isms like this one from when the San Francisco Giants were in the World Series: “This is the kind of torture doled out by a beautiful woman with hot wax and a feather.”

Ron Nabity, a professional photographer, has really brought his love of sports to The Sacramento Press. He has captured stunning action shots, whether it be at a Sacramento Capitols game or of a running back sprinting down the field at a UFL Mountain Lions game. His engaging perspective, both in writing and behind the lens, are a real treat.

Alejandra Gonzalez first approached us with interest of becoming an intern. Her busy school schedule prevented her from committing fully to an internship, but that didn’t stop her from taking on assignments. She has done a wonderful job of highlighting local charities and fundraisers in the area, as well as writing captivating reviews of performers like Shakira and the Eagles.

Bill Burgua first participated on The Sacramento Press as a resident and neighborhood advocate and has since created his own niche. He has become one of our best-known theater reviewers, frequently quoted next to The Sacramento Bee’s critics in e-mail blasts from local theater companies. Bill has worked diligently, doing research and diving headfirst into his assignments. His appreciation of local theater shines through.

Marc McLaughlin has been contributing since August, and has really wowed us with his photos. Marc first introduced us to the Sacred City Derby Girls, with some great shots of mud wrestling and that captured the intensity of the sport. He has taken on some big performers, from Jay Leno to Justin Bieber, and has done telephone interviews for previews (the Judds, Tony Orlando, etc.)

David Alvarez has contributed 89 articles since May of this year! We’ve been lucky to have his coverage of many of the events in Folsom (Sutter Street construction, Ghost Train and Folsom Live!). David has tackled all sorts of stories, from fashion shows to cultural celebrations and festivals to Concerts in the Park. What sets him apart is his interactions with the people involved in the events he covers. As readers, we learn what he has learned as his curiosity leads to a deeper level of reporting.

Barry Wisdom is another fantastic photographer we’ve been lucky to work with. He has worked a lot with Bill Burgua in covering theater, doing many of the previews and showing up to dress rehearsals to get shots of the actors. He’s been there to indulge the eyes at Ginger Elizabeth’s Cupcake Day and showcase the art at Chalk It Up! Sacramento. Barry has a lot of fun doing his articles, and it shows.

Delgreta Brown has highlighted Sacramento’s music scene with her soulful music writing. She really makes you feel as if you’re right there in the audience.

Steven Chea continues to amaze us. He has blossomed from someone who has dabbled in video and photography to a valuable reporter and photojournalist. Steven is able to snap photos and capture both amusing and intense facial expressions. He is noted for taking his camera into the crowd, where the other action is.

Mark Needham is a true Sacramento Kings fan. As the 2010-11 season ramped up, Mark was there at every practice, interviewing players, sharing his predictions for the season and creating a presence for the Kings on The Sacramento Press.

Aaron Davis has his finger on the pulse of Sacramento’s music scene. He’s shared details of the Smashing Pumpkins coming to Sacramento and kept us in the know with his weekly roundup. His writing is fun to read and a pleasure to have on the site.

Ed Fogle has been with The Sacramento Press from the very beginning, chasing down some courageous shots. He has been there on the scene alongside ambulances, yellow tape and blazing fires, getting the photos and sharing them with the rest of us. Ed seems to be everywhere and anywhere the police scanner alerts say the action is.

Steven Bloom is becoming synonymous with the word “comedy” in Sacramento. He has interviewed the likes of Cedric the Entertainer and shared his reviews of Robin Williams, Howie Mandel and Conan O’Brien for those of us who couldn’t make it out to their shows.

Last but definitely not least is Kati Garner. She has taken her camera and breathed life into local media coverage. Her photos are Sacramento. She is there for major political events, for the installation of the Capitol Christmas tree, at the American Idol auditions, Sacramento’s Pride events and everything in between. She was there taking panoramic shots of the Railyards as construction was beginning, and she’s one of the first people we turn to when we hope to get photography. Kati, who has 313 articles to date, is a living camera, leaving a flurry of visual memories in her path.

Take a look at the contributors’ splash pages if you’d like by clicking on their names.

Thanks to everyone above and to everyone we haven’t mentioned. We would be nothing without you.

Sacramento Press Journalism Open returns in January 2011

2010-12-13T05:19:05Z

The first Sacramento Press Journalism Open was a success, and we’re ready to do it all over again! We will have some exciting prizes for our top submissions, and your stories could be chosen for our section pages or newsletter for thousands to read and enjoy.

Becoming a published writer is easier than you think, and we’re here to walk you through the process and get you committing acts of journalism.

I'm David Watts Barton, editor in chief of The Sacramento Press, our area's top hyper-local news website, where we focus on up-close, in-depth coverage of neighborhoods like yours. We aim to spread the traditional habits of good journalism – accuracy, fairness and a diversity of opinion – across the Web. We do it with a mix of professional and amateur writing from around the community.

We're hosting this contest because we want you to join us. The future of journalism may depend on you. Your ideas, your questions and the answers you find will increase the amount of good, local information you and your fellow citizens need to make informed decisions, whether it's about city government or where to go for entertainment. And once you've asked the questions you want answered, we want you to write for The Sacramento Press – because citizens like you are The Sacramento Press!

This contest is a pro-am, where writers of all skill levels and points of view – writers like you – are welcome to write about what interests you.

No story is too small for The Sacramento Press. Do you have a business you love, a community volunteer you admire, a trend that disturbs you, people who give you hope, city employees who drive you crazy? What don’t you understand about City Hall? What do people need to know about your neighborhood? What’s old and admirable? What’s changing?

Any of those questions could lead you to people you don’t know as well as you’d thought, or introduce you to people you didn’t know. And you can share that new-found knowledge with your fellow citizens.

That’s where The Sacramento Press comes in: In addition to providing the platform to publish, we also offer free copy editing and workshops on various aspects of journalism, from interview techniques to photography to ethics. We will do everything we can to help you create the best journalism you can.

And we have cash prizes!

For more on that and on how to enter your work in The Sacramento Press Journalism Open, read on!

To start writing, simply go to the top of this page and click the "Sign Up" button and follow the prompts. You will be asked for information and to sign off on our terms of use agreement. After you are signed up, click the "Write" button at the top of the page and start writing.

We suggest that you write your story in a separate writing application and then, when you've finished and had it copy edited, cut and paste it into our site.

To utilize our free copy editing, simply e-mail your story to journalism@sacramentopress.com, and we'll send the edited version back to you within 24 hours.

For specific questions, you can contact our customer service expert, Casey Kirk at casey@sacramentopress.com. She can help you along in the process.

Important: Every story you enter/post on the site must be tagged "Open2011" in the tag section. Just write those words in the space provided. You should also feel free to add tags to you story in the space provided, especially choosing one of our “section” tags – Culture, Business, Politics and Sports – depending on which one fits the story best.

Hit "Publish," and you have posted your first story on The Sacramento Press. You've also been entered in The Sacramento Press Journalism Open!

CATEGORIES & CRITERIA FOR JUDGING

Entries will be judged by our editorial staff, and that judgment will be subjective. But we will be using criteria for what we think good journalism is. Among those criteria are:

Accuracy: Facts, spelling and quotes should be correct. Double-check everything and use your computer’s spell check.
Writing style: Writing should be clear, concise and enjoyable.
Local focus: Stories should be set in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer or El Dorado counties.
Sourcing: Include a minimum of two living, breathing sources in your story. Quotes from people who know what you’re writing about will always enliven and improve your story. Aim to include different perspectives. Wikipedia, About.com, press releases and book or newspaper excerpts are not acceptable sources.
Impact: Your story will also be judged on how readers react in the conversation on The Sacramento Press, as well as how it is received in the real world.
Mostly though, we’ll judge entries based on how interesting they are, if they’re news or a new approach to an old story, how well-researched they are, the quality of the writing and the quotes.

Stories can be any length, but they must be original nonfiction about the Sacramento area.

Stories may not be re-posts from blogs or other publications, print or online.

Finally, we will give extra weight to high-quality photographs, either accompanying stories or standing on their own with explanatory captions.

RULES

To be eligible, stories must be posted on the site, by you (using your real name), between 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2011 and 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2011. We will be able to help you post either over the phone or in our office during our normal business hours (10 a.m. through 6 p.m. Monday through Friday).

You may enter as many different stories as you like, but please enter/post each story only once! Make sure to tag it "Open2011" in the tag section or it will not be counted as a submission. There is no charge to enter.

PRIZES

First Prize $700
Second Prize $500
Third Prize $200
Five $100 prizes
$350 in prizes awarded to best photos

Entries will be judged by The Sacramento Press editorial department. Decisions will be final. Limit one prize per applicant. Winners will be announced Feb. 14, 2011.

There will be a workshop from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 12 at The Sacramento Press office to answer your questions. Be careful that you're happy with what you've written; once it is published on the site, it cannot be modified.

You must live or work in one of our four home counties listed above, and be at least 18 years of age. High school students under the age of 18 can enter if they have a parental consent form.*

*Parental consent forms must be signed in person by a parent or legal guardian of the minor entering an article. To arrange for this, please e-mail Casey Kirk, casey@sacramentopress.com.

Editorial Note: The rules have been changed to allow for people who work (not just who live) in one of the four counties we cover (Sacramento, Yolo, El Dorado, Placer) to enter the contest.

Award-Winning Screenwriter Opens New Slate of Classes

2010-11-10T02:40:03Z

Have you ever fantasized about writing a screenplay? One that could knock the socks off of viewers and critics alike? In award-winning screenwriter Gary Weinberg’s latest round of classes, you might be able to do just that. Experiencing the “Hollywood” dream in Sacramento has rarely been so attainable since Weinberg has expanded his popular two-class screenwriting series into a three-course comprehensive curriculum. And he’s done so on the heels of winning one of Hollywood’s most prestigious screenwriting competitions.

Continuing the tradition he began at the Tangent Art Gallery back in May, Weinberg will again offer Screenwriting 101: A Four-Hour Introduction to the Art and Business of Screenwriting on November 20th from 1 to 5pm. The class is an overview of the screenwriting process, teaching students the basics of screenplay format and structure, plot and character development, how to write great dialogue, and tips on getting a script seen. As Aaron Cheeseman of Curtis Park says, “I really enjoyed Gary’s workshop. And I’m looking forward to the more in-depth series!” Screenwriting 101 is designed to give students an overview of the screenwriting process that is covered more thoroughly in Weinberg’s second class.

Write Your Screenplay: An Eight-Week Program is that second class. Now in its third installment, Write Your Screenplay begins Tuesday, November 30th from 7:00 to 9:30pm. The goal of this class is for each student to end the course having completed the first draft of his screenplay or teleplay. The class will expand in great detail on the concepts presented in Screenwriting 101. The unique format divides the course in half. The first four classes run consecutively, while the following four classes run every other week. This intentional week off allows students the time in between classes to finish writing their scripts. According to Tonya Nash of Folsom, “Gary's screenwriting class has been a wonderful experience, opening up a whole creative outlet for me that I never really knew existed. I would definitely recommend the class to both novice and seasoned writers... Wow! Now I can say that I actually consider myself a writer!”

Advanced Screenwriting: The Next Step is Weinberg’s newest offering. Part workshop, part critical analysis, Advanced Screenwriting offers the more experienced writer a platform for perfecting his or her screenplay. The class is open to any students who have taken Weinberg’s eight-week course and need some additional, ongoing help or guidance, or who would like to hear some of their scenes read out loud. Students will bring short excerpts from their screenplays for just this purpose, and, as a group, will read aloud, analyze and critique what has been read--all under the careful guidance of Weinberg.

“It’s a drop-in workshop,” explains Weinberg. “People can just come by whenever they’re stuck on an important scene, or want to hear how their dialogue sounds at a pivotal moment. At the very least, it offers an ongoing, supportive environment you can work your craft in. A lot of us, especially with our busy lives, need that extra motivation.”

Advanced Screenwriting: The Next Step begins Saturday, December 4th, and will continue on a weekly basis from that date. In addition to Weinberg’s former students, those who can demonstrate that they are facile in the screenwriting form and have completed a screenplay are also welcome to join in.

As far as Weinberg knows, there is nothing like his slate of classes offered in the Sacramento area. “These classes are really like three separate rungs on a ladder. Each step moves aspiring screenwriters from the early stages of the learning process to the completion of the first draft of their screenplay or teleplay and beyond, as they begin to hone and perfect their work. That’s an ongoing process, and I’m there to help and guide my students all the way through it.”

His students certainly appreciate his mentorship. As John M. of Land Park states, “Gary has been an incredible resource to help turn a concept into a real screenplay. We’re lucky to have someone with his experience.”

In addition to helping shape the work of others, Weinberg has also received recent attention for his own. He recently won the fall 2010 Scriptapalooza International Television Writing Competition for his original television pilot entitled The Asylum. The Asylum is an edgy comedy about a group of misfit salesmen--“closers”--in breakneck pursuit of the American Dream, one phone call at a time.
Winners of the Scriptapalooza competition receive not only cash awards but the chance to have their scripts considered by top Los Angeles and New York literary agents, managers, producers and directors. Scriptapalooza is one of the few Hollywood screenwriting competitions that have catapulted many a writer to fame, including the creator of Rugrats, Scott Gray.

In addition to his Scriptapalooza score, Weinberg has also written scripts for other production companies, including Ninja Nun for Cimero Productions and Magical Planet for Bloom From Within Productions. Weinberg, also an accomplished musician and songwriter, is currently finishing work on a musical entitled Whispers Over Persia for the Fairmount Performing Arts Center in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as a one-man show entitled Free-Falling in America.

Screenwriting 101, A Four-Hour Introduction to the Art and Business of Screenwriting; Write Your Screenplay: An Eight-Week Program; and Advanced Screenwriting: The Next Step are all taught at Tangent Gallery, located at 2900 Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento, on the corner of Franklin and 4th Avenue in Curtis Park.

For more information, including fees, costs and materials required please contact Gary Weinberg via e-mail at cpmaurice@hotmail.com, or call him at (818) 458-6637.

Research and Fact-Checking Workshop Nov. 16

2010-11-04T21:38:16Z

We're very excited for Max Whittaker's photojournalism talk Tuesday, Nov. 9. The RSVP list is full, and we've set up a waiting list.

The last workshop The Sacramento Press will be holding for this year will be Tuesday, Nov. 16, from 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Clare Noonan will teach a workshop on research and fact-checking at The Sacramento Press office.

The credibility of a writer rests on the research and facts put forth in his or her stories. Journalists are held to the highest accountability when it comes to the accuracy of their information. Fact-checking is a very valuable skill to possess, and Noonan will discuss methods for verifying your research and double-checking the facts in your stories.

Noonan has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Kentucky. She worked at The Modesto Bee for more than 20 years as a reporter for business, news, feature and sports while also copy editing. She also worked as assistant news editor and assistant city editor in charge of the Crime and Safety beat during her time at The Bee. She has been a copy editor for The Sacramento Press.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Please RSVP by e-mailing workshops@sacramentopress.com. Space will be limited to 40 people. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Due to the high number of attendees at recent workshops, we will reserve chairs for those who have RSVP'd. Those who show up without RSVP'ing will have to wait until the workshop starts to be seated to make sure that all of those who have RSVP'd are guaranteed a spot.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Writing for Readers

2010-10-07T19:15:40Z

The Sacramento Press office was packed Wednesday night as Dianne Heimer presented the 45 attendees with tips on how to write better leads – the opening sentences in articles.

Before the workshop began, guests enjoyed sandwiches and chips from Dad’s Kitchen.

Heimer has been a professor of journalism at Sacramento City College for 17 years. She has a BA in English and an MA in English/journalism. She is currently a freelance magazine writer.

“I was excited, ’cause this is exactly what I needed help with,” Keilah Woodard said. She has a blog about places to go with kids called Sacramento Side Tracks.

This is the second workshop Sally King has attended at The Sacramento Press. “I really came to see Dianne,” King said. “It never hurts to go over information again.” In May, King got her BA in journalism, and Heimer was one of her professors.

“Make ’em wanna read ... on,” Heimer said. “Hook ’em with a good lead.” She said that you only have three seconds to compel a reader to read an article. “So if there are any photographers in here, you are important, too,” Heimer said.

“Your ideas will be lost if you don't hook ’em,” Heimer said.

Heimer went over the two different types of leads, traditional and nontraditional. A traditional lead would be used in a breaking news story: it gives the who, when and what and tells you the outcome in the first paragraph. An example Heimer gave was, “A little girl was arrested today when she broke into the little bear’s house, police said.”

A nontraditional lead is often creative. It’s also called a delayed lead. “(It) starts to tease you a little bit,” Heimer said.

Heimer gave attendees two handouts. One was about different kinds of feature leads, and the other was from a book written by Tim Harrower, “Inside Reporting: a Practical Guide to the Craft of Journalism.”

Heimer said that to write well you have to read good quality journalism. She also recommended that if you are having trouble writing, to walk away. Come back later and look at it with “fresh eyes.”

At the end, Heimer gave the audience an opportunity to ask questions. There was a question about technical writing, and Heimer recommend reading good technical writing. “It sounds dry to me (cough, cough) maybe it’s supposed to be that way,” Heimer said. The last question was about mini-leads when writing a long article, and Heimer said writers should“try to group like items together.”

“I’m impressed that they got someone who is really qualified and entertaining,” Woodard said. “It was wonderful, super-informative. Basically, I got out of it what I had hoped to get out of it,” she added.

The next workshop will teach how to write reviews of concerts, theater and other performances. David Watts Barton, Editor in Chief of The Sacramento Press, will teach the workshop from 6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 13.

Photos courtesy of Sacramento Press Managing Editor Colleen Belcher.

Writing for Readers Workshop Oct. 6

2010-09-27T20:48:37Z

It's hard to believe it but Oct. 15 marks the second anniversary for The Sacramento Press. We have two great workshops lined up for the month of October that we hope you can attend.

Lede writing is something all journalists struggle with on a regular basis, and our workshop on Oct. 6 will address that process.

Dianne Heimer will teach lede writing and story structure at our "Writing for Readers" workshop. The goal is to help you write in a way that keeps people reading your articles from start to finish. It will be at The Sacramento Press office, from 6:30-8 p.m.

Heimer graduated with a BA in English from San Diego State and an MA in English/journalism from Sacramento State.

She is a freelance magazine writer and worked previously as associate editor for Sacramento Magazine. Heimer also taught English and journalism at Modesto Junior College for three years.

For the past 17 years, she has been a professor of English and journalism at Sacramento City College, where she has served twice as journalism department chair and advises the online college newspaper.

The workshop will be interactive. You can bring articles if you'd like to ask specific questions about your own writing.

The second workshop, on Oct. 13, will teach how to write reviews of shows, concerts and performances. We will send out another invitation for this workshop when it gets closer.

Badges will be awarded to participants for attending the workshop. To become a verified community contributor, please bring a government-issued ID.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

Please RSVP by e-mailing workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

SPOTLIGHT SHINES ON YOUNG AUTHORS/WRITERS AT UPCOMING CAPITOL CITY YOUNG WRITERS MEET THE AUTHOR EVENT

2010-08-26T17:06:34Z

SACRAMENTO, CA (Sept 11) – The publishing world always seeks new, young authors, songwriters, poets and journalists. On Sept 11, young writers, in grades 6-12, from throughout Sacramento, surrounding counties and potentially the bay area (if they’d like to make the drive) will gather with published authors, book industry professionals, and university professors at an innovative workshop specifically designed to help young writers fulfill their dreams and launch their careers.

Capitol City Young Writers Writers “Meet the Author” workshop takes place Saturday, September 11 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at The Sacramento Bee’s small auditorium, 2131 Q St., in Sacramento, CA. Aspiring young writers and avid readers from grades 6 thru 12, will mingle with peers, published authors and book industry professionals on a morning featuring several guest speakers and a writing workshops. (www.capitolcityyoungwriters.org/meetings)

The Sept 11, “Meet the Author” event will feature writing for the young reader. Guest speakers will include Dawn Lairamore and Rachel Dillon

DAWN LAIRAMORE

Dawn’s first novel, Ivy’s Ever After, published by Holiday House in May 2010, is a middle-grade fractured fairy tale about a princess and a dragon who team up against the handsome prince. Visit www.IvysEverAfter. com to read Chapter 1.
Dawn earned a B.A. in English from the University of California, Davis. She has worked as an editorial assistant for a small publishing house, as a technical writer for a giant software conglomerate, and currently spends her days as a civil litigation paralegal. From time to time, she enjoys leaving the real world behind and hanging out in kingdoms of long ago and far away.

RACHEL DILLON
Rachel graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1994, with a Bachelor of Science in Art, emphasizing in Graphic Design. Rachel is the author and artist of a nonfiction children's book, "Through Endangered Eyes - a poetic journey into the wild." It was published by Windward Publishing in 2009. Rachel combined her passion for animals, teaching children, and creative expression, to write and illustrate her first book. Rachel is currently working on her second endangered species book with Windward Publishing, "Through Desert Eyes." Rachel is a signature member of Artists for Conservation.

WORKSHOP: WRITING THAT CONNECTS WITH CHILDREN by RACHEL DILLON
Learn how to write stories and poems that keep a child interested, inspire them to ask questions, and make them want to hear it again. The focus will be writing for children 4-7 years old. Learn where children are developmentally at that age to help you determine the type of messages they understand. We will also discuss readability levels, and the power of repetition.

Membership and attendance for the five annual “Meet the Author” events are free. Space permitting, parents of the young writers are welcome to attend. Educators are also invited. Become a member via the website or at the door on the day of the event.

Capitol City Young Writers is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to the education and inspiration of aspiring writers. The goal of the organization is to educate today’s youth on the art and craft of writing, a skill necessary for success in any field of work. Members will gain exposure in the genres of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, screenplay and more as they meet professionals in the industry ranging from published authors, editors, educators, journalists, songwriters and broadcasters. Through this exposure, young writers will discover the many different career paths in the world of writing. Opportunities will be presented for writers to improve their own writing by participating in readings, workshops, writing contests and conferences. Leadership and internship opportunities will also be available.

The sponsor for Capitol City Young Writers meeting space is The Sacramento Bee. If you would like to be a sponsor and support the organization, please contact Verna Dreisbach at verna@capitolcityyoungwriters.org.

For more information, call 877-816-7659, 916-804-5016, or go to www.capitolcityyoungwriters.org

Sports Writing Workshop Aug. 25 6:30 - 8 p.m.

2010-08-18T22:36:42Z

It's not too late to attend the "Journalism Ethics" workshop tonight. It's at our newly remodeled Sacramento Press office, from 6:30-8 p.m.

Molly Dugan, an assistant professor of journalism and communication studies at California State University, Sacramento, will teach the workshop.

Our second workshop for the month will hopefully transform sports fans into sports writers. Jimmy Spencer, founding editor of PublicCEO.com, will lead the "Sports Writing" workshop Aug. 25 from 6:30-8 p.m.

Spencer has a B.A. in journalism from California State University, Sacramento. He has worked for The Sacramento Bee, NBC Sports, and the Sacramento River Cats. Spencer coaches high school basketball in the Sacramento area and writes for NBA.com.

Attendees will learn about professionalism and ethics in sports writing, how to get the best quotes, how to come up with a lede and keys to getting published. All sports writing-related questions are welcome at this interactive workshop.

Badges will be awarded to participants for each workshop they attend. Writers who show up can also become verified community contributors.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107, in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Eight Week Screenwriting Class Starts New Session

2010-08-05T06:36:33Z

   As the first generation of novice Sacramento screenwriters are about to “graduate” from the rigorous twelve-week training intensive, a second session is about to begin. From August 24th through November 9th, Los Angeles writer-actor-producer Gary Weinberg will once again guide Sacramento students through the ins and outs of the art of screenwriting in his class called Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive. Students who take the class will learn the craft and the business of screenwriting, with an emphasis on how these manifest in the current Los Angeles film and television industry.
   Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive will begin with the basic elements of narrative, and then move on to story structure, screenplay and teleplay formatting, and how to write great dialogue and develop strong characters. Weinberg will also present different options that students have for getting their work seen and produced, and will discuss the “unwritten” rules that can help, or hinder, their screenwriting efforts.
   The goal by the end of Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive is for each student to have a completed screenplay. The class runs four consecutive weeks from August 24th through September 14nd, and then every other week until November 9th. This format affords students time to actually write a finished screenplay or teleplay.
   As Weinberg says, “I know what it’s like. As busy, creative people, our lives can be extremely hectic. This is why I have designated the ‘off Thursdays’ in the second half of the class as ‘writing nights.’ Students are not required to show up in class, explicitly so they can spend the evening writing their screenplays instead.”
   And Weinberg is there to help them along the way. “I will be available for students
--in person, by phone, and by email--to help with any questions or challenges they might encounter as they transform their ideas into finished scripts. They won’t be writing alone.”
   It all helps, as many of Weinberg’s current students attest. Michelle Giles of Elk Grove says, “What has been a wild dream until now, appears possible with this class. Gary wraps years of experience in just a few weeks.” Kristen Mackey of Roseville agrees. “The class gave me so much insight…especially in how much I have to learn. But now I’m ready.” Lori Kane of Rancho Cordova was equally effusive. “Gary’s class is extremely informative, fun and creative. I would encourage anyone--from beginner to an expert--to take the class.”
   Co-founder of the film production company Generation Next Media, LLC, Weinberg is an actor, writer, producer and composer. As a screenwriter, Weinberg’s commissioned scripts include Ninja Nun for Cimero Productions and Magical Planet for Bloom From Within. He wrote and directed a pilot for the episodic TV series The Asylum, currently in pre-production as a web series. For Alpine Pictures, Weinberg co-produced the comedy LA Twister, was managing partner for the teen comedy, Daze of Summer, and associate producer on their current film Dorothy of Oz with Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi. A member of Screen Actors Guild, Weinberg has been seen in national commercials, independent films, network TV, classical and contemporary theatre, concerts, and more. Television and film credits include Dick Wolfe’s Arrest and Trial, and feature films Miriam and My Sweet Suicide. Weinberg was a member of the improv troupe The Lost Marbles, which played regularly at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. He performed in numerous northern and southern California venues such as Wolfpack Theatre Company and Write Act Repertory in Hollywood, and Sacramento Theatre Company and Garbeau Dinner Theatre in Sacramento.
   Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive will be offered Tuesday nights from August 24th through November 9th at the Tangent Art Gallery, 2900 Franklin Blvd in Curtis Park, adjacent to Coffee Garden, at the corner of 4th Avenue and Franklin Blvd. Classes will run 7-9:30 pm.
   For information on Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive please contact Gary Weinberg of Generation Next Media at (818) 458-6637 or at cpmaurice@hotmail.com. For more information on Generation Next Media, LLC, please visit www.GenerationNextMedia.org.

Literature Festival Draws Greater Sacramento Writers, Readers

2010-08-03T06:20:14Z

Conference rooms filled to fire capacity were a sign of the success of the first Northern California Storybook and Literature Festival held at the Maidu Community Center and Maidu Branch Library in Roseville on Saturday. The festival brought together local published and aspiring authors, writing groups and literary agents as well as book lovers young and old.

The brainchild of event coordinator and library specialist Jamie Finley of the Roseville Library, the project began with the desire among library staff to host local authors. “It seemed like a natural thing to do - bring the community in to listen and meet someone who has published a work that may be found within our walls,” Finley wrote in an e-mail.

The scope of the idea widened to a literature festival when Finley received a $5,000 California State Library Grant. Finley was invited to apply for the grant because of her participation in the 2009 Eureka! Leadership Institute for future library leaders.

Unlike others of its kind, the festival was free for featured authors and the public.

“Jamie Finely had a great vision from the beginning for this community literary event,” Margie Yee Webb, president of the Sacramento Branch of the California Writers Club wrote in an e-mail.

Authors interested in promoting their work were able to apply to be featured at the festival. Fifty authors were selected based on the quality and availability of their work. Most were residents of the greater Sacramento area, but some were from the Bay Area and Central Valley, Finley said.

“The festival was very important for local authors from the greater Sacramento region, as well as authors from the SF Bay Area who participated, in that it provided a venue for visibility and recognition of the authors and their work,” Yee Webb wrote. “Additionally, the festival provided them with an opportunity to connect with other authors and groups.”

Finley modeled the festival schedule after the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books but added activities for children. Panel topics included fiction, poetry, historical inspiration, writing for women, suspense/thrillers, amateur detectives, professional detectives, writing for teens, healthy living, writing for children, writers groups, research and writing, and Sacramento story hour.

Children’s activities included storytelling, drama and book-inspired crafts. Writers also had an opportunity to vet their work in mini workshops.

Aspiring writers were reminded of the business aspect of writing in two workshops on crafting a compelling query letter and submitting a manuscript to a literary agent.

“Professionalism is just as important as good writing,” said literary agent Verna Dreisbach of Dreisbach Literary Management in El Dorado Hills. Dreisbach and fellow literary agent Lindsey Clemons of the Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency in San Francisco gave the query letter writing workshop.

Dreisbach receives many queries from writers “rushing through the process, hoping to get published, get a large advance and make a career out of writing,” she wrote in an e-mail. “That’s just not realistic. Many career writers work really, really hard for very little financial gain.”

Featured author Kevin Kurtz described his discouraging experience with trying to find a publisher for his "tween" novel "Mortimer and the Powerful Sword."

“I faced the rejection letters,” he said. “After two years, I thought, ‘I just want to get this out in print.’ ”

Knowing his book would benefit from being released around the epic fantasy adventure movie "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in 2005, Kurtz said he decided not to wait to find a publisher. He self-published "Mortimer" in 2006 and a sequel, "A Kingdom Divided," in 2007.

Kurtz maintains a day job as a copy machine salesman and said he never intended to make a career out of writing. His passion is reading aloud to groups of middle-schoolers, particularly those in disadvantaged areas.

“You’ve got 120 kids in [an auditorium] that are sitting on the edge of their seats,” Kurtz explained. “The goal is to get them to fall out of their seats when I do the dragon voice.”

Dreisbach described passion for storytelling as a hallmark of “real writers.”

“Real writers have stacks of manuscripts, some they vow they will never show a soul because they know it was part of their learning curve. They realize that one story, certain characters, etc., can only teach them so much and they move on. While an agent is pitching one of their novels, they are writing another and not hanging their soul on whether or not that manuscript gets picked up by a publisher because they’ve got more, and they are constantly improving upon their craft,” Dreisbach said.

Festival attendee and award-winning published author Lise Baker was attacking the publishing process at the festival.

In just an hour, she had already pitched three prospective novels to literary agents. She also had reconnected with people she knew 10 years ago. Baker’s first novel, The Losers’ Club, was published in 2000.

“People are saying, ‘E-mail me. I’ll hook you up with a good agent,’ ” she said.

Baker said she has two jobs, one as a private investigator and one as a writer. The main character in "The Losers’ Club" is a private investigator.

Unlike Kurtz and Baker, featured author Nan Mahon has made a full-time living out of writing. Mahon was a journalist for 20 years, including as a staff writer for the Elk Grove Citizen and contract writer for The Sacramento Bee. She wrote her first novel, murder mystery "Junkyard Blues," in 2006 and finds that fiction writing, as opposed to newspaper writing, suits her current lifestyle.

Mahon’s second novel, "Blind Buddy and Mojo’s Blues Band," was released this year and is available on Kindle.

“Younger people are moving more and more to electronic [media], so I think Kindle will pick up speed as it goes along,” Mahon said. “You can download five books if you’re going on a trip.”

Although Kindle sales are not as lucrative as traditional sales, she said they are better than not selling at all. Mahon receives only a fraction of the $8 Kindle download fee. She does not yet have statistics on her Kindle sales, but at least one reader told her in an e-mail that he bought the Kindle version of her book.

“Improve your Writing” workshop aids community members

2010-07-22T21:02:15Z

Tuesday night, The Sacramento Press office was the place to be if you wanted to improve your writing.

Clare Noonan—who has more than 20 years’ experience working as a reporter and copy editor for The Modesto Bee and The Sacramento Press—presented to a crowd of roughly 50 people to “Improve Your Writing and Self-Editing.”

The interactive workshop focused on tips for self-editing and common mistakes that Noonan found when reading copy.

“Get rid of the clunk,” she said.

She suggested to “tighten up” writing by getting rid of saying things twice. For example, the phrase “massive aircraft carrier” does not need the word massive, since an aircraft carrier is large enough already.

On the handout passed out to participants for concise writing, Noonan said to make your verbs count, and most importantly, use the active voice instead of the passive. For example: Instead of writing “was able to jump out” write “jumped out.”

She also said to eliminate the obvious. Phrases such as “Graduated college from Chico State” does not need the word college since we know Chico State is a college.

Noonan recommended that writers become familiar with the Associated Press Stylebook — a book she frequently checks for accuracy when editing.

“If you’re a writer, the AP Stylebook is the bomb,” she said.

Participants went through an already-edited article to see how edits are made, and what phrases or words can be eliminated to “tighten up” writing.

“As an editor, my main thing is to do no harm to any of your stories, believe it or not,” she said.

She suggested that all writers read their work out loud before they submit it, even if it means letting your coworkers think you’re crazy talking to yourself.

One question cleared up by Noonan from a workshop participant was the rule of numbers: from one to nine, write it out. Numbers 10 and above should be figures.

Other useful tips included: Don’t use Wikipedia as a source (ever), don’t begin sentences with a clause, avoid slang and alliteration, give full names even if it may seem obvious and use transition between quotes.

“We’re all in love with our writing,” Noonan said. “But what you think is important in a story, sometimes really isn’t.”

Photos by Colleen Belcher

How do I fix an error in my story?

2010-07-19T19:37:51Z

Once you publish your story, it’s final, so we encourage you to save it as a draft or view it as a preview before hitting the publish button to make sure you haven’t overlooked any typos or mistakes.

That said, we all make mistakes, and we want your published work looking its best.

If you ever catch a spelling error, typo or spacing issue, send an e-mail to support@sacramentopress.com and we can fix it.

We also offer free copy editing. Send your story to journalism@sacramentopress.com, and we’ll get it edited and back to you within 24 hours.

July 21 Improve Your Writing with Self Editing Workshop

2010-07-12T23:35:10Z

The Sacramento Press office is almost done with its remodel. Our first workshop in the new space will be Wednesday, July 21, from 6:30 - 8 p.m. It is titled "Improve Your Writing with Self Editing."

The workshop will teach writers how to remove unnecessary words that clutter writing and create more concise writing that is easier for readers to understand.

Clare Noonan will teach the interactive workshop.

Noonan has worked for The Sacramento Press since September, where she edits copy and designs pages.

Attending this workshop will give you the opportunity to become a verified community contributor and receive a badge.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take the light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

RSVP by e-mailing workshops@sacramentopress.com. If you RSVP and decide later not to attend, please send us an e-mail to notify us that you will not be coming so we can have an accurate head count

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Screenwriting class returns to Sacramento on July 17th

2010-06-30T23:16:21Z

Nine students who entered the doors of Curtis Park's Tangent Art Gallery on May 11th will be leaving with something more than a stimulating experience in a room full of eclectic art. They'll be leaving with a ninety-to-one-hundred-ten page document tucked under their arms, and a clear vision of what this sheaf of paper could look like on a big screen.

These nine students are in the process of completing their first full-length screenplay or teleplay, and for every one of them, this journey is the culmination of years of dreaming a story inside them, and longing to get it onto paper.

The class that started it all is called Screenwriting 101, an introduction to the screenwriting process. Screenwriting 101 was the launching pad for a slate of classes on the art and business of screenwriting that began with a three-hour introductory class and continued with an eight-class program entitled Screenwriting: An Eight-Week Intensive. With the eight-week program nearing it’s end, a new cycle is about to begin.

The second offering of Screenwriting 101 will be held on Saturday, July 17th from 1-4:30 pm. It’s being taught by transplanted Los Angeles screenwriter and actor Gary Weinberg. A member of the Screen Actors Guild, Weinberg has accomplished the rare feat of selling screenplays in the entertainment industry, an accomplishment he’d like to share with his fellow Sacramentans.

Weinberg lived in Sacramento from 1988 through 1998. A regular on the stages at Garbeau's Dinner Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Company, Theatre El Dorado, Woodland Opera House, and others, Weinberg, along with former American River College theatre arts instructor and director Melanie Smith and Sacramentan Mark Sage, went on to found film production company Generation Next Media, LLC. Since its inception, Generation Next Media has developed a variety of entertainment projects, including documentaries, live action and animated feature films, episodic television, and live theatre.

In 1998 Weinberg and Smith, who are married, moved to Los Angeles, where Weinberg performed in Equity-waiver theatre, got his SAG card, appeared in television, independent films and national commercials, and co-produced movies for Alpine Pictures. He also wrote. Everything from TV pilots to full-length feature films. Now that he’s back, he is eager to communicate what he’s learned about the idiosyncrasies of screenwriting and the ups and downs of the business with local writers.

“One of the first things I noticed after I got back a few months ago,” says Weinberg, “was the amount of people in Sacramento who know how to write. There’s a keen interest here, too, in exploring different styles. I am committed and honored to be a contributing member of the Sacramento writing and film community.”

Screenwriting 101, a three-and-a-half hour workshop, guides students through basic screenplay formatting and structure, plot and character development, how to write great dialogue, and how to get a script seen. It’s a class that is designed to give students an overview of the screenwriting process that will be covered more thoroughly in a follow-up eight-week program.

“If you aren’t able to take the eight-week class,” says Weinberg, “you can still get a solid understanding of what it is to write a screenplay, just from Screenwriting 101. If you are clueless as to how to begin, once you’ve taken the class you’ll not only have a clue, you’ll have a good head start. And for someone with a little more experience--for someone who’s looking for that next step to take in his or her writing process--this class will reveal some of the unwritten rules that are so necessary to know before you dive into the Hollywood arena, the rules that the vast majority of hopeful screenwriters know nothing about.”

Students agree. As Marsha Briggs of Roseville says, “This is a fantastic class! I’ve never had so much fun learning so much. The hours went by way too fast!”

Some students who take Screenwriting 101 are just curious about the process of writing a script for film. Others have had an idea inside them for some time that has been aching to get out. Linda Middlesworth of Curtis Park is one of the latter. A local expert on plant-based diets and an advocate for the humane treatment of animals, Middlesworth has wanted to write and produce a film about these subjects for years. Screenwriting 101 gave her the answers--and the focus--that she needed. “I loved finding out how to structure a screenplay, and how to make characters come alive. I also got tips on how to help my screenplay get seen.”

The “getting it seen” aspect is huge in screenwriting. It’s a two-part process: first you write the script, and then you work to get it into the hands of the people who can make the film. As Weinberg says, “Unlike a novel, the writing of a screenplay is precipitously dependent upon others. The goal for every screenplay is to ultimately become a movie. The script, as a piece of art, cannot, stand alone.”

And although neither Screenwriting 101 nor the follow-up program is entirely devoted to getting the script seen, this aspect is an inherent part of both classes. Students are learning how to write a “spec script”--an unsolicited screenplay that’s dependent upon the blessings of a network or film company story analyst to move it up the ladder towards production. And if you want the story analyst to like it, the screenplay has to be written in a certain way.

“Format is crucial,” Weinberg explains. “Story analysts can smell amateur writing in the first half-page of a screenplay. They read so many bad scripts, just having yours look right, having it follow basic formatting rules, will ensure that the analyst gets through the first ten pages. Then the pull of your story will take over.”

The next step after Screenwriting 101 is to register for the follow-up class, in which students produce that ninety-to-one-hundred-ten page screenplay at the end of eight weeks of production.

Kristen Mackey of Roseville did just that. She took Screenwriting 101, and is hard at work on her screenplay in the follow-up class. “Screenwriting 101 gave me so much insight,” Mackey says, “especially in how much I had to learn. But it also gave me a place to start! Now that I’m in the second class, I’ve gotten the direction and encouragement in my writing that I needed. I’m looking at the movie industry in a whole new light.”

Screenwriting 101 will be offered on Saturday, July 17th at the Tangent Art Gallery at 2904 Franklin Blvd in Sacramento. The Tangent Art Gallery is adjacent to Coffee Garden in Curtis Park, which allows student writers the opportunity to enliven their brains with caffeine and their souls with fine art as they learn the craft and business of screenwriting.

To register for Screenwriting 101, or for more information, contact Gary Weinberg of Generation Next Media at (818) 458-6637 or at cpmaurice@hotmail.com. To visit Generation Next Media, LLC, go to www.GenerationNextMedia.org.

Big turnout at Sac Press' Interviewing Techniques Workshop

2010-05-27T05:14:22Z

Around twenty-five eager writers gathered at 5th and H Cafe Wednesday night for Sacramento Press' Interviewing Techniques Workshop. The audience included Sacramento Press community contributors and interns as well as career writers looking to strengthen their interviewing skills. Pizza and pasta salad were provided as well as an array of beverages.

The event was taught by Sacramento City College English and journalism professor Doug Herndon. Herndon used a metaphor to emphasize the role of a good interview in the process of writing a story:

"(Writing a story) is like cooking a meal. It's all in the ingredients."

The workshop began with the audience jotting down a few questions which they then used to interview a partner. Herndon went through the interviewing process, from making the first phone call to asking the tough questions. He also discussed general details of interviewing including what to wear and the importance of bringing extra supplies, such as pens or batteries.

While Herndon gave many interviewing tips, he warned against long and leading questions.

"You never want to put words in anybody's mouth," Herndon said.

The night wrapped up with questions from the audience on topics such as appropriate word count and accessibility of public records.

Photos by Colleen Belcher

May 26 Interviewing Techniques Workshop

2010-05-26T03:43:49Z

We would like to invite you to our second workshop of the month - an interviewing techniques workshop at The Sacramento Press office from 6:30 - 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 26.

The interview is one of the most important parts of a story. Which questions to ask, how much time you'll need and whether to take notes or use a tape recorder are all key to conducting a successful interview and writing a compelling story.

We are happy to have Doug Herndon teach the workshop. Herndon is an English and journalism professor at Sacramento City College and adviser to the college's newspaper, The Express.

He has been a professional writer for more than 15 years and has worked for Sacramento Magazine, The Sacramento News & Review and The Sacramento Bee.

Come learn the skills and preparations necessary for different scenarios - e-mail interviews, phone interviews and face-to-face interviews. Bring any questions you may have about interviewing or journalism.

Attending this workshop will give you the opportunity to become a verified community contributor and receive the Interviewing Techniques Workshop badge.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks.

If you are facing Starbucks, go around the building to the left, and you'll see our Sac Press sign out front.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

RSVP by e-mailing workshops@sacramentopress.com.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Los Angeles writer teaches screenwriting in Sacramento

2010-05-04T20:08:54Z

On May 11th, the doors of Curtis Park's eclectic Tangent Art Gallery will open to admit Sacramentans who would like to explore the world of professional screenwriting. From May 11th through July 27th, Los Angeles writer-actor-producer Gary Weinberg will guide Sacramento students through the ins and outs of the art of screenwriting in his class entitled "Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive." Students who take the class will learn the craft and business of screenwriting, with an emphasis on how these manifest in the current Los Angeles film and television industry.
"Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive" will begin with the basic elements of narrative, and then move to story structure, screenplay and teleplay formatting. Weinberg, a SAG actor, will elucidate his talents for constructing great dialogue and strong, nuanced characters. As a writer who's accomplished the rare feat of selling screenplays in the entertainment industry, Weinberg will be sharing tips on the business of screenwriting, too.

     "I appreciate the fact that everyone in my class most likely connects to screenplays via the aesthetic and the emotional. But, like stage plays, screenplays don't assume the second half of their lives until they're seen." With that in mind, Weinberg will also present different options that students have for getting their work seen and produced, and will discuss the 'unwritten' rules that help or hinder the screenwriter's efforts on that behalf.
     The goal by the end of "Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive" is for each student to have a completed screenplay. To help make this possible, the class will be taught for four consecutive weeks from May through June, and then every other week until July 27th. This format will afford students time, from June through July, to actually write a finished screenplay or teleplay.
     As Weinberg says, “I know what it’s like. As busy, creative people, our lives can be hectic. This is why I have designated the 'off Tuesdays' in the second half of the class as 'writing nights.' Students are not required to show up in class so that they can spend the evening writing their screenplays instead.”
     And Weinberg will be there to help them along the way. “I will be available for students--in person, by phone, and by email--to help with any questions or challenges they might encounter as they transform their ideas into finished scripts. They won’t be writing alone.”
     Weinberg lived in Sacramento from 1988 through 1998. During that time he was a regular on the stages at theatres such as Garbeau's Dinner Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Company, Theatre El Dorado, Woodland Opera House, and others. Along with former American River College theatre arts instructor and stage director Melanie Smith and Sacramentan Mark Sage, Weinberg co-founded the film production company Generation Next Media, LLC.  Since its inception, Generation Next Media has developed a wide variety of entertainment projects, including documentaries, live action and animated feature films, episodic television, and live theatre.

     Weinberg is an actor, writer, producer and composer. As a screenwriter, his commissioned scripts include "Ninja Nun" for Cimero Productions and "Magical Planet" for Bloom From Within. He wrote and directed a pilot for the episodic TV series "The Asylum," currently in pre-production as a web series. For Alpine Pictures, Weinberg co-produced the comedy "LA Twister," and was managing partner for the teen comedy, "Daze of Summer," and associate producer of their current film "Dorothy of Oz," starring Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi. A member of Screen Actors Guild, Weinberg has been seen in national commercials, independent films, network TV, classical and contemporary theatre, and concerts. His television and film credits include Dick Wolfe’s "Arrest and Trial," and the feature films "Miriam," "My Sweet Suicide," and "LA Twister." Weinberg was a member of the improv troupe, Lost Marbles, which performed regularly at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
     "Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive" will be offered May 11th through July 27th on Tuesday nights at the Tangent Art Gallery at 2904 Franklin Blvd in Sacramento. The Tangent Art Gallery is adjacent to Coffee Garden in Curtis Park, which allows student writers the opportunity to enliven their brains with caffeine and their souls with fine art as they are learning the craft and business of screenwriting. Each class will run 7-9 pm.
     Registration is $200 if paid on or before May 11th. Students may also pay in installments, submitting $125 on May 11th and $125 on the fifth class of the session.
       Anyone who would like information on "Screenwriting: An Eight Week Intensive" can contact Gary Weinberg of Generation Next Media at (818) 458-6637 or at cpmaurice@hotmail.com. People who would like information on Generation Next Media, LLC are welcome to visit the film production company at www.GenerationNextMedia.org.

Freelance writers panel photo essay April 26

2010-04-28T20:04:12Z

Here are some photos of the panel from Monday night at the Sutter Square Galleria. The Sacramento Press and the UC Davis Extension Center collaborated to present "Making it as a Writer: How to Succeed in Challenging Times."

More than 30 people showed up to hear insights from panelists JT Long, Sacramento-based freelance journalist; Peter Grandbois, published author and California State University, Sacramento, creative writing professor; Cinamon Vann, a freelance writer and editor specializing in environmental topics; Kate Washington, contributing writer for Sactown magazine and a freelance food and travel writer; Jennifer Basye Sander, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published and founder of Write By The Lake Retreats.

Janna Marlies Santoro, Sacramento writer, professor and editor, moderated the panel, asking questions about how each panelist defined success as a writer, what strategies they use for accomplishing success and what challenges the panelists have faced recently due to the economic down turn and how they managed them.

The audience was able to ask questions ranging from what a typical day was like to how much money they charge per word or per project.

The Sacramento Press has another panel planned for June so stay tuned for more information.

Sacramento's Harvey Milk Day Student Essay/Art Contest

2010-04-03T15:16:23Z

Equality Action Now and Contest Sponsor, Barnes & Noble at Arden Fair is hosting an essay and art contest to commemorate California’s first Harvey Milk Day, Saturday May 22, 2010.

Harvey Milk Day was enacted and signed into law last October by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Under the measure, May 22 is officially Harvey Milk Day in California, coinciding with Milk's birthday. While it is not a state holiday, schools are encouraged to hold lessons "remembering the life of Harvey Milk, recognizing his accomplishments and familiarizing pupils with the contributions he made to this state".

Equality Action Now is a local grassroots civil rights organization and is leading the way in organizing Sacramento’s Harvey Milk Day events. Note: Equality Action Now is working on forming a curriculum for school-aged children and teens. For more information check out http://www.EqualityActionNow.

Harvey Milk Day Student Essay/Art Contest Rules:

1. The Harvey Milk Day Student Essay/Art contest is open to the following age-groups (as of May 22, 2010):
a. 6 and under (Art Contest)
b. 7 – 12 yrs old (Art Contest)
c. 13 – 14 yrs old (Essay contest)
d. 15 – 18 yrs old (Essay contest)

2. The Harvey Milk Day Student Essay/Art Contest is open to students in the Sacramento Capitol Region, which includes those who reside in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba Counties.

3. Limit one entry per person.

4. Essay and artwork must be the original, unpublished work of the student.

5. Essays are limited to 250-300 words and written in English. Artwork is limited to 8 ½ x 11. Artwork may be in crayon, pencil, color pencil, ink, or charcoal mediums.

6. Entries will become the property of the Sponsor (Equality Action Now), so be sure to keep a copy for your records.

7. All entries must include a title page as the first page of the submitted document or artwork. This title page must contain the writer/artist name, email address, home phone or cell, address (street, city, state, zip), county of residence, school name and parents name and signature if writer/artist is under the age of 18. Be certain that no name or identifying information appears on the essay or artwork itself.

8. The contest deadline for getting in all submissions is May 10, 2010.

9. All submissions along with the title page must be submitted by Postal mail. Mail entries to: Harvey Milk Essay/Art Contest – 410 Alhambra Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95816.

10. Winners will be selected from eligible entries received. Entries that do not meet submission guidelines will be automatically disqualified. Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any person it believes has intentionally violated these official rules.

11. Essays will be judged by individuals chosen by the Sponsor, whose decisions are final. In the event of a tie, the Harvey Milk Day Organizing Committee Chairperson will cast the deciding vote.

12. All prizes will be awarded.

13. Winners will be notified by email or phone.

14. Entry and acceptance of prize constitutes permission to use each winner’s name, prizes won, hometown and likeness for advertising and promotional purposes without further notice or compensation, except where prohibited by law.

15. Winners will be publicly announced Wednesday May 19, 2010 at the Crest Theater just before the showing of “MILK”. Winners will also be invited to personally present their winning essay or artwork during the Harvey Milk Day Rally at the State Capitol Saturday, May 22, 2010. Winning essays and artwork will be published in Outword Magazine and posted on the Harvey Milk Day web site. All submitted essays and artwork may be chosen for display at the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center.

16. Students in families of the judges are not eligible to participate in this contest.

17. Sponsor is not responsible for any typographical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the contest or in the announcement of the prizes.

18. Entries must meet all contest requirements. Consideration will be given to presentation, content, structure, grammar, spelling, clarity and originality of response.

19. Prizes: There will be one package of prizes for each age group awarded. (Note: Additional prizes may be awarded as new sponsors sign on.)

a. Age 6 and under: Prize package from Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Arden Fair - Illustrated book The Harvey Milk Story by Kari Krakow - Free tickets to all Harvey Milk Day events.
b. Age 7-12: Prize package from Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Arden Fair - Illustrated book The Harvey Milk Story by Kari Krakow - Free tickets to all Harvey Milk Day events.
c. Age 13-14: Prize package from Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Arden Fair - Book The Mayor of Castro Street: the Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts - Free tickets to all Harvey Milk Day events.
d. Age 15-18: Prize package from Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Arden Fair - Book The Mayor of Castro Street: the Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts - Free tickets to all Harvey Milk Day events.

20. By entering, entrants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decision of the judges and the Sponsor, which will be binding and final in all respects.

Essay statement: Many people consider Harvey Milk a hero. People consider him a hero for several reasons, but not for as much as who he was but what he did for so many people he helped during the time he was alive. After learning about Harvey Milk…

If Harvey Milk was alive today, whom would he be helping, what would he be doing and why would he have chosen this person or persons to help? Artwork should also reflect on this question.

When in doubt, fact-check it out - Sac Press holds research and fact-checking workshop

2010-03-24T06:16:19Z

Professor Dianne Heimer from the Sacramento City College Journalism Department spoke about the simple steps that can be taken to make sure that you are getting the right information in stories at Tuesday's researching and fact-checking workshop held at The Sacramento Press.

This important topic focused on helping writers learn how to recognize a reliable source and when to second-guess their facts. Heimer stressed the importance of the accuracy of facts and credibility, saying, "Factual inaccuracy in your writing can discredit your reputation and your publication's reputation."

She was able to talk about this further by demonstrating the importance of getting primary sources, such as an interview with someone directly involved, to enhance accuracy. Secondary sources are also good for getting information, but with the Internet so easily accessible, it is necessary to look at where the information is coming from.

"An easy trick is to look at the tail end of a web address' URL," she said. "Sites ending in .edu, .org and .gov are more credible."

Heimer stressed that while secondary sources can be a great asset, it is important to fact-check and still get firsthand accounts when possible.

The workshop went on to focus on the importance of fact-checking. She said the best way to ensure accuracy is to double-check names, phone numbers, addresses, URL's, dates and times, any numbers and your primary and secondary sources against themselves. It is simple mistakes in these areas that can easily discredit your paper.

Her key point of the night was, "When in doubt, fact-check it out."

Audience members, many of whom came to the workshop to improve their writing, actively participated, helping bring many of the more complicated issues with fact accuracy to light.

She also made sure to point out that a great way to find helpful information for articles is through the Internet Public Library 2 at www.ipl.org.

Overall, the night was full of constructive information on how to improve researching techniques.

This workshop is only one of many that The Sacramento Press puts on each month to help local community members who are interested in writing community-based content gain knowledge.

Those interested in attending future workshops should sign up as a user on the site. Users are sent e-mail invitations for upcoming workshops.

Photos by Colleen Belcher

Got a Story? Learn to Write a Short Script and Make a Movie

2010-03-21T09:51:14Z

ACCESS SACRAMENTO presents
New Scriptwriting Class - PCS 2010
By popular demand, we now offer special a scriptwriting class (three Saturdays, 10am - 2pm) on writing "short form" film scripts. Polish your PCS entry or take the short course to further your film writing skills. Limited enrollment - $50 fee per session. Register in advance at Access Sacramento by calling (916) 456-8600 "0" with a credit card. Need not be an Access Sacramento member or Sacramento County resident to sign-up for this class. Sign-up early - class will fill fast. Matt is in great demand as a script writing teacher. The “Place Called Sacramento” script entry deadline is Monday, April 19th, at noon.

Saturdays - April 3, 10, & 17
10 AM-2 PM Nevada City Room

Coloma Center

The rules of conflict- Dramatic structure and beats- Proper screenplay format -

Creating interesting characters- Writing good dialogue- Mastering the short form

Writing means rewriting- Upping the dramatic stakes- "Eight pages, three acts"

Biography
Matt Perry received an MFA in filmmaking from New York University's graduate school of film and is the author of several screenplays. Formerly the A/V Manager for an Auburn, California multimedia company he now runs his own business and teaches Screenwriting and Film Studies at Cosumnes River College and the Art Institute of Sacramento. He is a devotee of kundalini yoga and running.

Matt Perry, filmmojo@earthlink.net

Sign up in the Access Sacramento Office or at (916) 456-8600

Citizen journalism at work

2010-03-19T19:52:43Z

The Sacramento Press is a hybrid site of professional and community-contributed journalism. One recent event that we could not cover in-house is a perfect example of how citizen journalism works best:

One of our reporters, Kathleen Haley, was unable to attend a debate scheduled for Thursday night.

Our editorial department e-mailed a resident Haley had met at another event who had shown interest in the debate. This resident suggested that a friend of hers, Chris Shannon, who had already planned to go to the debate, write about it for The Sacramento Press.

We asked our interns to see who was available, but none of them were to attend either.

Chris Shannon e-mailed us and called to confirm that he could cover the District 7 debate.

He took pictures and wrote a great story.

We are very lucky to have community members who are willing to write about events and issues that affect all of us. Our staff is very small and it's impossible to cover everything in our area.

Thank you, Chris Shannon, for the great coverage and we hope this example will encourage more writers to share stories on The Sacramento Press.

Research and Fact-Checking workshop March 23

2010-03-15T19:54:45Z

We have a free journalism workshop scheduled later this month.

Dianne Heimer will lead our first Research and Fact-Checking workshop on Tuesday, March 23, 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Heimer is a journalism professor at Sac City College and advises the college's newspaper, The Express.

Doing research for articles seems daunting, but we'll show you that it isn't difficult and that the added credibility and depth are worth the time and effort.

Heimer will discuss appropriate sources and will go over how to confirm the accuracy of the facts in your story. She'll also discuss the trustworthiness of the Internet as a source.

Food and drinks will be served at 6:30 p.m., with the workshop at 6:45. Our office is at 431 I Street, Suite 107, in the Amtrak station.
If you are facing Starbucks, go around the building to the left and you'll see our Sac Press sign.

We recommend you park on the street, bike, or take light rail, as parking in the Amtrak lot costs $1.50 per 20 minutes. We do not cover the cost of parking, but if you take light rail, we will provide two passes when you get here, good for the round trip.

RSVP by e-mailing workshops@sacramentopress.com.

For more information, call 916-443-5403.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Feb. 17 Intro to Journalism workshop

2010-02-09T23:13:05Z

It's very exciting to see the number of our community contributors continue to grow. We now have close to 800. With so many new writers, we want to make sure we offer you the tools and resources to improve your writing and help you feel more confident posting on our site.

We've held many journalism-related workshops in 2009 ranging from Interviewing Techniques, Bias in Media, Journalism Ethics, among others.

We're happy to announce another Intro to Journalism workshop this month, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 17 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Brandon Darnell will be teaching the workshop. He is a freelance writer and editor, and he currently copy edits for The Sacramento Press.

Darnell graduated from California State University, Sacramento in 2007 with a degree in journalism, where he worked as a reporter, copy editor and Copy Chief of the student newspaper, The State Hornet. Darnell worked as a reporter for the Lincoln News Messenger for a year, covering everything from city government and the economic crisis to feature articles before moving to Paris, France, to research a novel he is currently writing.

This workshop is perfect for those of you without a journalistic background. We encourage you to write on our site, but some basic guidance from a workshop such as this one may help get the pen to paper or in our case, fingers to keyboard.

Attending this workshop will also earn you a badge for "Intro to Journalism workshop" on our site. You will have the opportunity to be verified as a community contributor as well.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks. If you are facing Starbucks, go around the building to the left and you'll see our Sac Press sign out front.

Please RSVP by emailing workshops@sacramentopress.com.

If you have any trouble finding our office, please call 916-443-5403.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Sac City College's magazine in jeopardy of being cut

2010-01-07T23:20:16Z

A student at Sac City College wrote to The Sacramento Press asking us to help spread the word that Mainline magazine could be cut if it doesn't reach the minimum enrollment. Below is the email we received from Stephanie.

My name is Stephanie and I wanted to write you and let you know that Sacramento City College's journalism program has really taken huge class cuts this semester, which is definitely unfortunate for young journalists.

One class that is being cut in particular is Mainline magazine. If the roster doesn't reach 20 people by Monday, Jan. 11, it will be cut. Mainline is a very important class, it helps writers, photographers, graphic designers and illustrators by putting them in an environment that mimics the development of a magazine. I don't know if you can help or what can be done, but I just thought I would throw that out there? I think this program helps students in our community a great deal and to see it be cut, would really be sad.

http://www.losrios.edu/lrc/lrc_reg_online.php

This link is where people could go if they wanted to sign up for the class. This class is award-winning and at the end of the semester students produce a magazine. There is even a working website www.sacmainline.com.

Valerie Fioravanti brings writing workshops to Midtown

2009-09-10T05:48:57Z

As a published writer, teaching instructor, writer's coach and newcomer to Northern California, Valerie Fioravanti now brings her years of teaching experience to the Sacramento community.

Fioravanti is offering Midtown Writing Workshops for beginning and advanced writers. Her workshops include small group meetings or private tutoring, with instruction and feedback on stories, novels, multi-genre and flash pieces.

"I think there are a lot of writers in [Sacramento]" she said. "In any city of this size, there are going to be two different types of people," Fioravanti said, "aspiring writers and people looking for self-expression, for creative expression."

Fioravanti has experienced the defeat of receiving rejection letters and not finding the constructive criticism she craved. In her writing workshops, she aims to cut the fluff of pretty writing; instead, she wants to get down to the basic fundamentals and help groom aspiring writers towards a professional career.

"You are going to get what I didn't get in workshops until I attended graduate school — you are going to get the truth," Fioravanti said. "You are going to get [the criticism] of what it takes to be a professional."

The "truth" she learned in graduate school gave her the push she needed in her writing. Eventually, she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing from New Mexico State University.

"Until you learn how to tell a story, you are going nowhere - ," she said. "It's a hard truth. And as soon as I addressed [this,] my work started going from rejections to actual acceptances."

Born and raised in New York City, it was only through the suggestion from a friend that lead her to Sacramento after first viewing Davis.

"I am a city girl at heart," she said. "Davis is lovely, but I walked around [the city center] in five minutes. Midtown Sacramento was her backup plan for me. Sacramento was perfect. It was exactly what I was looking for," said Fioravanti.

Since settling in Sacramento for a few short months, Fioravanti decided to open up Midtown Writing Workshops. She already teaches short stories and multi-genre writing classes online for UCLA Writer's Extension Program. However, she is ready to branch out into her own teaching curriculum and begin mentoring in the Sacramento community.

"I have been teaching writing since 2000," she said. "I have learned what works for me, what works for students, I am ready to do it my way."

Fioravanti believes that Sacramento has a particularly thriving art community, but it lacks a strong community for writers. The demand will grow, she said, eventually creating a haven for writers. She envisions herself in the forefront, hoping to encourage and support ambitious beginning writers, and publication guidance for seasoned writers.

"I think with a city of this size there is potential," said Valerie, "I think it's really just a matter of getting the word out."

Fioravanti's long-term goals include creating a non-profit writing center in Midtown. She has already contacted the Sacramento Arts Council to see about grant money to begin offering scholarships. While living in New York as an aspiring writer, having the writing community and workshops was a place to fit in. It was there that you felt among your people, she said.

"There are some [writing] venues for poets, and the California Lecture series, but we don't have anything really focusing on Sacramento community writers," she said. "I would love to see a thriving writing community."

Workshops start in October continuing on until November, located at 17th and H in Midtown. Fioravanti classes are primarily for young adults, professionals and retirees.

Please check Valerie Fioravanti's website for workshop times and dates at Midtown Writing Workshops.

Easy guide to contributing to The Sacramento Press

2009-08-16T00:54:51Z

You can help us make Sacramento a stronger community by contributing to The Sacramento Press. Our website is free and open to the public. To become a community contributor, all you have to do is:

1. Sign up by clicking the button at the top of the page.
2. Then, once you are signed in, you will see a "write" button at the top of the page. Just click the "write" button, fill out a form and watch a tutorial.
3. Title your Storyline. This is the topic you intend to write about and it helps tie your articles about the same topic together.
4. You can start writing immediately inside the browser or copy and paste your article from a word processor. You can save your draft on our system and come back to edit the draft. However, please note that once you hit the "Publish" button, your story is published and cannot be edited without the help of an administrator -- you can email journalism@sacramentopress.com to contact an administrator.

Finally, we now offer copy editing and other services for writers. Just email a draft of your work to journalism@sacramentopress.com. Journalism Support Manager Colleen Belcher will coordinate an edit with one of our copy editors. Your story will be sent back to you within 24 hours. You can post the story with or without the editing changes.

Thank you again for your interest. If you have any questions, you can email journalism@sacramentopress.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We look forward to reading your work on The Sacramento Press!

New Public Art Sculpture at Riverpoint Marketplace

2009-08-14T15:30:40Z

The City of West Sacramento announces that they have installed new public artwork in Riverpoint Marketplace, the retail center off Ikea Court and Reed Avenue.

"Synergy" is a 26-foot tall stainless steel and bronze sculpture created by Alber De Matteis, a noted sculptor with works in California, Europe, and South America.

In addition to having a bold presence in daytime hours, the sculpture is illuminated by colored lights in the evening.

West Sacramento Joins in National Night Out

2009-07-30T16:47:13Z

Streets and neighborhoods in West Sacramento will again be participating in the National Night Out on Tuesday, Aug. 4, from 6 p.m.-10 p.m.

The annual event, which promotes public safety and community partnerships, brings neighbors together for block parties and cookouts.

At 7:30 p.m., in support of the Bryte & Broderick Community Action Group, the Police and Fire Departments, along with other agencies, will converge at Bryte Park at 425 Todhunter Avenue.

For more about National Night Out, contact Community Service Officer Nora McDowell, (916) 617-4837 or noram@cityofwestsacramento.org .

Final Harmony on the River in West Sacramento

2009-07-30T16:32:56Z

On Tuesday, Aug. 4, from 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Harmony on the River, a free summer concert series from the City of West Sacramento, will present the final concert of the season. Enjoy an evening with Hurricane Sam & the Hotshots, featuring boogie, blues, and jazz.

Harmony on the River is a family-friendly event, so please bring the kids, a picnic, and soak up the sounds. Pets on leash are allowed, but the City asks that you refrain from any glass bottles.

Parking is free also, so just see a parking attendant on site for a pass.

For more information, contact Scott Stanley of the City of West Sacramento Parks & Recreation, scottst@cityofwestsacramento.org.

West Capitol Avenue Streetscape Traffic Advisory

2009-07-29T14:59:07Z

The City of West Sacramento announces a modification underway in the traffic flow parallel to City Hall, 1110 West Capitol Avenue as part of the West Capitol Avenue Streetscape construction project.

All eastbound vehicle and bicycle traffic is shifted to a single south lane on West Capitol Avenue. Westbound vehicles and bicycles will continue using the north side of West Capitol.

All pedestrian access continues on the north side of the street, as West Capitol's south sidewalk remains closed, and the closure of Merkley Avenue from West Capitol Avenue to approximately 600 feet south stays in effect.

The two Yolobus eastbound transfer stations at Merkley Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard have been re-positioned from the median area to the south side of West Capitol Avenue. The westbound transfer stations and bus stops do not change at this time.

This traffic configuration will accommodate the construction within the West Capitol Avenue median areas, a period expected to last approximately four weeks.

All businesses in the vicinity of the construction area remain open and accessible. Please drive cautiously and pay attention to traffic/construction signs in the area.

Observe the construction zone speed limit of 25 MPH for the safety of pedestrians.

West Sacramento Announces Mini-Grant Program for Non-Profit Organizations

2009-07-29T14:38:38Z

The City of West Sacramento has announced their Mimi-Grant Program for community service organizations with a great program idea needing additional funding.

The City's "Community Mini-Grant Program" provides funds annually to help qualifying West Sacramento non-profit organizations with special funding needs.

This year, thirty thousand dollars is available to non-profit organization applicants that can demonstrate a viable need that benefits West Sacramento and its residents.

Applications for the mini-grant program must be submitted by Sept. 25, 2009, to the Parks & Recreation Department, 1110 West Capitol Ave., West Sacramento, CA 95691.

Once all of the applications are in, they will be reviewed by a Parks & Community Services Commission subcommittee, and the chosen recipients will be announced in the spring of 2010. The selected organizations must enter into a signed contract, after which they will receive eighty percent of the funding. The remaining twenty percent will be awarded when all original receipts are submitted and it is determined that the funds were spent as planned.

To apply, visit the City of West Sacramento's website at www.westsacfun.org and look for “Community Mini-Grants” under Department Highlights, or pick up an application at the Parks & Recreation office on the first floor of City Hall.

For more information or questions, please contact West Sacramento Parks & Recreation at (916) 617-4620.

Tony's Fine Foods Expanding "Green" Facilities in West Sacramento

2009-07-20T16:54:51Z

In a combined press release, Tony's Fine Foods and the City of West Sacramento have announced a major expansion of Tony's headquarters and food distribution facilities in West Sacramento. The expansion will accommodate an expanding customer base and new product lines, as well as business acquisitions generating significant growth in market share for the 75-year old, family-owned company.

The company will invest about $15 million to construct a new 77,000 square foot building to house a new freezer and automated distribution warehouse, and renovate existing warehouse and office space. The expansion will increase the West Sacramento company's workforce to 365 fulltime employees, an increase of 75 jobs. The expansion will allow the company to serve the entire California market with an expanded product mix that includes more than 12,000 meats, deli and bakery products, domestic and imported chesses, pastas, catering items, and specialty beverages.

The City's Economic Development and Development Services Divisions are assisting Tony's and BTV Development, the construction project manager, to deliver building permits and other city approvals to achieve Tony's operational goals.
Tony's West Sacramento headquarters, a combination of corporate office suites and a perishable food distribution facility, is one of the most modern and efficient in the region.

The 143,000 square foot facility is located on 25 acres. Their fleet of multi-temperature trucks and trailers are carefully designed for hot, valley temperatures. Twenty-three sealed loading bays allow perishables to be kept in a constant 35-degree Fahrenheit climate, whether in storage, on the dock, or in a truck. Tony's plant accurately tracks all products and ensures freshness by using state-of-the-art software for tasks such as radio frequency computers, real-time inventory, and automatic product rotation, voice-activated multiple order picking, and bar code scanning.

In 2007, Tony's sought an innovative technology to hedge against future energy bills, maintain the quality of its perishable food, and provide a clean energy source. Working closely with PG&E, Tony's invested in a 1-megawatt AC photovoltaic system, and applying $3.5 million in PG&E rebates to create the largest, privately owned solar system in Northern California.

"West Sacramento's business climate has allowed us to focus on serving our customers and growing our business," said Scott Berger, Tony's Chief Financial Officer. "We appreciate the City's partnership with us to achieve a phased construction schedule that meets our operational and financial goals."

West Sacramento’s Mayor, Christopher Cabaldon, said, "The City of West Sacramento is proud to be chosen by Tony's for this major business expansion. Like Tony's, The City of West Sacramento prides itself on standing above the competition in providing superior customer service. Tony's success demonstrates that quality, service and integrity, and sustainable building practices are core principles of today's business leaders."

For more information, readers can visit www.tonysfinefoods.com and www.cityofwestsacramento.org/city/depts/redev/ed/.

Kids Don't Float! Loaner Life Jackets Available

2009-07-15T16:54:59Z

The City of West Sacramento Fire Department wants everyone to know to use life jackets during water recreation!

Keep your kids safe. Free, loaner life jackets are available at the following West Sacramento Fire Stations:
• Station 41, 132 15th St.
• Station 42, 3585 Jefferson Blvd.
• Station 43, 1561 Harbor Blvd.
• Station 44, 905 Fremont Blvd.
• Station 45, 2040 Lake Washington Blvd.

Also, the Bridgeway Lakes Boathouse office, 3650 Southport Parkway!

For more information, contact the West Sacramento Fire Department at (916) 617-4600 . The free life jacket rental program is sponsored by both the City’s Fire and Parks & Recreation Departments.

Rice Exports Soar At Port Of West Sacramento

2009-07-15T16:34:56Z

In May of 2009, The Cunningham Report stated that while container volumes are plummeting at West Coast ports, the Port of West Sacramento - which does not have container facilities - is enjoying a bumper year for rice exports.

Port Manager Mike Luken said that the port is enjoying its best year for bagged rice exports in 15 years. This year, the port expects to export some 339,000 metric tons of bagged rice, which is about double what the port usually handles during the fall-to-fall rice export season.

The rice is moving primarily to Japan and Korea, where demand increased significantly this season.

Kirk Messick, vice president of Sacramento-based Farmers Rice, says the Korean demand stems from an agreement with the World Trade Organization that requires Korea to increase its imports of U.S. rice each year.

The increased demand from Japan is attributed to several factors- including a lack of rice available from China and Egypt following a perceived shortage of rice in those countries.

Harbor Boulevard Interchange Improvements

2009-07-15T16:25:27Z

Caltrans and the City of West Sacramento have jointly announced that on July 29, 2009, Caltrans will begin construction on improvements to the Harbor Boulevard interchange that crosses U.S. Highway 50 in West Sacramento.

The scope of the project includes new alignment and realignment of the freeway ramp access, widening of the roadways, removal of pavement, and overcrossing structure work.

The project is designed to accommodate increases in traffic activity on the Harbor Boulevard interchange.

An information open house will be held in room 157 of the West Sacramento City Hall, 1110 West Capitol Ave., on Monday, July 27, between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., and the admission is free.

Caltrans staff and City representatives will be on hand to discuss the potential traffic interference, like lane restrictions, speed controls, access, and how you can plan to avoid congestion during construction.

My Son is a Drug Addict

2009-07-15T16:10:10Z

He woke up this morning, finally, but he can’t remember much of the night before. He can’t remember the shouting match with his mother, telling her to “F” off and that he’ll do drugs as long as he wants too. Or the fight with his girl friend that ended with him passing out on the couch.

His name is Christopher, he’s my seventeen-year-old son, and he’s a drug addict. No, he’s not the kind of addict depicted in the movies or on television. He doesn’t sleep in alleys and creep around trying to find his next “fix.” He’s not disheveled or unwashed, though the clothes kids wear today kind of express that. No, he’s a middleclass kid from the suburbs that got off the road somewhere and can’t find his way back.

Ecstasy, “E,” “smackers,” “fizz.” It doesn’t matter what you call it, he takes it and he can’t, and won’t stop. His mother and I sit for hours trying to figure out where we went wrong, and you know, we’ve come to a conclusion that may not set well with others: we haven’t done anything wrong.

We put him through school and made him study, but the drugs took over and he quit going to school.

We taught him the difference between right and wrong, but the drugs took over and the difference to him became muddled and cloudy.

We taught him that it’s not the money or the fame, but hard work and diligence that equal success, but the drugs took over, and he no longer even wants to look for a job or accept work from anyone.

We taught him respect for others, but the drugs took over, now his hair-trigger temper kicks in and he lashes out at everyone with such anger, and distain that we fear he’ll hurt someone one night in a drug-induced stupor.

Finally, we taught him love, and not by merely saying it to him. We expressed it to him every day by example and by our actions with him. But again, the drugs take over and he yells at me in the front yard that he hates me and wishes I were dead.

No, we did everything we could to ensure that he became a good man and a positive contributor to society… but the drugs took over. We can no longer control him because his defiance is to such a point that he won’t obey anyone.

Now we’re trapped between our love for him and the knowledge that if we do nothing, he’ll eventually hit bottom, or worse.

So, there you have it. Where do we go from here? I don’t know, but we’re not going to sit still. Would an intervention work? I don’t know, but we’re going to try it. Would a stint in re-hab work? I don’t know, but if it comes down to it, we’ll try it.

I won’t be writing my articles or working on any literary projects until this crisis with Christopher is over. I’ll miss it, but not as much as I would miss my son if he were to die, and I didn’t commit everything I had to preventing that.

Weapon wielding transient threatens kind hosts

2009-07-07T00:44:38Z

Sacramento, CA- Shortly before 3 P.M. Monday, in the 1500 block of 19th Street, two apartment occupants were kind enough to allow a transient woman to hang out with them and relax for a bit in their apartment.

Per the occupants (who wish to remain anonymous), as the woman was getting ready to go, she asked to use their home phone. When they declined to allow her to use it she pulled a knife and began to threaten them insiting on using the phone. The two occupants restrained her as an on site worker called for police.

Police responded rapidly, however were initially given the wrong address by the onsite worker, which put officers several blocks away searching for the incident. On dispatch call back, dispatchers were able to obtain the right location and redirected responding officers.

As officers arrived, the woman got loose and led officers on a very brief chase. The fleeing woman was captured in the backyard of the apartment building.

The occupants stated that the woman was also very drunk.

Monday: workshop aims to "Let the Crazy Child Inside Write"

2009-06-14T01:10:00Z

Clive Matson is more than a legendary Beat poet. He's a little bit younger than the Beats, and a lot more honest and raw, which he'll tell you himself.

He's a nature lover, a teacher and a father. And on Monday, June 15, he will be teaching a free public workshop entitled "Let the Crazy Child Inside Write" at the Sacramento Poetry Center.

Poets Q.R. Hand and H.D. Moe will also be reading at the event, which begins at 6 p.m. Matson plans to read from his heralded 1966 poetry collection Mainline to the Heart, along with some more recent works.

When Mainline was published, it was described by one reviewer as "more edgy than the Beats," a critique Matson agrees with.

"I'm carried away either by angst, the pain of what I see, or just the urge to figure out what is going on in the world," Matson said. "Writing is a healing journey, an adventure that takes you places that you'd never expect to go."

It was this attitude that took Matson from an avocado farm in Southern California to the University of Chicago on a full scholarship. Dropping out only two years later, he hitchhiked around Europe for a year before settling in Lower East Side New York.

There he became associated with the Beat Generation writers, wrote poetry and dabbled in drugs. After kicking his drug habit, Matson kept writing essays, poetry and fiction, eventually becoming a teacher in 1978.

In 1998 he published Let The Crazy Child Inside Write, a book about teaching writing. Its thesis says that the source of our writing is an internal "creative psychic passion."

Since he began teaching, Matson has enjoyed watching many of his students become published writers. He's even held writing retreats in the jungles of Costa Rica and at a former student's house in Italy.

An upcoming retreat into the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains will position his workshop at 7,500-feet high during the same time as the Perseid Meteor Shower on Aug. 7.

"I invite anyone to come and join us on that journey, it's healing and growth producing," he said of his workshops.

"People can get in touch with strong passion, feelings, and write quite a bit of raw material, opening a door to the power in our bodies and psyches," Matson said of Monday's workshop. "It doesn't matter whether you think you're a poet, an essayist, or a journalist. Even just having an inkling to do some writing, it will work for you."

The Sacramento Poetry Center is located at 1719 25th St.

*Images courtesy Clive Matson

Whitey’s Jolly Kone Hosts River City Rodsters

2009-05-29T05:00:46Z

     Like a blast from the past, the parking lot at the oldest burger joint in West Sacramento was packed this evening with classic cars from Model T’s to custom Firebirds. It was “Cruise Night” again at Whitey’s Jolly Kone, a Jefferson Blvd. landmark since 1964.
     Tommy Kale, the empirical master of ceremonies and all around car enthusiast was glad to show me around. Along with his cohort Frank Baschal, I got the grand tour and a little history of the River City Rodsters and “Cruise Night” at Whiteys.
     The late Whitey Boisclair started hosting this local car show several years ago, the last Thursday of every month from April until October. Every year it grew larger until the parking lot today is filled from the burger stand to the street. And even with the passing of Whitey and his dear wife Maxine, they still come out in droves to enjoy Whitey’s burgers and the glistening polished paint jobs of the vintage autos from bygone eras.
     There was one car owner that stood out this evening. His name is Ray Campagna. Ray has been blind and in a wheelchair since childhood, suffering from degenerative cerebral palsy, but it hasn’t seemed to stop him from being the consummate car enthusiast.
     In 1984, Ray bought an old, dilapidated 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air for $450.00. Apparently, it was being used to haul dirt.
     Ray hung onto that car for years, until in March 2009, twenty-two of his friends, led by Ted Pangle, met at So Cal Speed Shop and, in what Pangle calls a “car party,” they stripped the Bel Air to a rolling chassis and body. Once that was done, that very same day they moved the car over to Miracle Auto Body, who did the extensive bodywork needed to prepare it for paint. Next, it went to Artistic Paint and Body, who put on the custom paint, Dusk Rose with an Ivory Roof. Then off to Jim’s Chevy Parts to be assembled.
     So, on May 23, 2009, the new custom Bel Air was delivered back to Ray, who was too excited to talk.
     Tonight was Ray’s third car show this week, and once they pack up here, they’ll be off to Lovelock, Nevada for the next show.
     Ray is a shining example of the fortitude of man. Never deterred, he’s proud that he’s been living on his own all of his adult life. The friends and business owners who put this car together for Ray should be equally proud. Their altruistic efforts to restore Ray’s pride and joy should make us all think that maybe there is good people in the world. That there are people who, for whatever reason, will go out of their way to help their fellow man.

There’s certainly more to come and I’ll be there to get the facts and bring them to you.

Feb. 2, 2009 Intro to Journalism handout

2009-04-19T04:02:33Z

There’s news right under your nose!
Feb. 2, 2009
Holly A. Heyser, Professional Journalist in Residence, Sacramento State

Questions that help you find news

Do you see a problem that needs to be solved?
Is something happening that changes how you and your neighbors function?
Did you see an unusual event or happening
Can you see a new trend? (Magic Number: 3)
Is there an interesting new business or person in your neighborhood? (Or has one left the neighborhood?)
How are national trends (e.g., the economy) affecting you and your neighbors?
Do you know about something being planned?

So, what’s interesting? The test is this: Will you mention it to a friend or family member? If it’s worth mentioning to someone you care about, then it’s probably interesting.

What takes this from idle chatter to journalism?
FACTS. You have to know what you’re writing is true. This means you:

Observed it yourself
Were told about it in an interview with someone credible
Verified it with other sources
Found it in official documents

Two rules:

If you don’t know or can’t prove it, leave it out.
Even if you’re writing opinion, you must avoid presenting opinion as fact.

Writing
Getting ready:

Decide what you’re writing about.
Gather and make note of all facts that are immediately available. You’re looking for who, what, when, where, why, how.
Determine what you don’t know. If you can fill in the blanks quickly, great.
Think about how you would share this story with a friend or family member. What are the most interesting parts? They should be your focal point.

Writing

The lead of your story – the first paragraph – should provide key information to the reader. If s/he stops reading there, will s/he at least know what happened?
Write the rest of what you know in a logical order, which may be chronological or in order of importance.
Write what you don’t know. This can be a foundation for further research – or it can invite reader input that answers questions.

March 19, 2009 Interviewing Techniques handout

2009-04-19T03:56:22Z

The Art (and Science) of Interviewing

Martin Kuz, Senior Editor for Sactown magazine, March 19, 2009

Pre-Interview

Deciding what your story is about will help you determine what questions to ask. What are the primary points or themes you want to touch on in your story?
Who is your audience? Understanding who reads the publication you’re writing for – and what writing style that publication prefers — will also help you craft your questions.
Research your subject. Read what’s been written about the person. Depending on the story’s complexity, talk to other sources before you interview the main subject.
Prepare a list of questions and bring it to the interview. Ideally, you’ll have your questions memorized so that you can stay in the flow of the conversation, but the list can help if you forget a question or get sidetracked.
Practical matters: Pick a place that isn’t especially noisy (for taperecording purposes). Find out beforehand how much time the person has for the interview – you don’t want the interview to end with your most important questions left unasked. And always, always, always plan to take notes so that you have backup if your recorder malfunctions.

The Interview

Keep an open mind. Don’t assume you know how a subject will answer a question – you want to try to understand how he or she sees the world. But an open mind isn’t an uncritical one – don’t necessarily take everything a person says at face value.
Establish rapport. Some people are more comfortable than others giving an interview. But either way, you want to make the person feel less like they’re doing an interview and more like they’re having a conversation with you. Start with easy, open-ended questions that can’t be answered with “Yes” or “No” so you can draw out your subject.
Ask your questions and then listen. (In other words, don’t pull a Charlie Rose.) Remember: It’s the other person who’s supposed to be doing the majority of the talking.
Be patient – but not overly so. Always give your subject ample opportunity to answer a question because you never know what may
be revealed. At the same time, remember that this is your interview – if the person is ranging far afield on a tangent, don’t be afraid to (politely) interrupt and steer the conversation back to where you want it to go.
Save the toughest questions for last. If you plan to ask questions that might compel your subject to end the interview, wait until you’ve asked everything else first.
Don’t forget to ask for the person’s e-mail address and cell phone number if you don’t already have them so that you’ll have a way to follow-up if necessary.

Post-Interview

Don’t wait to transcribe your tape or go over your notes. It’s best to have the interview fresh in your mind when you review the tape or
notes for several reasons, including a) It will help you to more clearly see what were the most interesting responses, which in the normal flow of conversation can sometimes be missed; and b) You’ll have a better sense of what follow-up questions you may want to ask.
Organize your transcripts/notes into an outline so that you can see what topics and themes are most relevant and engaging.
If necessary, arrange a follow-up interview, making clear to the subject what points you want to delve into more deeply

Bringing Sacramento Press workshops to you

2009-04-19T03:49:13Z

It was suggested by one of the users of and contributors to the site that the Sacramento Press create a section where people can access the materials from the workshops that we hold. Many people who have been unable to attend the workshops have also requested copies of the handouts from the various workshops.

In order to better arm our readers with the tools that will help them write, there will be a section where all of the materials from the past workshops can be found. If you type in "SP workshops" in the search field, all of the articles and handouts dealing with our workshops will come up.

Also, in the future we will upload a video feed of the workshops, if people are interested, so that you can watch the workshops from your own home as if you were really there.

We still encourage people to attend our workshops, as we'd like the chance to meet you in person, however, we understand it's not always possible to make time in your busy lives.

If you have any other suggestions on how we can improve your experience with our site or feedback on how to make our workshops better, please email journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Interviewing Techniques workshop April 15

2009-04-14T21:10:50Z

For those of you who missed our first Interviewing Techniques workshop, given by Sactown Magazine's Senior Editor, Martin Kuz, we'll be having another one on Wednesday, April 15 from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Molly Dugan, an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Communication Studies at Sacramento State, will discuss how to tailor your interviews toward articles that you would be writing for Sacramento Press. Attendees will learn the art of interviewing and the types of articles that work best for our site.

We'll serve food at 6:30 p.m. and the workshop will start at 6:45 p.m.

Our office is located at 431 I Street, Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as the Starbucks. If you are facing Starbucks, go around the building to the left and you'll see our Sac Press sign out front.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here -- one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

Please RSVP by e-mailing colleen@sacramentopress.com.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

Sacramento Press workshop gets community writing

2009-04-10T05:19:43Z

Ballpoint pens wiggled, keyboards clicked and seven community members fought writer's block during the Intro to Journalism and Article Composition workshop at the Sacramento Press office Thursday evening.

Holly Heyser, faculty adviser for The State Hornet and professional journalist in residence for the Communication Studies Department at Sacramento State University, was on hand to help writers develop their stories and flesh them out onto paper.

Attendees brought ideas such as how to get a motorcycle license, what it's like to be a delegate for the Democratic National Convention, the Assembly bill that would legalize marijuana and the positive aspects of RT, among others.

Heyser gave basic advice about writing news stories and tailoring them to the Sacramento Press. She stressed the importance of good grammar, accuracy and breaking up your story into simple, easy-to-understand sentences and short paragraphs.

The headline and lead should also grab the reader's attention. Depending on the way your headline is worded, you might attract some people who are just searching on Google, according to Heyser, and even better, they might keep coming back to the blog or website.

Heyser also encouraged people to read their articles out loud after writing them.

As the workshop ended, participants walked away with stories in hand and the story-writing process know-how.

If you were unable to attend this workshop and would like to receive the powerpoint presentation, please e-mail journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Nicholas Jeff--Dishwashed Cigarettes

2009-04-04T08:15:26Z

I understand that sometimes a smoker has to smoke, even if it’s on the clock. But does he have to smoke every fifteen minutes–in total disregard of lunch rushes and the “team concept”? And someone please tell me how many smoke breaks do you have to take just to get by? Let me just tell you this story.

Two hours into my shift, my fellow busser and the manager on duty walked back into the restaurant, Shelly Sholes, smelling like Newports and Ax Body Spray. The busser, John Christopher, who I called Tar-Lung, was seventeen and walked and talked like he was the love child of Shaggy. The manager, F.J., nineteen, ghost complication with an outdated Eminem hair cut—it makes him feel hardcore. Now normally, I wouldn’t care about smoke breaks, you lungs your problem, but this was the sixth time! Feel like I’m bussing by myself.

Anyhow, Tar-Lung came up to me—now mind you, my uniform was every color but white—and asked me, “Do you need any help with anything?” Translation: Can you tell me there nothing to do so I can have an excuse to go outside, suck down more rat poisoning and nicotine, while talk to F.J. about this 300 pound hussy I slept with last night.

“Yeah, here’s what you can help me out with,” I said, “unless there’s a table outside that requires cigarette smoke to bus it—don’t go outside anymore!”

“Dude, do your realize it’s not my fault I have to smoke cigarette.”

“So what don’t you hook an IV up to your arm and fill it full of nicotine? Then put it over your shoulder so you could bus and get your poison at the same time.” I started off to the next table.

However, Tar-Lung had to fight for the last word, “I think if you smoked you understand, dude.”

“I’d understand? Why do I have to turn my lungs to charcoal just to understand you’re laziness and incompetence? I mean do I have to stab myself to understand I need to go to the hospital or that it hurts? Look, just go bus table three before you have to smoke through your nose.”

Table three had about seven plates and about ten glasses—he picked up one plate and five glasses, while F.J. came from the woodwork to grab four glasses and left the rest. When I finished helping the server, I was going to reset table three, but not only are there still glasses and plates there, but Tar-Lung and F.J. didn’t come back yet. Guess the cigarettes called them. Is there crack in cigarettes?

I walked through the kitchen and all the dishes from table three on a storage shelf, which meant the dishwashers had to put them away. That’s like dumping your kids off at you neighbor’s house so you can watch TV.

So I wanted out the backdoor and sure enough these two idiots are outside smoking looking at me like it’s a Sunday afternoon and all fine in the world.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “Are you the two people Donald hired to sit around smoke like trains and drive me to the brink of termination?”

F.J. said, “We have the right to smoke, you know.”

“Well, if you have the right to pollute your lungs and increase the chances of dying of cancer then I should have the right to clog my arteries and increase my chances of a stroke. So I want hamburger breaks every twenty minutes. With lots of bacon and A-1 sauce.”

This manager stood in my face and said, “Look, if you don’t like it—quit.”

“You better get out of my face before I smack you back to when that haircut was in style.” And if there was job out there, do you think I be here?

Holding his pack of cigarettes, he stared at me for a second then said, “You fired.” I grabbed the pack from his hand and smashed it. F.J. balled his fist. I smiled as if to dare him. Lowered his fist, he mumbled and bumped me en-route inside as Tar-Lung followed.

But Tar-Lung left his pack of cigarettes on the ground. I walked back into the restaurant, holding the cigarettes as Tar-Lung was padding his pockets. With his hand out, looked at me with puppy dog eyes, or maybe it was a withdrawal symptoms, and said, “Dude, please, come on. I’ll get F.J. to over turn the firing.”

“What are you going to do, give him a BJ?” Just then, the dishwasher signaled for the cigarettes. He punched them, dumped them out, and put it through the machine along with other dishes. Seconds later, the cigarettes came out wet, ripped, and scattered all over the dishes and machine. Tar-Lung cursed and complained as we mocked him.

Donald walked into the dishwasher’s station with F.J., discussing my termination. Once he heard my side of this story, my termination was over turned, but only because Donald was afraid I would sue. I would have, I was actually hoping to do so. Also, the dishwasher was sent on break while Tar-Lung cleaned out the dishwasher and did a few racks of dishes. As for me, I had to clean up the entire dining room by myself. But I walked with $186 because the servers though I was the only busser.

Local Author Releases New Book

2009-03-24T22:49:57Z

The publishing world today is awash with inflated egos and literary limitations. Also, when one decides to become a writer (which is a career requiring much dedication), the crooks come out of the woodwork like roaches feeding on sugar.

Every kind of scam is available for the unsuspecting would-be author, from publishers that take your money and disappear, to others who tell you one price up front and load the back end with nonsense costs that are rarely affordable, leaving the writer with a product he or she can’t sell.

I’m not going to load this article with the names and locations of the many scammers I have been bombarded with after finishing my first novel, but I am going to submit for the reader’s approval, the product of my many months of work and let you judge for yourself if I made the right choice.

The best advice I can give any local author waiting to be discovered is join a group like The California Writer’s Club. The Sacramento Branch of the California Writers Club is one of 17 branches located throughout California. The Sacramento Branch has monthly luncheon meetings at 11:00 a.m. the 3rd Saturday of every month, except July, August, and December, and members receive the Write On! Newsletter, published every month except July, August and December.

Now I have written several different large papers as an analyst for the state, many articles for this publication and for other monthly magazines, and a myriad of short stories. This is my first venture into fiction.

"The Measure of a Man" is the story of Neal Archer, a former Marine intelligence operator in the Persian Gulf conflicts. He is now working for a private intelligence think tank run by his old operational control officer, retired Marine Colonel Kingston Roberts. But this think tank does more than analyze data. They secretly conduct covert operations for friendly countries that cannot be associated with such activities, providing those countries with plausible deniability.

The feedback so far has been sparse, because the promotional aspects of writing don't lend themselves well to the author. But, I have chosen to take it upon myself to do just that: promote my own book.

Anyone who is interested in a copy may get one from my website, www.fdcrandallwriter.com, and, in a matter of three to four weeks, they will be able to order it from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.com.

If you have a book in you, a subject of much discussion as many believe that we all have at least one book in us waiting to be written, then make sure that you find a mentor, a person who has done it before you, and learn everything you can from them. Publishing is cruel venture that leaves marks from every rejection on the writer’s soul.

Sactown magazine senior editor gives interviewing workshop

2009-03-21T00:15:49Z

Experienced journalists, students, photographers and community members delved into the art and science of interviewing during the Interviewing Techniques workshop given Thursday at the Sacramento Press office.

Martin Kuz, Senior Editor from Sactown magazine provided an in-depth approach to interviewing. Kuz has been a journalist for 15 years and has worked for alternative weekly and daily publications such as the Los Angeles Daily News, the Cleveland Scene, the Las Vegas Sun and has also been a staff writer for SF Weekly. He has won awards for a variety of stories, including a profile on Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson, the U.S. Military's reluctance to divulge details on non-combat deaths in Iraq and an investigation into the hardball legal tactics of Wal-Mart.

The workshop covered pre-interview preparation, during-the-interview techniques, and post-interview tips to make sure you get the most out of the time you have with your subject. Kuz shared his experience interviewing Mayor Kevin Johnson, Darrell Steinberg, and even a pedophile and the victim and family.

Attendees enjoyed food from the L Wine Lounge and Urban Kitchen. Many of the people who came for the workshop were former journalists and were looking to get back into writing.

Our next workshop will be held on Tuesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. It is perfect for those of you who have been intimidated or hesitant to post on our site. Geoff Samek, our editor-in-chief, will go over how to get the most out of the tools on our website. You can bring articles that you've been wanting to publish. If you have had any problems with our website, we can address and resolve them.

We will be serving food at 6:30 p.m. and will start the workshop at 6:45 p.m.

We hope to see you next week at our office, which is located at 431 I Street, Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. Please RSVP to colleen@sacramentopress.com.

Interviewing Techniques workshop March 19th

2009-03-16T05:34:54Z

Don't miss out on our next workshop, Interviewing Techniques, which will be held this Thursday, March 19, from 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Stephen Magagnini will be leading an interactive workshop on how to make the most out of interviews, which will help to improve the quality of your writing, whether it be for school, Sacramento Press or your career.

Magagnini has taught journalism, advanced composition, investigative reporting and narrative writing at UC Davis.

He continues to teach professional journalists how to do their jobs better as part of USC's Institute for Justice and Journalism and Health Journalism Fellowships, and the American Press Institute's seminars on compelling writing.

He's been teaching professionals for many years, and has done so at Columbia, Poynter, Harvard and USC. Arlene Morgan of Columbia University has called him “one of the finest teachers of beat reporting in the country,” and in 2001 Columbia gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award “for outstanding coverage of race and ethnicity in America.”

His stories have won numerous local, state and national awards, and his work appears in the anthologies Best Newspaper Writing 2001 and 2002.

We'll be serving food promptly at 6:30 p.m., and the workshop will start at 6:45 p.m., ending around 8 p.m.

Our office is located at 431 I Street, Suite 107 in the Amtrak Station. The parking spaces are not free, so try and find street parking if you can. If you are able to take light rail to our office, we will have passes to give you. We'll give you two - one to cover your ride here and one to cover your ride back.

Please RSVP by e-mailing colleen@sacramentopress.com, so we know how many people to expect.

This article was written by Colleen Belcher of The Sacramento Press.

How to avoid plagiarizing on the Sacramento Press

2009-03-11T23:38:42Z

While I was cleaning out my apartment over the weekend, I stumbled across a handout from my college days. I found it very relevant to what I'm doing now at The Sacramento Press, so I thought I would share it with our readers.

It was a handout on how to avoid plagiarism. Many of you may not take the time to read over these, but we at The Sacramento Press feel very strongly about credibility and transparency. While we are unable to fact-check and copy edit everything that gets published on our site, we still uphold a high level of integrity for our newspaper.

For those of you who may not be aware, we offer copy editing for anyone who wants to publish a story on our site. Simply email your article to journalism@sacramentopress.com and we'll send it back to you with edits.

If you have been unsure about what constitutes plagiarism, here's a few reminders, a refresher course if you will.

The tips below are taken from the UC Davis, Division of Student Affairs, Office of Student Judicial Affairs, Mastering the Art of Scholarship - which cites a section of J.R. Hendrickson's book, The Research Paper. Direct links to other resources on plagiarism can be found here.

What is the definition of plagiarism?
Plagiarism means using another's work without giving credit. If you use others' words, you must put them in quotation marks and cite your source. You must also give citations when using others' ideas, even if you have paraphrased those ideas in your own words.

Why should you be concerned about plagiarism?

If you plagiarize, you are cheating yourself. You don't learn to write out your thoughts in your own words, and you won't receive specific feedback from others geared to your individual needs and skills.
Plagiarism is dishonest and/or misleading, because it misrepresents the work of another as your own.
Plagiarism devalues others' original work. Using and submitting a professional's work as your own is taking an unfair advantage over students who do their own work.
It is wrong to take or use property (an author's work) without giving the owner the credit due. Further, copyright violations can result in damages, fines, or worse.

Guidelines for Avoiding Plagiarism

Use your own words and ideas. Practice is essential to learning. Each time you choose your words, order your thoughts, and convey your ideas, you can improve your writing.
Give credit for copied, adapted or paraphrased material. If you copy and use another's exact words, you must use quotation marks and cite the source. If you adapt a chart or paraphrase a sentence, you must still cite your source. Paraphrasing is restating the author's ideas, information, and meaning in your own words.
Avoid using others work with minor "cosmetic" changes. Examples: using "less" for "fewer," reversing the order of a sentence, changing terms in computer code, or altering a spreadsheet layout. If the work is essentially the same as your source, give credit.
There are no "freebies." Always cite words, information and ideas that you use if they are new to you (learned in your research). No matter where you find it - even in on the Internet or in an encyclopedia - you cite it!
Beware of "common knowledge." You may not have to cit "common knowledge," but the fact must really be commonly known. That George Orwell was the author of the anti-totalitarian allegory Animal Farm is common knowledge; that Orwell died at age 46 in 1951 is not.
When in doubt, cite. Better to be safe than not give credit when you should!

We will continue to hold workshops on journalism ethics, introduction to journalism, interviewing techniques, etc. We hope to arm our readers with as many tools as possible to improve their writing quality and our article quality. It's a win-win situation.

We hope that you will also take an active interest in keeping the content on our site honest and credible. The great thing about the comment section is that people can point out corrections if information is misleading or not accurate. The more people involved in reading an article, the more resources and knowledge bases are drawn together in one place. When there is a collaboration of resources, the more complete the picture is. No man is an island*.

Thank you for contributing to our site and for elevating the content of our articles by your commitment to integrity and by not plagiarizing.

If you have any questions whatsoever about what is considered plagiarism or writing in general, please email journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Sac Press ethics workshop covers libel, blogs, disclosure

2009-02-26T08:13:19Z

Just under 20 people gathered in a semi circle at the Sacramento Press's office to listen to a Journalism Ethics workshop on Wednesday night. Molly Dugan, assistant professor of journalism and communication studies at Sac State, led the workshop.

Participants enjoyed pizza and salad from Hot Italian and mingled with other professionals from various media organizations.

Dugan covered the basics of libel, public figures, honesty, accuracy and disclosure when writing articles. She encouraged writers to utilize public records and disclose their connection with the story - whether it be revealing that they have made a donation to the political candidate they are writing about in an article, or that they are married to a city official if it relates to the topic being written about.

She shared many of her own experiences as newspaper reporter and discussed the ethical implications of undercover investigative journalism.

Dugan also covered ethical writing in blogs, explaining that the same rules apply to personal blogs as news articles.

Two attendees tweeted the workshop as it unfolded, making the content available to all of those followers who weren't able to make it that evening.

The Sacramento Press will be holding many more workshops. We'll be sending out information soon for the next workshop in March. If you have any suggestions for future workshops, please e-mail journalism@sacramentopress.com

Thanks to those who came out to the Journalism Ethics workshop last night!

Sac Press holds writer's workshop

2009-02-05T07:59:52Z

About 30 people gathered in the Sacramento Press office Feb. 2 and learned how to convert everyday events in their lives into compelling news stories.

The workshop was given by Holly Heyser, professional journalist in residence at Sacramento State and adviser to The State Hornet newspaper.

The focus of the workshop was on helpful guidelines for how to turn ideas into news articles and how to find topics that are newsworthy.

Heyser also went over the foundations of journalism and writing in general.

The night started out with food for participants and introductions to some of the Sacramento Press staff.

As everyone finished socializing, they sat down to start the workshop. Heyser asked participants to suggest as many topics as they possibly could to turn into stories.

A lot of people were surprised to find out things that they found interesting could develop into a solid news story. Many people came up with worthy topics such as the bird problem at the Sacramento International Airport, the closure of local elementary schools and the rainy weather that is approaching for the weekend.

Before she got into how to get started with an article, Heyser went over how to back up stories with hard facts and the rules that go along with including facts and quotations. At about 7:55 p.m. Heyser wrapped up the workshop and took open questions. Geoff Samek the editor in chief/co-founder of Sacramento Press, also answered questions.

Everyone then gathered toward the front of the office for more socializing with Heyser and the staff.

Free journalism workshop

2009-01-26T00:02:11Z

We are now in our fourth month of operation, and we are happy to see the growing number of community members writing for our site. I'm sure there are many of you who have been reading but are hesitant to post your own story.

You may feel like you aren't a good enough writer, or you may not know what you should be writing about. Whatever the reason may be for you not writing, we'd love to get you to change your mind by attending our next workshop.

The next scheduled workshop, titled Intro to Journalism, will take place from 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3.  Holly Heyser, a journalism professor at Sacramento State, will be discussing how to discover news in your everyday life and how to go about making it into an article.  We will have food for dinner, so bring your appetite for food and news.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 at the Amtrak Station. If you take Light Rail, we will give you two free passes to cover your ride to the office and back.  Please tell anyone who may be interested in learning more about our site and journalism in general.  We look forward to meeting new faces and hopefully many future writers!

This article was written by Colleen Belcher. Colleen is the Journalism Support Manager at The Sacramento Press.

Inside out-sourcing

2009-01-08T22:49:40Z

It’s one thing to read in the local paper about the outsourcing of jobs abroad, to India, to the Philippines, and it’s quite another thing to have it happen to you. And if you happen to work for the local paper, well...

The Sacramento Bee, under enormous fiscal pressure, is finding some unique ways to cut costs, from offering buy-outs to a hefty percentage of the people who write and edit the paper, to outsourcing the work of the people who design advertising, and currently, to the people who have, for decades, kept track of where the money goes.

The money is going to India. That’s the big story. It doesn’t seem right, but it adds up for The Bee’s parent company, McClatchy, which is desperate to avoid sinking out of sight altogether as its stock price plummets and circulation drops at its newspapers. The logic of the market is brutal.

But the little story is sadder, and more interesting, and it’s happening right here in midtown Sacramento, just blocks from where I write. Right now, a handful of eager young Indians from the city of Jaipur are getting the chance of a lifetime: They are spending their days at 21st and Q Streets, learning how to do the jobs of people who live in Sacramento, people who, come March 1 or thereabouts, will join the ranks of the local unemployed.

I spoke with Lanny Shay, a Bee employee for the last 18 years, who is currently doing the appalling task of training the people who will soon take his job back to India.

We could discuss the rightness or wrongness of this, but Shay himself says he understands the financial logic. And we could talk about the money that McClatchy is saving, and thereby, perhaps, saving our hometown newspaper. We could talk about the money that Shay and his soon-to-be-former co-workers will NOT be spending at the Tower Theatre and the Co-op and the Pine Cove and Cafe Bernardo and perhaps even on things advertised in The Bee’s shrinking classifieds.

Instead, we’ll just let Shay - who says he has a masters degree in finance from Stanford - talk for a bit about what he is seeing, and feeling, as he presides over his own obsolescence.

Basically, you have to train the person who’s taking your job. So if you do everything that’s asked of you, work long hours, do overtime, the best you can hope for is...you lose your job. My manager is trying to keep that in mind, but I think they lose sight of that. It’s weird.

I work in finance, accounting. On Sept. 14, they called six of us in and explained that the jobs were being outsourced to India. Our jobs are going to Jaipur. They’re jobs as finance clerk, accounting clerk, credit clerk, it’s a smattering of positions. All six people whose jobs are going do different things.

First, in mid-November, we had a number of people come to do discovery, to lay out the mapping of the jobs, what the jobs are, what they entail, how they’re done. Then, in December, the people who are going to be doing the jobs, or will be training the people in India who will be doing the jobs, came for 3-5 weeks. There were four the first time, and four or five of them the second time.

They’re all very young - the average age is, I’d say, 23. The project manager I have less interaction with, she’s early 30s, but the others are young. They actually are pretty rural. I don’t know what level of education they have, but none of them has a car or can drive, most of them live at home with their families, and at least one had the equivalent of a CPA. I’m guessing that some might have college degrees, but I don’t know.

They speak great English. Their written English is kinda stilted, but it’s far better than my Hindi will ever be. All they do is work. They’re staying in a Residence Inn or something somewhere outside of midtown, and every morning they show up at The Bee, then work with us the whole day, then they stay until 7 or 8 at night, after we’ve left, and then they cab back to the hotel. And I have the distinct impression that they work until they go to sleep. This group has been here for five weeks, and one or two weekends they may have gotten out to SF or Tahoe, but mostly, they work. I don’t know how much they’ll make for doing our jobs in India.

It’s frustrating, there are communication issues. They’re exceedingly polite, and totally avoid conflict, which is a cultural thing. There are times when you have to push them, and often, you have to stop and say, “Repeat what I just told you.” Because they’ll act as though they understand, even if they don’t. But they’re really nice kids, and work really hard.

At some point, there’s going to be some sort of anger about it, but at this point, we’re still working. I’m certainly not mad at the kids from India, this is probably the best chance they’ve had for a job, and it’s not their fault that it’s taking my job away. And realistically, it’s not my bosses’ fault either, I think my boss feels terrible about it. One of the people who is being replaced has been there more than 40 years. I’ve been there 18. Someone else has been there 26.

So, who do you get angry at? I haven’t really figured that out yet. It’s bad that it has to happen during the worst economy in 60 years, but it’s just one of those things. It’s just the way America works now. The people who make bad decisions that effect hundreds or thousands of lives pay no price at all for making those decisions. For all the talk of the “culture of responsibility,” we’re at the point where you can do everything right and potentially lose everything. And you can make disastrous decisions and retire with a $30 million golden parachute.

There have been times in the past when I thought I could work somewhere else and get paid more, but I like living and working downtown, and The Bee’s been here for 150 years. I figured that if I got to work every day and did a good job, I’d retire comfortably. Now we’re at the point where, is anyone’s job safe? I don’t know this for a fact, but if this outsourcing is successful, other things at The Bee that can be outsourced, will be outsourced.

They’ve outsourced circulation customer service, they’ve outsourced the classified phone bank, and now us. Which is funny, because the thing we had that craigslist didn’t have was really good customer service. So what did we do to compete with craigslist? We gave away customer service! To me, that doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.

Supposedly, March 1 will be the date we turn everything over. The people go back to India, they ramp up and start doing more and more of the work, and then I’m checking it to make sure it’s alright from my side, and then I’m out of a job. In a really horrible economy. But I can collect unemployment, I have skills, and they’re giving us severance packages. But I never thought I’d have to look for work.

And the sad part is, I believe in newspapers. I believe that there’s a good reason why freedom of the press is in the First Amendment and the right to bear arms is in the Second. I believe in media telling the truth to power. And watching the industry sink is really sad. As much as I love Huffington Post and Real Clear Politics, I take with a grain of salt everything I read on the web. I don’t see how websites can compete with real newspapers doing real journalism. Maybe it’s the permanency of ink: It’s real. If you put it on your blog and it’s wrong, you delete it and it’s like it was never said. I don’t know if the effort to get it right is there in electronic media the way it is, or was, in print media.

But I guess we’ll see.

Patrick Grizzell - poetic musician

2009-01-07T04:20:26Z

Patrick Grizzell is a local poet and musician. He plays the guitar and sings with three different groups: The Liz Ryder Band, Junkyard Burlesque and Mandolin Avenue. Grizzell is also the one of the founders of The Sacramento Poetry Center, which has been around since 1979. He has published books of poetry, 13 Poems, Chicken Months, Dark Music: Selected Poems and Stories and others. Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen have been major sources of musical inspiration for Grizzell but those who hear him play live can agree that he has a sound of his own.

Grizzell will be performing at Luna's cafe with Junkyard Burlesque on Jan. 9. He will be reading poetry at Time Tested Books on Jan. 18 to kick off the Time Tested Books Poetry Series.

What came first, music or poetry?

Music. I played the trumpet in my elementary school band. I had little formal musical training and it wasn't anything that really stuck.

How does poetry play into your music?

The way poetry has influenced me is important because I used to really differentiate between how I approached words in poems and how I approach words in songs. With songs there's certain things you are limited by, there's a lot of rhyming usually, a lot of meter. That's a little more important to the song than poetry, poetry's more flexible.

A lot of my songs don't even rhyme, which is kind of nice. I mean, the meter is there and they feel like they rhyme even though they don't. That change may seem like a minor thing, but to me that's a breakthrough because part of my struggle with writing songs was always comparing songs to poetry, and you just can't do it.

Who has influenced you along the way?

A lot of the songwriters I like are songwriters who have a big basis in poetry. When I get stuck I often go to them, if not for anything more than inspiration. I'll stick a record on and just listen to how they work things through and sometimes it's by not working them through.

They're all really good storytellers as well but sometimes they really don't make a lot of sense in that linear way that we think of songs. They're complicated. They're not those "I love you baby" "yeah, yeah, yeah," "my heart's broken and I miss you," "I wish you'd call" — all of those sort of typical themes. They're about playing rather than the lyrics.

What was the most difficult aspect of developing your music?

Finding a voice that felt original. Because so much music is derivative, it's almost impossible for it to not to be. But I think there's a point, if you do it long enough, where you pull all of these influences together so that all of the music that you've loved, and stuff that you've stolen (either on purpose or sort of unconsciously), so many directions come in sooner or later you really do sound like you. And people will say, "God, that sounds like you."

And when people say, "Where does that come from?" I say, "I don't know, I was sitting there one minute minding my own business and suddenly this song was there."

There's a song that Junkyard Burlesque does that's called "Down to the Scraps" and it's sort of a fun song. Sometimes I start writing a song, and things come and I write them down, so I might end up with two or three lines or two or three verses that I'm not going to use. It's just too much stuff, so I have a big file that I keep that stuff in. And every once in a while I'll go through and type it all out so I have it and I can find it.

So I was banging on my piano one day and came across this nice sort of groove. I couldn't come up with any idea to fit the music, and then as I'm playing around I came up with this little phrase, "Down to the scraps." I thought, "Oh, that's kind of cool."

Then I pulled out my notes and I started seeing these complete verses that kind of fit. They fit the meter, fit the sort of melody that I was hearing, so I took them and changed them a little bit. I took out a word here, added a word there and then I strung them together. So now I have these five verses that are unrelated but they work together not only as a song but just that idea, "Down to the scraps."

When you were younger you could probably see more of the influences in your music. Did you try to consciously distance yourself?

I tried to mask what I was stealing. (Laughs.) I think that's the way you learn how to write your own stuff.

Because you really do find your own way of approaching things and every once in a while, when those influences are really apparent, I feel almost a sense of gratitude about them.

None of us who write music, write songs, write poems, whatever, would be able to do it without the group of people who created the musical lexicon, the lyrical lexicon for how you write a song, or what a song is. We all, as artists, owe them a huge debt.

I remember when I was younger I'd write a song and figure out that I was just copying the beat of a song. Instead of scrapping it all, I would maybe change the pattern of the chords, or I'd substitute one chord for another. There's twelve notes, you've got to put them in some order or another. Everybody uses the same twelve notes.

And I go back to songs that I wrote years ago now and I really like them even though they're unoriginal. I like them because they still have that magic and excitement about them. I still get that feeling when I play them, even in this stage that I am now.

To learn more about Patrick Grizzell, please visit www.myspace.com/patrickgrizzell.

The photo above is a picture taken of Patrick Grizzell with Ricky Berger at an open mic night at Fox and Goose in Sacramento.

Writing format and style

2008-12-07T01:25:13Z

Format and writing style is about more than just looks. How you format your writing might make the difference between people reading your article or passing it by.

One of the trickiest parts of news writing is keeping things brief and to the point.

Stylistically this means paragraphs that don't exceed two sentences. While it seems excessive, if you read any major newspaper you will realize that this rule is nearly universal.

By adding whitespace an article seems more readable; huge paragraphs deter readers.

Good grammar, spelling and punctuation, is another important part of having your work read. Proofread your work, or have another person proofread it.

If you have no one to proofread your work we, at The Sacramento Press, will proofread your work for you. To do this, simply send us your article at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

We will edit your work and send you the edited version. Our goal is not to change your message, just to make it the best version of your work possible.

There are many more style guidelines that we abide by here at The Sacramento Press and in the next update I will post a list of the most important of those guidelines.

Do you know an adult who struggles with reading/writing?

2008-11-26T22:56:00Z

Did you know that Sacramento has a program that can help adults with basic reading and writing skills? Since its foundation in 1984, the Literacy Service of the Sacramento Public Library has offered one-on-one tutoring with English-speaking adults, helping them to improve the skills necessary to function in today's society.

Let's face it—adults who have trouble with reading and writing face a daily struggle. Imagine the frustration involved with trying to do basic things like read street signs, order a meal at a restaurant or send someone a birthday card.

Even more frustrating is that many of these adults may have children who are attending school. For these parents, reading a book to their children and helping with homework are impossible tasks.

The Literary Service offers a great opportunity not only for the students, but for community members interested in becoming tutors. Maybe you're a recent college graduate considering a job as a high school teacher or a college professor and want to get a little taste of what teaching might be like.

Or maybe you're a retired teacher who still wants to be active in the community. If you're 18 years or older and can devote an hour or two at least once a week, you can become a tutor.

Tutors aren't required to have any special skills or materials to start. After attending the training sessions, which add up to 14 hours, tutors will be provided with all the necessary course materials. Literacy staff is available to help the tutors if needed.

Students and tutors usually meet once a week for about an hour and a half, either at the library or other public locations convenient for both the student and tutor.

For more information, visit the Arcade Community Library:
2443 Marconi Ave. Sacramento, Ca 95821

You can also visit them at their Web site or give them a call at 966-READ

Do you know adults who have trouble with reading or writing? What kind of struggles does this create? Would you be willing to become a tutor?

Photo credits:
Photo #1 derived from this Web site
Photo #2 derived from this Web site
Both photos licensed under the Creative Commons license

Free workshops at The Sacramento Press

2008-11-19T09:52:05Z

From learning journalism basics to photo editing to learning about new Internet technologies The Sacramento Press provides workshops to all of our Community Contributors absolutely free.

Our workshops will have food and refreshments at no cost. We are located at the REA building next to the Amtrak building at 5th and I Street.

Our goal is keep most workshops to 20 people or less, but to put them on as frequently as possible, starting in the next few weeks.

What's the catch? All you have to do is sign up to write for the site. It's just two simple forms and you're in. Then when a workshop is announced just email us for a spot.

Why would The Sacramento Press do this?

Because we want you to write for us. Beyond just writing for us, we want you to write the best articles you are capable of writing and we want to help you do that. Lots of writing, and good writing, translates into more people reading and more people reading translates into our paper's success.

As workshops are planned check back on this storyline for more information.

Do you have more questions about our workshops? Ask your questions in the conversation below this story or write our journalism support department at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

How do I become a writer?

2008-10-14T08:52:17Z

Its easier than you think. If you want to be a writer, sign up or log in and click the "write!" button on the top of the page. Now you can sign up to become a Community Contributor.

Our journalism support department offers a manual, seminars, and workshops on becoming a better writer and journalist. The more workshops you attend the better your credibility with us and the more likely our editing staff will place your work on the front page. For more information contact journalism@sacramentopress.com.

Please pay close attention to our ethical code and disclose your biases. Our watchword is transparency because it helps us balance the news we report on the front page.

Start by covering one story. Just think of an itch that you need to scratch on a topic you know really well. A lot of you may know about the music scene, and a lot of you can write great reviews of local restaurants. But if you want to get on our front page, you are better off focusing on a story that really isn't being told elsewhere in the local media. The triumphs of your softball team or that mysterious vacant mansion down the street might be great stories. Write what you know and become an expert on your neighborhood in the process.

Pay attention to the conversations going on in your storyline. Use your audience to guide your next article and ask them questions when you don't know the answer. Trust that they are just like you and want to build a better neighborhood.

Finally, we want to support you in every way possible. We will help set up peer editing groups if you want the perspectives of other Community Contributors before publishing a headline. We have a network of resource providers in city government and private institutions who can help you find the answers to some of your tougher questions. In some cases we can even get you a press pass to an event.

Take the plunge. Click the "write!" button, become a Community Contributor, and cover a story with us.

Writers: Want to see your work in print?

2008-10-14T02:52:15Z

Poets, Playwrights and Budding Novelists!

The fact is, it's often hard to find a space where you can share your work with others. As most writers know, publishing opportunities can be hard to come by and this is why the Sacramento Press is creating a literary space where you can share what you write with others, get feedback and fight writer’s block - all in one.

Think Small and Start Local

Your ideas can be as simple as: What is it like to live in the Sacramento area? We’re interested in your stories – local and semi-local – about anything your imagination can dream up. You don't have to be a pulitzer prize winner to write for us, but if you are, that's great too. “Write what you know” is the name of the game, so pick up that pen and get writing! In the future, this literary space could also host writer’s groups, contests and other opportunities for you to engage with other writers in the area.

Where Should We Start?

If you’re ready to go, help us out! What kind of opportunities for writers are you looking for in the Sacramento area - let us know! How can we interest community writers to become involved? What would you like to read about most? We can only grow and improve with your input and contributions.