Award-winning Local Author to Teach Workshop for Writers on June 17

Eastport Arts Center will present ‘So You’ve Written a First Draft: Now What?’, a workshop about the revision process with author Catherine J.S. Lee on June 17, 1-4 pm. Lee will guide participants in the process of editing their stories, personal essays and creative nonfiction to make them shine. “Do you feel that writing a first draft is a fun and exciting process of discovery, but revising that draft is mostly drudgery?” asks Catherine of potential students. “Do you suspect that your draft, be it the first or the tenth, could be better but you’re not sure what to do to help it reach its full potential? If you have a work-in-progress and want to learn some strategies and techniques for editing and polishing it, join me for a workshop on what Ernest Hemingway once called ‘getting the words right.’” Workshop fee is $20; a sliding fee scale (pay what you can) is available by request. The workshop is for participants age 16 and up. Attendees will have time during the session to practice revision techniques on the work-in-progress that they bring. To register, please email info@eastportartscenter.org. Funding for this workshop has been provided by a Maine Community Foundation Community Building Grant.

Catherine J.S. Lee shares one of her stories at an EAC Open Mic night. Photo by Lauren Koss.

Lee, who confesses that she dislikes writing first drafts but loves to revise them, is an active board member with local non-profits, including Peavey Memorial Library and the Eastport Arts Center. In her free time, she enjoys Zentangling, playing the five-string banjo and the banjolele, hosting blues and folk music shows on WSHD radio, and chasing sunsets with her digital cameras. Island Secrets: Stories from the Coast of Maine is Lee’s first published book-length work of fiction and the 2023 winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award for regional fiction from the northeast. She is currently writing stories for a second collection, Forest Whispers: More Stories from the Coast of Maine, and revising a novel, Summer’s End.