Saturday Morning Writer's Clinic

Two local authors – Allison Alsup and Sharon LaCour, will be the featured speakers at the Saturday Writer’s Clinic for March 8, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

9:30 a.m. – Saturday, March 8

“Tarot for Writers” – Allison Alsup, New Orleans Writers Workshop

“The tarot is a 500-year old narrative tradition whose depictions of human archetypes and universal situations remain as relevant today as they were in the Renaissance,” says Alsup. “As such, the cards make for great writing fodder.”

In this fun and interactive session, patrons will learn how to tap into the cards for inspiration and details in building themes, characters and even scenes. Using custom exercises and cards drawn 

by the participants themselves, patrons will generate fresh material for fiction, non-fiction, or poetry or discover new angles to an existing work-in-progress. Absolutely no knowledge of tarot is required; for both beginning and experienced writers alike. 

Allison Alsup's debut novel, Foreign Seed, was published recently by Keylight Books. She is the co-founder of the New Orleans Writers Workshop where she serves as Creative Director. Her stories have won multiple contests; her work appears, among other places, in the O'Henry Prize Stories 2014 and Best Food Writing 2015. She regularly teaches workshops through NOWW and oversees their developmental editing services, mentoring writers one on one. Allison holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Emerson College. 

11 a.m., Saturday, March 8

“Point of View” with Sharon LaCour

Point of view refers to the perspective that the narrator holds in relation to the events of the story. The three primary points of view are first person, in which the narrator tells a story from their own perspective ("I went to the store"); second person, in which the narrator tells a story about you, the reader or viewer ("You went to the store"); and third person, in which the narrator tells a story about other people ("He went to the store"). Each point of view creates a different experience for the reader, because, in each point of view, different types and amounts of information are available to the reader about the story's events and characters.

Sharon LaCour’s stories and essays have been published in the Xavier, Sheepshead, Chautauqua and Arkansas Reviews among others. Sharon’s debut literary novel, The Meeting of Air and Water, was a novel-in-progress finalist in the William Wisdom-William Faulkner novel competition in 2019. The novel was inspired by the photographs of Fonville Winans, a Baton Rouge photographer who documented Louisiana Cajun life in the 1920s. It follows the lives of two women artists, one grandmother to the other, who struggle against societal and cultural expectations that threaten their need to create.