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Revising to Solve Common Craft Problems
Instructor: Jody Hesler $60 Members | $65 Non-members Saturday, 9/23/17 | 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM Ever heard these comments in a workshop? “I don’t think this story earned its ending.” “Where’s the urgency?” “Why this event right now?” This seminar addresses some common craft pitfalls that evoke these kinds of reader responses and keep a story from shining its brightest. Topics we’ll cover include narrative tension, clichés of the body, verisimilitude, point-of-view filtering, and more. Come prepared to do some…
Find out more »Your Life as a Story – Class is Full
Instructor: Lisa Ellison $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Mondays, 9/18/17 - 11/6/17 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM Learn how to turn your experiences into a true story that is as engaging as a novel. Find out how book-length memoirs can use the tools of fiction, such as vivid sensory detail, evocative settings, and fully rounded characters. Flesh out scenes with specific, telling details to make them as moving on the page as they were in life. Writers in all stages…
Find out more »Daytime Poetry Workshop (1 spot left!)
Instructor: Kristen Rembold $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Tuesdays, 9/26/17 - 11/14/17 | 1:00 PM – 3:30 PM In this poetry class, we will learn more about the elements that make up the body of a poem through means of reading assignments, class discussion, and lectures. We will spend an equal amount of time in workshop mode, examining our poems with particular attention paid to the body, form, and pattern of the poem. Kristen Staby Rembold’s most recent book is a…
Find out more »Evening Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Jay Kauffmann $189 Members | $210 Non-members Tuesdays, 9/19/17 - 11/7/17 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM This workshop will explore the essential elements of creative nonfiction, such as sensory imagery, metaphoric language, distinctive voice, dramatic arc, and focused theme. Participants will discuss essays and memoir pieces submitted to the group. In addition, there will be readings and in-class exercises that address pertinent craft issues. There will also be opportunities to consider non-craft issues associated with this genre, such as…
Find out more »Writing Children’s Picture Books
Instructor: Hannah Barnaby $189 Members | $210 Non-members Wednesdays, 9/20/17 - 11/8/17 | 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM Picture books are a child’s earliest introduction to the power of story. We’ll explore elements of classic and current picture books, study the spectrum of commercial to literary picture books, examine the relationship between text and image, and most importantly, generate ideas and develop them into polished drafts. You’ll complete the class with both a deeper appreciation of the art of the…
Find out more »Daytime Nonfiction
Instructor: Jody Hesler $189 Members | $210 Non-members Wednesdays, 9/20/17 - 11/8/17 | 1:00 PM – 3:30 PM Whether you're interested in writing personal essays or working on a memoir, this class will provide you with the resources to tell your story effectively. We'll read and discuss classic and contemporary essays, complete in-class prompts and exercises and develop our ideas into fully realized pieces. There will be a workshop component to this class, as well as an emphasis on discussion…
Find out more »Finding Your Story’s Sweet Spot (Class is Full!)
Instructor: BettyJoyce Nash $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Wednesdays, 9/20/17 - 11/8/17 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM What sets a great short story apart from its mediocre cousins? How do award-winning short story writers use dialogue, character, and action to build layered, lively scenes that plunge us into life's mysteries, compelling us to keep turning pages? We'll dissect a handful of short stories from the masters and write our own from scratch, workshopping them into polished drafts. Come prepared to read…
Find out more »Literary Agents 101
Instructor: Nichole LeFebvre $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 9/30/17 | 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM You've written a novel. You've revised a novel. You've re-written and re-revised a novel. Now what? Landing an agent is daunting. In this one-day seminar we'll demystify the process: from research to contract. You'll learn how to find agents who represent your genre, and importantly, how to attract their attention. You'll get tips for condensing your brilliant book into a 3-4 line description. You'll…
Find out more »Secrets to Writing Every Day
Instructor: Joan Mazza $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Sunday, 10/1/17 | 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Whatever style of writing you do or hope to do, you can develop habits for writing every day and find the time to do so. In this seminar, we will discuss strategies to stay in your writing mind and make creative leaps. We’ll talk about how to catch ideas and track them, and how as little as fifteen minutes a day can keep you…
Find out more »Art of Recklessness: Surprise Yourself (Generative)
Instructor: Chet'la Sebree $25 Members | $30 Non-members Saturday, 10/7/17 | 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Feeling like a one-trick pony in your poems? Looking to get out of your comfort zone to try something new? In the first installment of this lunchtime seminar series—that uses Dean Young’s The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction as a guiding principle—we will discuss ways to surprise yourself in your writing practice using generative strategies that can act as a…
Find out more »Social Media for Beginners: Establish a Foundation and a Sustainable (Fun!) Practice
Instructor: Jane Friedman $325 Members | $400 Non-members Tuesdays*, 10/10/17 – 11/21/17 | 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM *This class will NOT meet on 10/24/17 **This class will take place in the conference room at Indoor Biotechnologies Many authors have a love-hate relationship with social media, especially when it's seen as a distraction from the writing work, with nothing but the noise of what people had for lunch (or worse). This course focuses on how to find a place for…
Find out more »Art of Recklessness: Surprise Others (Subversion)
Instructor: Jane Friedman $25 Members | $30 Non-members Saturday, 10/14/17 | 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM A good poem teaches a reader how to read it; however, many of these poems also subvert our expectations in meaningful and surprising ways. In the second installment of this lunchtime seminar series—that uses Dean Young’s The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction as a guiding principle—we will discuss ways in which you can both create and subvert readers’ expectations through…
Find out more »Build a Website Workshop for Nontechies
Instructor: Candace Schoner $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Sunday, 10/15/17 | 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM This workshop is designed for individuals and small business owners who want to build a professional website without spending nights, weekends, or even months without results. Those who attend will learn everything they need to design, build, and host a website, as well as the pros and cons to popular web design tools such as WordPress, Weebly and WIX. During the last half of…
Find out more »Art of Recklessness: Revision
Instructor: Chet'la Sebree $25 Members | $30 Non-members Saturday, 10/21/17 | 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Want to revise a lifeless poem? Don’t know how? In the final installment of this lunchtime seminar series—that uses Dean Young’s The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction as a guiding principle—we will look at two versions of the same poem as a way of discussing how to revise life into a well-crafted but otherwise flat poem. Chet’la Sebree, a mid-Atlantic…
Find out more »Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid: Writing Stories to Scare Your Readers
Instructor: Warren Rochelle $60 Members | $65 Non-members Saturday, 10/28/17 | 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM We like being scared and, admit it, scaring our readers. So, how do we do just that? What do we need to consider to produce a tale that has to be read with the lights on and, preferably, not alone? What keeps us reading when we are afraid? Watching yet another horror movie? We will ponder these questions, consider fear and terror and write…
Find out more »Writing Love
Instructor: Amanda Korman $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 11/4/17 | 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM This seminar is for prose writers who are looking to make vivid the feelings—all the feelings, joyful and otherwise—of love. We’ll discuss fiction and nonfiction that explore loves of many kinds—familial, platonic, romantic, marital, extramarital, erotic—and we’ll work on ways to sharpen the portrayals of love in our own work. Amanda Korman is a writer whose short fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly…
Find out more »Magical Realism
Instructor: Phil Jason $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 11/11/17 | 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Magical Realism is more than just the presence of the supernatural in a story. It is the forgivable intrusion of dream into reality. And it’s also a lot of fun. It affords us the opportunity to shake loose a little, to indulge the parts of us that sometimes wish the world was a little different than it is. Or maybe a lot different. Even…
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