for patrons only: live talk tomorrow about writing with helen sword (Patreon)

Hello Hello!!

**edit, made 9pm NZT tuesday, march 21st**

hey all: some of you emailed having a little trouble signing in / registering for the event, which starts in about 11 hours; some of you didn’t get confirmation emails. NEVER FEAR, here is the DIRECT LINK FOR THE ZOOM!! NO NEED TO REGISTER!: just click and join:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88435602973

If you are unsure of the time, you can see this event in your time zone by visiting helensword.com/calendar.

or check the time zones below !!!

SEE YOU SOON

i’ll send you all a little reminder bump email in the morning. xxx

…….

original post:

WRITERS UNITE!!!!

LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW WERID AND HARD IT IS TO WRITE...ANYTHING!!!!

TL;DR, I'm doing a private online talk with writing-expert Helen Sword tomorrow at 8am NZ time (March 22)!!! More info below.

First of all....A HUGE WELCOME to many hundreds of new patrons, HELLO HELLO!!! You've probably landed here because of the new "Surface Pressure" release. THANK YOU! Your support means the world to me and you'll hopefully find that you love being a patron, because random fun things are happening all the time, including, like, RIGHT NOW....I'm about to do a surprise TALK with someone amazing. (And a reminder, the download links for the song are HERE. Also it's blowing up on TikTok and the comments are fucking HILARIOUS).

.........

Greetings from Waiheke Island...I'm about to get on the ferry to Devenport, where my new friend - the writer-who-writes-about-writing Helen Sword - lives. She has invited me to have dinner at her house spend the night, and get up at the ass-crack of dawn to do a deep-dive live online conversation with her about THE WRITING PROCESS. Specifically, HOW to write to really connect with people. How to cut through the bullshit and get to what you want to SAY. 

This is Helen. 

She looks like an adult but secretly she's fooling you. She's a wild woman poet friend.

Dudes. 

I REALLY LOVE TALKING ABOUT WRITING and haven't done it in a long time, and am actually really, really excited for this. My writing - and my relationship with writing - have changed during the pandemic, and Helen is a TOP-CLASS interviewer.

SO, I know it's short notice, but I hope some of you can come, especially my NON-FICITON FRIENDS, the POETS, NOVELISTS, SONGWRITERS and, oddly, my ACADEMICS! Helen's specialty is working with academics to help make their writing more readable and accessible (see more below).

These live event/talks with Helen are usually for HER MAILING LIST ONLY (and she's interviewed some real heavyweight writers, next month she has Steven Pinker)  but she's making an exception for ME AND Y'ALL because she knows how dearly I treasure my patrons. 

Here's the link to register to watch (for free): 

https://www.helensword.com/writespace-special-event-with-amanda-palmer

THE TALK IS LIVE FROM HELEN'S HOUSE TOMORROW AT 8 AM NZ TIME, which Tuesday, March 22 HERE, and Monday, March 21 in USA/EUROPE  That's:

• 6-7 am Tuesday March 22 in Sydney
• 12-1 pm Monday March 21 in Vancouver
• 3-4 pm Monday March 21 in Boston
• 7-8 pm Monday March 21 in London
• 8-9 pm Monday March 21 in Paris
• 9-10 pm Monday March 21 in Cape Town

Helen's house is very fucking beautiful. 

So is Helen....I wound up spending a night over at her place last week because of weird accidental reasons...like you do (I mean.....things happened. I missed the ferry....don't ask.)

Here's her back porch, where she served me the most beautiful cup of tea:

That's Freddy the doggo and Helen's mostly companion. He'll probably show up during the interview. 

And because I missed the ferry and wound up inviting myself over for the night...I took Helen out to dinner and I took this picture of her....and her beloved Freddy...over dinner:

..........

So, as I said above, you guys can come watch without having to sign up for her mailing list. But, y'know, it'd be real nice if you signed up anyway, and Helen is an incredible woman and writer.

I was introduced to her via a random connection (a chef in San Francisco of all places, who was like: AMANDA, HELEN, YOU ARE BOTH ON WAIHEKE ISLAND MEET EACH OTHER), .

I immediately fell in love with Helen and her work...a few weeks ago we took a long walk on the beach and I gave her a copy of "The Art of Asking" and she loanded me some poetry books and gave me a copy of her book "Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write."

Check out this passage from the beginning of the book. IT'S FUCKING CHARLES BUKOWSKI and now you can understand why I love this woman:

Here are a few more of Helen's published books:

And here's her bio:

Helen Sword is a poet, scholar, master teacher, and international expert on academic, professional, and creative writing across the disciplines.  Her books, articles, and online tools have empowered writers around the world to write more clearly, confidently, prolifically, and with greater pleasure.

Born and raised in Southern California, Helen received her doctorate in comparative literature from Princeton University and has lived since 2001 in New Zealand, where she is a Professor of Humanities at the University of Auckland and runs a private writing consultancy, WriteSpace Limited.  She is the author of books including Stylish Academic Writing (Harvard UP, 2012), The Writer’s Diet (Chicago UP, 2016), and Air & Light & Time and Space: How Successful Academics Write (Harvard UP, 2017) and the creator of popular digital resources such as the Writer’s Diet, an online diagnostic test that is now also available as a free add-in for MS Word; the Writing BASE, an interactive productivity tool; Helen’s Word, a YouTube channel that encourages writers at all levels to “show up and write”; and Zombie Nouns, a TedEd video that has received nearly a million views on YouTube.  Helen’s current book project, Writing with Pleasure, is under contract with Princeton University Press for publication in 2022.

Helen has been honored with a number of research and teaching awards, including the University of Auckland's 2007 Teaching Excellence Award for Innovation in Teaching, the 2013 HERDSA-TERNZ Medal for a scholar who has made a major impact on the tertiary education research environment of New Zealand, and the University of Auckland's 2017 Research Excellence Award. Her evidence-based writing workshops and presentations have taken her to more than 1oo universities, research institutes, and other organizations in 20+ countries and on every continent except Antarctica.  Rising to the challenge of having had her travel wings clipped by the COVID-19 pandemic, she now specializes in facilitating experiential online workshops, masterclasses, and retreats that bring together writers from across the globe in a shared virtual writing space.

If you miss the talk or want more....you can also head over to Helen's website (www.helensword.com) for writing resources including books, workshops, videos, retreats, online tools, and the WriteSPACE, which is a global virtual writing community with members in 30+ countries.

Hopefully see a bunch of you there...

xxx

AFP

———THE STUFF I SAY AT THE END OF EVERY POST———

1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.

2. if you’re a patron reading this post via an email notification, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that's always nice for me to see, so i know who's reading.

3. see All the Things (over 150 of them) i've made so far on patreon:

http://amandapalmer.net/things

4. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/

5. are you new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

6. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net