Hope you had a fantastic Easter!
Tonight (7-9pm) I’m leading a writers workshop with Nana and Maurice at the Redeemer Offices, 1359 Broadway, 4th Floor, Main Conference Room. Admission is free. Please bring 1-2 pages of your writing for critique.
Tag Archives: Redeemer Writers Group
I’m Leading a Free Writing Worshop Tonight
24 Mar
From the website:::
March 24, 2014. 7-9pm. Stephanie will lead a writers workshop with Nana and Maurice at the Redeemer Offices, 1359 Broadway, 4th Floor, Main Conference Room. Admission is free. Please bring 1-2 pages of your writing for critique.
See you there!
I’m Leading a Free Writing Workshop Today
24 Feb
I’m leading a free writing workshop today with my friends Nana and Maurice. We’ll be over at the Redeemer Offices, 1359 Broadway, 4th Floor, Main Conference Room. The workshop starts promptly at 7pm and will go til 9pm. Please bring 1-2 pages of your writing for critique.
I’m Leading a Free Writing Workshop Jan. 20
15 Jan
I’m leading a free writing workshop next week with two of my colleagues, one who is an established novelist and the other who works in book publishing. The workshop will be held on January 20, 2014, 7-9pm, at the offices of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, located 1359 Broadway, 4th Floor, Main Conference Room The American Bible Society, located at 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, 11th Floor. (edit: 1/16/14)
Admission is free! Please bring 1-2 pages of your writing (any genre!) for critique.
I’m Hosting a Free Writing Workshop Tonight
5 Dec
Want feedback on your writing? I’ll be co-hosting a writing workshop with another publishing industry professional and a novelist tonight at the Redeemer offices. It’s free and open to all. Just register here and bring one to two pages of your original writing (any genre) for peer critique.
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Can’t make it to that event? Find my upcoming readings and workshops here.
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Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” is now available as an ebook and paperback!
Redeemer Writers Meet Tonight: Fall Writers Workshop
23 Sep
I’ll be co-leading a fall writers workshop today with my friends Nana, Maurice, and Jane. Here’s the info:
Fall Writers Workshop
Monday, September 23rd, 7PM
Redeemer Offices, 1359 Broadway, 4th Floor, Main Conference Room
The Redeemer Writers Group will be hosting a writing workshop for which we invite you to bring a short piece of writing to be read aloud in small groups for on the spot feedback.
It will be a new thing for us as a group and our hope is that it will not only bond us closer as writers as we “put ourselves out there,” but it will sharpen our respective crafts to the ultimate glory of God.
My Year in Review: 2012
4 JanWhat a full year 2012 was! Here’s a quick little recap:::
In January I announced that the rumors were true. But it took the full year for it to finally look like this.
In February I joined Pinterest to discover how it may help me as a writer and have been happily pinning ever since.
In March my personal essay was included in the book Creating Space.
In April I was one of the editors representing the Burnside Writers Collective at the Festival of Faith & Writing. It was so special to get to catch up with the other editors and writers, whom I just adore. I also had the opportunity to teach a writing workshop while I was there.
Image via On the Road with Bob Holman / Rattapallax
In April I also worked to create awareness about what we lose when we lose a language. My interview with poet Bob Holman appeared in BOMBlog.
In May I received my MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School. I had a fantastic thesis advisor and a beloved peer group, who challenged me to dig deeper in my memoir about growing up Greek American. After I read a snippet at our thesis reading, an instructor I’d never even had came up to tell me how much he liked my work!
Image via The Human Tower / Rattapallax
In June I witnessed the world record being broken for the tallest castell on a rooftop.
In July I heard Amber Tamblyn read for The Paris Review at the Strand. Afterwards we somehow ended up on the elevator together, and I didn’t say anything to her. I never know in those situations if it’s polite to say something like “nice reading” or if the person just wants her privacy. I know she’s involved in the Beat literature community, though, so I should’ve probably talked to her about that.
Image via The Millions
In August an article I wrote about a funny incident I had related to Jack Kerouac sparked a fiery debate and went viral, getting mentioned everywhere from The New Yorker to The Paris Review.
Photo via RA Araya
In September I had one of the most surreal moments of my life–reading with David Amram. I got to hear him perform again, this time as an enthralled audience member, in December.
Photo via RA Araya
That month I also read for poet Miguel Algarin‘s birthday bash.
I also road tripped through northern and central California, visiting Cannery Row, City Lights Bookshop, The Beat Museum, and attending my college friend’s wedding.
In October Hurricane Sandy hit New York, and I spent a lot of time in bed.
In November I failed miserably at NaNoWriMo, but I had a lot of fun creating this ever-evolving Pinterest board for the book I never wrote.
I also gave a reading that got upstaged by a wedding proposal.
In December there was a flurry of Jack Kerouac-related activities to promote the film adaptation of On the Road, and I got to see author Ann Charters and film director Walter Salles in person at IFC. I also got to take a writing class with screenwriter Jose Rivera at 3rd Ward.
I also went out to Lowell and got to meet Jack Kerouac’s friend and pallbearer Billy Koumantzelis.
What were the highlights of 2012 for you?
Clip: Creating Space
26 Mar
I’m pleased to have a personal essay published inCreating Space. In the essay, I write about my angsty teen years in New Jersey … and how I still sometimes feel that way.
Creating Space is a Lenten devotional published by RedeemerWrites, part of the Redeemer Writers Group, an arts ministry at the Center for Faith & Work. As you may know, I’m one of the leaders of the Writers Group, and so I was involved in soliciting entries for Creating Spaceand editing them, under the direction of Maria Fee. The devotional features poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as calligraphy by artist David Chang.
Creating Space is on sale for $5.
My Festival of Faith & Writing Festival Circle: Holy Grounds — The Role of Place in Your Spiritual and Literary Life
9 Mar
As I mentioned a while back, I’ll be leading a Festival Circle this year at the Festival of Faith & Writing held at Calvin College. It’s a tremendous honor to have been selected to facilitate a discussion group at this prestigious writing conference, where so many authors I admire will be speaking.
In case you’re unfamiliar with what Festival Circle is, here’s how FFW describes it:
This year, we are once again offering Festival Circles, small groups that will meet at least two times during the Festival to discuss a topic of common interest. Each circle, composed of approximately 12–15 attendees and led by a Festival participant, will meet during Thursday dinner and Saturday lunch. Because the circles are scheduled to meet at the same time, it’s possible for attendees to participate in only one.
They go on to explain its purpose:
We hope that Festival Circles will give you a place to connect with other attendees, and to deepen and extend your experience of the Festival.
I want to share with you the description of the Festival Circle that I’m hosting:
Holy Grounds: The Role of Place in Your Spiritual and Literary Life
By looking at what the Bible has to say about the setting of a story, this circle will encourage participants to carefully consider the role of place in their writing, and challenge them to see how different locations affect a story’s style and content.Facilitator: Stephanie Nikolopoulos
Bio: Stephanie Nikolopoulos (www.StephanieNikolopoulos.com) has worked in book publishing in Manhattan for ten years, is the visual arts editor for Burnside Writers Collective, and is a co-leader of the Writers Group at the Center for Faith & Work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York; her writing has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and books across the country.
I’m genuinely passionate about the multi-faceted subject of place. I wrote about place for my undergrad thesis at Scripps College, my Burnside Writers Collective column Church Hopping talks about the architecture of unique and beautiful places, the travelogue I wrote an introduction to obviously has a strong emphasis on place, the nonfiction book Burning Furiously Beautiful I’m co-authoring describes how the landscape and history of place affected one of America’s greatest novels, and the memoir I’m writing deals very much with place. My resume aside, I love traveling. I moved out to California for college without ever even visiting the state first. I’m the child of an immigrant so place has always played an important role in my identity, in my understanding of who I am and where I come from.
Place isn’t always about a physical place, though. Place can be a mood, a mental space, a spiritual space. Place can be about a journey, whether that means hopping a train, opening a book and getting lost in the imagination of an author, being moved to tears, learning something about yourself, understanding the world better, or opening yourself up to a new relationship. A journey from point A to point B isn’t always a single straight line. This is true for a traveler (even Jack Kerouac had an infamous setback when he first set off on the road), for a writer (hello, thesis draft number 452), or for a person of faith (Paul went around killing Christians before he went on the road to Damascus and saw the light; as a boy David may have killed Goliath but as an adult he committed adultery … and had the woman’s husband killed; Peter adamantly denied even knowing Christ and then became a martyr). As the old Paula Abdul song goes, two steps forward, two steps back….
With all that in mind, know that I am on a journey too. I simply want to walk alongside other writers and talk about the meaning of place in all areas of our lives. If you would like to join my Festival Circle or any of the others, you can find out how to do so here.
Writing Wednesday: MediaBistro Book Club’s August ’11 Reading
31 AugI’m becoming a regular at MediaBistro Book Club. It’s one of my favorite reading series, essentially because it’s targeted toward people specifically in book publishing, so I get an opportunity to hear some great literature and chat with fellow book publishing professionals.
Usually when I attend publishing networking events it’s just other editors there, and when I attend readings it’s just bibliophiles and aspiring writers there. MediaBistro Book Club is one of the rare readings that’s actually geared towards those who work in the publishing industry.
This time around the MediaBistro Book Club was held at the Union Square Lounge, which provided an intimate set-up and good drink specials. I attended with one of my co-leaders from the Redeemer Writers Group and Burnside Writers Collective’s new fiction editor Mihaela Georgescu, and met some other creative writers, editors, designers, and production editors while mingling. Here’s a photo of me at the event.
Everyone always talks about how small the industry is, and the more I attend readings and connect with people through social media the more I see this to be the case. I spied David Goodwillie, whom I heard read at the reading The Shrinks Are Away, chatting it up with MediaBistro Book Club reader Andrew Foster Altschul. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that they’re friends, given their cultural critiques.
Altschul’s Deus Ex Machina is a scathing look at reality tv. He’s also the author of Lady Lazarus.
Nelson Aspen is the Ryan Seacrest of Down Under. He dished on being an exercise trainer to Princess Diana and meeting the official voice of Fred Flinstone (he even sang the Flinstones theme song!), as he told us about his celebrity cookbook Dinner at Nelson’s.
Margaret Floyd took the food talk in a more nutritional direction when she talked about her discovery of just how much food influences health and well-being. She tells all in Eat Naked Now.
Ben H. Winters claims he never had bedbugs even though he says 1 out of 3 New Yorkers have had them—even though no one will admit to it. He wrote a whole fright-fest called Bedbugs.
After the readings there was a spirited Q&A, where Aspen said he believes self-publishing is the way to go and Winters said he hatched Bedbugs with his publisher, one of my favorite book publishers Quirk Books, and therefore never even had to submit a book proposal. Interestingly, the fiction writers, Altschul and Winters, knew they wanted to be writers (instead of lawyers, which their parents’ wanted them to be), while the nonfiction writers, Aspen and Floyd, said that getting published was something that happened organically because of their other passions. I think the lesson for nonfiction writers is that in addition to a desire to write you should have a passion for another subject.
See you at the next reading on November 17?
Yiasou!
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and speaker based in New York City.
She is the coauthor, with Paul Maher Jr., of "Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road.'"
You can email her at stephanie_701 {@} yahoo.com
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 
