For Immediate Release
March 5, 2009

Learn to write short stories and novels in UCR Extension’s Beginning Fiction Techniques class

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.extension.ucr.edu) – The best thing to write about is anything you want to write about, which is why so many writers love to write fiction. Whether it’s a short story or a 400-page tome, fiction writing is the art of storytelling. Fiction writing also lives anywhere: in personal leather-bound journals, between published hard and soft covers, and electronically tucked into online blogs or Web sites. Learn to write the story using fascinating characters in an arresting plot surrounded by vivid imagery in UCR Extension’s class, Beginning Fiction Techniques. This class meets from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays beginning April 11 and ending June 20, 2009 at the UCR Palm Desert Graduate Center, 75-080 Frank Sinatra Dr. Class will not meet on March 23.

Instructor, Novelist and Freelance Writer Mary-Sullivan Roark will teach students the basic techniques for writing novels and short stories. Her lecture topics and assignments will focus on the who, what, when, where, why and how of writing. Developing characters, plot, dialogue, scene and summary, viewpoint and style also will be covered. Students will read celebrated works of fiction and short stories and analyze them.

Roark, who has a master’s degree in fine arts and creative writing, is currently working on her third novel. She has had her fiction and articles published in the “Nob Hill Gazette.” She also has experience in play writing and the production of plays.

The class fee is $295 per person.

For more information, call (951) 827-5801 or e-mail arts@ucx.ucr.edu. To register for classes, visit www.extension.ucr.edu or call (951) 827-4105. To receive a free UCR Extension catalog, which includes a complete listing of all our current courses and certificate programs, call (951) 827-3806.

UCR Extension is the continuing education division of the University of California, Riverside. Extension offers more than 1,800 courses and certificate programs in a variety of academic programs, including agriculture and landscape, arts and humanities, business and management, education, teacher’s credentialing, English, environmental management, geospatial analysis and technology, health services and behavioral sciences, information technology, languages, law and public policy, Native American studies, natural sciences, forensic investigations and public safety, and yoga.