Two experts on the art of telling a story – Steve Scaffidi and Laura Ewald – will speak at the Nov. 23 session of the JPL Saturday Writers’ Clinic, East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

Each event is free of charge and is open to the public. There is no registration.

9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
The Ghost Rider Creative Writing Experience with Steve Scaffidi

This event is designed for participants who want to take an idea and develop it into a story for a novel, short story, or screenplay. During this experience, participants will share creative ideas and brainstorm on how to bring stories to life.

Scaffidi has set the following goals and objectives for the 90-minute session.
• To challenge participants to come up with fresh, original ideas and to allow those ideas to inspire writing.
• To teach participants how to organize their thoughts and understand how to construct a great story that can go somewhere.
• To use books (and film) as a guide to understand storytelling and to apply writing skills to help in any creative endeavor and everyday applications.
• To make writing enjoyable and to encourage participants to write a book, short story, poem, television script, or screenplay.

Steven Scaffidi is a writer, producer, and director for film and television. He says he is passionate about telling stories about the underdog who overcomes the odds to realize his or her dreams. His body of film work includes: the controversial film “Execution,” which was screened in theaters nationally; “Forgotten on the Bayou,” released nationally on prime time network television and winner of the Humanitarian Vision Award; and “The People’s Story: The Devastation of Central America,” a documentary and Academy Awards finalist.

Scaffidi has penned 15 original screenplays, numerous television scripts and short stories, plus a book and stage play about the New Orleans Saints titled “Ain’t Dat Super,” which was written before the team went to the Super Bowl. He has written hundreds of commercials, several original television shows, and shorts and long-format films for national clients.

11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The Power of Story with Laura Anne Ewald

"Why do you write what you write?" Ewald asks. “For me, I write the stories I write because the characters in my head demand that I write them. Most, if not all, of my characters begin in my dreams; I awaken following a particularly lucid dream, from a scene in which the characters are as real to me in the moment I awaken as the people I have known all my life.”

She says her own stories almost always start with the characters. They have to be people she wants to know and live with for the weeks or months it takes to write the book whose background, both the good and the bad, has made them interesting people. While plot is certainly essential, too, if the characters don't grab her, she won't finish reading or writing a book.

There is more than just telling the story, though. It doesn't matter how many, or how good, the stories one has inside, unless they can be communicated well, no one will read them.

Laura Anne Ewald is a former librarian turned freelance writer, ghostwriter, editor, and indexer. She says she is an eclectic scholar with degrees in classical studies, drama, library science, and organizational communication. She is committed to the concept of "Everyman Theater," bringing life's lessons to the world through good storytelling, whether it is in the form of novels, plays or puppet theater.

For more information regarding this event, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.