January 2020
Staying the Course (Ongoing Class)
Instructor: Jody Hesler $260 Members | $289 Nonmembers Meets monthly on Saturday for eleven months: 9/28/19, 10/26/19, 11/23/19, 12/14/19, 1/25/20, 2/29/20, 3/28/20, 4/25/20, 5/23/20, 6/27/20, 7/25/20 | 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm This is a course for committed writers who want some structure and accountability for reaching their writing goals. Reaching these goals is often more easily said than done. We often lose our way when we have no sounding board, no one to check in with to see if…
Find out more »Fiction and the Craft of Character (This seminar is full!)
Instructor: Bruce Holsinger $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 1/25/20 | 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm This seminar will address the making of human characters in fiction. Characters--believable, authentic, sympathetic--are the lifeblood of story. Who wants to read or keep reading a novel if we don’t care about the fellow human beings inhabiting its setting and guiding its plot? We’ll look at several examples of great characters, learn about the relationship between character and story structure, and try out some…
Find out more »Dabblers Group 2020
This is a closed writing group organized by member Carol Cutler that meets in the Salon.
Find out more »Open Writing Hours Today!
WriterHouse will be offering the volunteer operated Open Writing Hours today. Members are invited to come in and enjoy a nice quiet place to write, meet with your writer friends, and have a cup of coffee on the house. Want to see more open hours? We do too! Become a volunteer for WriterHouse today to help us promote the creation and appreciation of the literary arts in your community.
Find out more »Open Writing Hours Today!
WriterHouse will be offering the volunteer operated Open Writing Hours today. Members are invited to come in and enjoy a nice quiet place to write, meet with your writer friends, and have a cup of coffee on the house. Want to see more open hours? We do too! Become a volunteer for WriterHouse today to help us promote the creation and appreciation of the literary arts in your community.
Find out more »Evening Advanced Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Jay Kauffmann $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Tuesdays, 1/14/20 - 3/3/20 | 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM NOTE: This class will start and end half an hour earlier than other evening classes. The goal of this Advanced Creative Nonfiction workshop is to push you to a new level of professionalism and take you from a first draft to a submission-ready final draft. The workshop will be about quality, not quantity, as we adopt a more tough-minded, detailed approach. Since…
Find out more »Cville YA Writers Group 2020
This group is open to any member of WriterHouse. We welcome more voices in our lively discussions about writing as it pertains to the YA audience. Questions? Contact Bonnie Redding at riderwriter5@yahoo.com
Find out more »Daytime Generative Writing (This class is full!)
Instructor: Sharon Harrigan $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Wednesdays, 1/22/20 – 3/11/20 | 9:30 am -12:00 pm NOTE: This class will start and end one week later than other eight-week classes. No time for homework? No problem. We’ll do all the writing and critique work in class, so you don’t have to do it at home. Each session will begin with a short meditation to clear our heads. Then the instructor will lead participants through a series of prompts that…
Find out more »Writing, Revising, Pitching: Getting Your Novel Out of the Drawer and Off to Market (Ongoing class)
Instructor: Randall Klein$1299* Members | $1299* NonmembersSelect Wednesdays 1/15/20 – 11/4/20 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM*Payment plans of $309 per quarter will be available to students accepted into this program. Overview: For most novelists, the ultimate goal is to get published. Before that, however, comes much revision, along with some frustration and confusion at a seemingly impenetrable system of submission, waiting, and hoping. "Writing, Revising, Pitching" is a class for people who have written a substantive portion of…
Find out more »Evening Poetry
Instructor: Douglas Nordfors $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Wednesdays, 1/15/20 – 3/4/20 | 6:30 pm -9:00 pm This course will follow the traditional, tried-and-true workshop model. Participants will bring in a poem each class to be critiqued by fellow students and the instructor. For anyone who appreciates outside prompts, an optional assignment will be given each week. The aim will be to create a rigorous, but stress free, atmosphere suitable for veteran as well as novice poets. Any style of…
Find out more »Evening Fiction: Short Stories — Memorable Openings
Instructor: BettyJoyce Nash$189 Members | $210 NonmembersWednesdays, 1/22/20 - 3/11/20 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PMNOTE: This class will start and end one week later than other eight-week classes. Our first short story paragraphs can make or break a story’s journey. Litmags receive hundreds of submissions, and if page one can’t compel readers, the story is instant slush. Notice Flannery O’Connor’s first line in “A Good Man is Hard to Find:” The grandmother did not want to go to Florida.…
Find out more »Daytime Combo: Fiction and Creative Nonfiction (Only 2 spots left!)
Instructor: Christina Ward-Niven $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Thursdays, 1/16/20 – 3/12/20 | 1:00 pm -3:30 pm NOTE: No class on 3/5. Last class will be on 3/12. In this workshop, we will read one story or essay by a published author each week and discuss what makes it tick. How exactly does the piece work (or not)? We’ll dig into a wide range of craft topics, as they come up—point of view, characterization, pacing, suspense, mystery, etc. Next we’ll…
Find out more »Tupelo Teen Writing Center
To foster, discover, and develop emerging writers, and connect them as a part of the larger writing community, facilitate their ability to take advantage of our local literary resources, and develop resources where they are needed. To announce to and through the support of our youth that writing is as important as sports fields, theaters, art galleries and centers, and skating rinks… To learn more, please see the Tupelo Teen Writing Center
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February 2020
The Short Long Poem
Instructor: Christopher Kondrich $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 2/1/20 | 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm Long poems marvel us with their expansiveness, but many short poems seem to have this quality as well. Their brevity belies their extraordinary breadth and scope. In this seminar, we’ll explore how to harness the expansiveness of long poetry for our more concise work. We’ll consider four poems—one each by Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Louise Glück, Srikanth Reddy, and Robin Coste Lewis—as examples and guides,…
Find out more »Literary Fiction Critique Group 2020
This is a closed group facilitated by Lauren Hebert for writers who seek thoughtful critical feedback on their work and are able to provide the same support for other group members. In addition to reading and commenting on individual submissions, we also engage in craft-related discussions, writing exercises, and free-write sessions.
Find out more »First Fridays Art Opening, “What’s left” by Kiel Posner
Join us for food, wine, and lively conversation as we celebrate the artwork of Kiel Posner. The exhibition is free and open to the public. Posner's first solo exhibition, "What's left," is a series of epoxy-covered T-shirt paintings. The title recalls the work required to perpetually sustain the home, while also acknowledging the responsibility to maintain ourselves. Kiel Posner is a mixed media sculptor based out of Richmod, Virginia. He is currently a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts fellowship recipient…
Find out more »Science Fiction & Fantasy Critique Group
This an opportunity for members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy group to give/receive a more detailed critique of their work than is possible in the regular group meetings. You must be a member of the group to participate in the critique sessions. No drop-ins. For more information, please email programs@writerhouse.org.
Find out more »Continuing Novel Work Group 2020
This is a closed writing group organized by member Chris Tucker. Members are graduates of the Putting the Pen to the Page year-long novel class.
Find out more »Putting the Pen to the Page: Drafting Your Novel in One Year (Ongoing class)
Instructor: Kristen-Paige Madonia $1,399* Members | $1,399* Nonmembers Select Mondays, 9/9/19 - 5/21/20** | 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM *Payment plans of $335 per quarter will be available to students accepted into this program. NOTE: THE APPLICATION DEADLINE FOR THIS PROGRAM HAS PASSED. Overview: Putting the Pen to the Page is an opportunity for writers to study the craft of creative writing, share and workshop portions of their novel manuscript, provide and receive constructive criticism, and work with a…
Find out more »WriterHouse Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Speculative Fiction Writers Group 2020
Do rolling green hills inspire you to think of brutal orc armies bearing down on ancient elfin civilizations? Intrepid heroes slashing their way through overgrown jungles in search of the one cure to a deadly pandemic? Forgotten tribes descended from a humanoid ancestor other than our own? Government enclaves for top secret and highly unethical experiments? Mother Nature’s healing touch after the nuclear apocalypse? If so then we would love to hear about it! The WriterHouse Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Speculative Fiction Writers Group…
Find out more »Navigating the Query Trenches: Pitches, Pitfalls, and PitMad
Instructor: Emily Thiede $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 2/15/20 | 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm There’s a reason many writers describe querying as “going into the trenches,” but like any battle, it’s easier to survive the fight if you start with the right tools in your armory. In this course, we’ll explore resources for building (and narrowing down) a list of agents to query, and the pros-and-cons of non-traditional paths like twitter pitch contests, mentorship competitions, and writing conferences.…
Find out more »Poets At Large 2020
This is a closed group facilitated by Sharon Ackerman and Priscilla Melchior. The group's goal is a detailed study of the craft of poetry.
Find out more »Beyond the Banana Peel: A Workshop on Writing Humor (Only 2 spots left!)
Instructors: Lisa Ellison and Debby Prum $80 Members | $87 Nonmembers Saturday, 2/22/20 | 10:00 am - 3:00 pm NOTE: Maximum number of students - 8 Quote: “If heaven exists, to know there’s laughs, that would be a great thing.” Robin Williams During this four-hour workshop, we will discuss the elements of humor, use improv exercises and film clips to demonstrate those elements and then give participants opportunities to write short humorous pieces. NOTE: Lunch break from 12:00-1:00 PM. Participants…
Find out more »Open Writing Hours Today!
WriterHouse will be offering the volunteer operated Open Writing Hours today. Members are invited to come in and enjoy a nice quiet place to write, meet with your writer friends, and have a cup of coffee on the house. Want to see more open hours? We do too! Become a volunteer for WriterHouse today to help us promote the creation and appreciation of the literary arts in your community.
Find out more »Utopia and Dystopia: Writing Heaven and Hell
Instructor: Warren Rochelle $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 2/29/20 | 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm Utopia, the perfect society? Or, a planned, better one? Dystopia, a warning, a cautionary tale: if we don't stop doing .... there'll be hell to pay. We'll talk about utopia and dystopia, past and present, outline a statement of beliefs, then start individual stories set in the alternate world of these beliefs in action. Warren Rochelle lives and works in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he…
Find out more »March 2020
Propelled by Story, Constrained by Truth: Exploring the Boundaries of Narrative Nonfiction
Instructor: Chris Register $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 3/14/20 | 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm Narrative nonfiction authors face many decisions along their journey from proposal to print. Whether curating material for a historical snapshot, recreating conversations for a travelogue, or painting a scene for a memoir, the challenges are the same: where to begin, what to tell and leave out (and in what order), how much dialogue versus backstory to employ, and—of course—that elephant in the writing room: to…
Find out more »WriterHouse Winter Class Reading and Open House
Join us for food and fun as we celebrate the writing created during the 2020 Winter Term. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be represented. The event is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served. Bring friends!
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