The Story Within

Find Your Story Within Writing Contest

Throughout the next several weeks aspiring writers, writing hobbyists or anyone looking to learn more about themselves through writing has the opportunity to enter Laura Oliver’s “Find Your Story Within Contest.” Each week Laura will post a new writing prompt and the grand prize winner will receive free consultation time with Laura (a $250 value). Weekly winners also have the opportunity to receive a copy of her new book The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers and various other writing books.

Click here to enter and learn more about the “Find Your Story Within Contest.”

Follow Laura on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/thestorywithin
• Twitter: @storywithin
  
• Blog: thestorywithin.wordpress.com 

From the moment I heard my first story,

 I started looking for you.     --Rumi

Welcome to The Story Within. 

The Story Within Creative Writing Workshops provide substantive writing instruction and inspiration to new writers and those who are already well-published. Open to the public and offered at St. John's College and The Writer's Center in Bethesda, students are nurtured, mentored and taught to strengthen their writing skills in an environment that is both exciting and safe. Every aspect of literary craft is addressed as is the business of publishing. Classes include the discussion of published works to learn how stories are constructed, in-class writing exercises to practice elements of craft, and the discussion of student work written outside the classroom. Those who wish to work one-on-one may do so as well .Short stories, novels, and creative nonfiction manuscripts are developed at your own pace in a supportive  environment. Writing is a means of discovering and expressing the story within. Memories become memoirs, observations become essays, and life becomes literature.

NEW WORKSHOPS and SEMINARS  SEE WORKSHOP PAGE

or email lauraoliver2@yahoo.com

"I envy Oliver's students, who must thrive under her understanding and enthusiasm. I happened to pick up "The Story Within" during a week when I was in a foul mood about writing in general, and by the time I was halfway through, to my amazement, Oliver had made me want to sit down and get back to work.”--Cynthia Gorney, Graduate School of Journalism, U.C. Berkeley, Contributing Writer, The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic Magazine

"I found a voice I didn't know I had and I found the courage to use it. Laura's astute insights and suggestions took me beyond where I thought I could go."   --C. Schwarz, Annapolis, MD, St. John's writing workshop participant

  LAURA OLIVER, M.F.A.

Laura Oliver is the author of The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers (Alpha Books/Penguin 2011. See book page.) In addition, she is an award-winning writer and creative writing instructor at St. John's College and The Writer's Center. Oliver has also taught both fiction and essay writing at the University of Maryland. 

Oliver's fiction and essays are published in national newspapers, magazines and top-tier literary reviews (The Washington Post, Country Living Magazine, The Writer Magazine, Glimmer Train Stories, Charleston Magazine, Portland Magazine, The Baltimore Review.) Among other distinctions, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, a Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 

Oliver holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College,a Bachelor of Arts in English from Washington College, and has completed writing seminars in creative non-fiction at the University of Iowa.

Oliver has completed professional education seminars on positive psychology taught by the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and numerous professional education seminars sponsored by the Maryland Psychological Association.

photo by Laura Dobbs