Women Veterans Writing Course
Mary-Rose’s first workshop series for returned women combat veterans — mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan — ended two days ago and included participants from five Bay Area Counties. We began small, but numbers grew steadily as word got around. The writing is awesome, and the sense of community heart-warming. Complete confidentiality is a given. Classes will resume for another 8-week series beginning Monday, October 3, at the War Memorial Veterans’ Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco (3rd floor). To sign up contact Jennifer Stasch at: www.swords-to-plowshares.org
Mary-Rose in Arizona: two one-day workshops, October 2011
Saturday, 8 October 2011 and Saturday, 22 October 2011:
Mary-Rose returns to the historic Virginia G. Piper Writers’ House, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona to lead two one-day workshops: ACTION IS CHARACTER (which explores characterization) and ARE WE THERE YET? YES WE ARE! (discussing the incorporation of sensory detail such as light, sound, smell, touch and taste in order to enrich a sense of place).
All writers – beginners or more experienced, whether working in fiction of non-fiction – are invited to apply. Story-telling techniques are universal and apply to any form of writing, whether a novel, a report, a brochure or a memoir. After all, it’s all about identifying an audience, drawing them in, then holding their attention and making them want to find out more.
These mini-courses are described in detail on the CURRENT WORKSHOPS page of this site.
Workshops will be small, supportive and informal, in the delightful Writers House on Campus just off the Palm Walk. For information on enrollment: www.asu.edu/piper/workshops and scroll down.
Peralta Writing Course
June 4 – 11, 2011 It’s time again for the annual Peralta Writing Course! 
One full week living in a medieval mountain hamlet on the edge of the marble country among olive groves, antiquities and incredible art (Fiore di Henriquez, world renowned sculptor, discovered and restored Peralta); writing, wandering, watching and dreaming; enjoying the Tuscan cuisine and wines, and the glorious view across the Ligurian Sea to Corsica.
Who comes to Peralta? I’m increasingly noticing that our participants are seekers and creative adventurers who have completed one stage of their lives and are moving on to the next. They are comfortable in the world and deeply appreciate beauty; many are painters and photographers ready to explore a new direction in the arts.
At work in Fiore’s studio, 2010
Best Selling Author
Mary-Rose Hayes is the best selling author of eight novels, whose genres include
horror, suspense, and romantic adventure. She has co-authored two political thrillers with Senator Barbara Boxer,
A TIME TO RUN and, most recently, BLIND TRUST in July 2009.
Mary-Rose’s novels have been translated into fifteen languages and have regularly been Doubleday Book of the Month and Literary Guild main selections. AMETHYST (E.P. Dutton, 1991) was chosen as a Time/Life bestseller condensation. Her current project is a trilogy with the working title PATHS TAKEN. The story is set in England and the United States, spans more than half a century from 1939 – 1997, and is overshadowed by the resonances of two world wars and the Vietnam conflict.
“I really do believe that a writer is born and not made,” says Mary-Rose, who began to write as soon as she knew how, at the age of six. “You may not like it, but you can’t help it.”
She attributes her love for language and the written word to growing up among writers and artists, “and to a period in early childhood living in a remote country house with no TV, spotty radio reception, and constant electrical blackouts.” Entertainment involved reading aloud and the writing of plays, to be performed in the living room both by her family and various relatives, and by houseguests who included, among numerous others, a London theatrical director and the archbishop of Johannesburg.
Veterans’ Workshop May 7, Report
Mary-Rose’s writing workshop, featured in the ‘healing through the arts’ segment of Swords to Plowshares SHOUT! event honoring female war veterans, took place last Saturday (May 7) at the War Memorial Veterans’ Building, San Francisco. Participants, from around the Bay Area and as far as Carmel, included a health-care senior officer who has published a book about her experiences in Iraq through the Veterans Book Project. The group perched between the massage tables, set up for a different kind of healing session both before and after, while Mary-Rose gave an overview of the writer’s craft – “as much as could be packed into a one-hour session!” She offered writing exercises to be done at home and emailed to her, and described her future workshops, planned to begin in July. For information on enrollment, call Jennifer Stasch at Swords to Plowshares: 415-655-7246
Veterans’ Writing Classes
Join Mary-Rose on Saturday, May 7, 2011 at the Veterans War Memorial Building, Civic Center, San Francisco, 1.00 – 2.00 p.m., when she discusses her free workshops for veterans.
The talk is included in the ‘Healing Through the Arts’ segment of SHOUT! — a three-day annual event organized by Swords to Plowshares to celebrate and support women veterans.
Mary-Rose is a military daughter and grand-daughter. Her father, a naval officer serving on convoy escort duty in the North Atlantic during World War II, began writing crime fiction as a respite for continuous stress; after the war he launched a new career as a successful author of suspense novels.
Last year, when Mary-Ros
e read a newspaper article about two soldiers stationed at a remote hilltop position in Afghanistan, one of whom began reading the classics he’d never bothered with in high school while the other took up short-story writing, her mind lit up like the proverbial light bulb: “Clearly, as shown by my own family history, writing instruction could benefit both the serving military and returning veterans,” and she at once contacted Swords to Plowshares.
Mary-Rose strongly believes in the nurturing power of creation and self expression when it develops under conditions of trust and support. She also stresses that writing is the simplest of art forms: “You don’t need a piano, an easel or a dance floor, just a pad and pencil. You can write anywhere, anytime. You can tell your own story in your own way. You can influence the way people think — you can even change the world!”
Mary-Rose compares the craft of writing to building a house, and believes that great things can happen once construction is underway. “One can be given the raw materials and left to get on with it, but it certainly helps to know how to set a nail, lay a brick or sheet-rock the ceiling! And then comes the fun stuff: the decoration with fine, colorful words, and the characters, both real and imagined, who are invited to visit.”