2021 Summer Class Schedule

2021 Summer Session Class Schedule

All classes will meet online

Classes are six weeks long

Term Dates: 5/31/21 – 7/15/21

Classes meeting twice a week

Tell Your Story: Part II (multi-genre)
Instructor: Deborah Harris
$150 Members | $165 Nonmembers
Mondays & Wednesdays, 5/31/21 – 7/7/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm
Note: New and continuing students welcome!

Do you have a story inside, waiting to be told? Come to this workshop and get it out into the world. Share your work with supportive fellow writers. Discuss the fundamentals of writing —narrative, structure, point-of-view, voice — and how they bring a story to life. Ignite your creative impulse by reading and discussing contemporary literature. Exercise your writing muscle by responding to prompts and in-class exercises.

This class is for those who are still searching, as well as those who have begun their creative writing projects. Memoirs, novels, short stories, and personal essays are welcome. Continuing students are welcome to share new work or carry on with projects they’ve already begun. As in the spring session, our major focus will be reading and responding to student work. We’ll continue to discuss published work as well (all new) and respond to writing prompts and in-class exercises.

To register, download and mail in the Registration Form along with your check. To qualify for the member preview discount, registration must be postmarked by April 21st. Must be a current member to qualify. If unsure of your membership status, please email programs@writerhouse.org.

The Poet’s Mythos
Instructor: James Cole
$150 Members | $165 Nonmembers
Mondays & Wednesdays, 5/31/21 – 7/7/21 | 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Every writer develops their own motifs, themes, and unique voice, but sometimes these elements aren’t obvious. In this class, we will focus on the emotional and narrative threads interwoven throughout each student’s work. We will use workshops, close readings, and personal critique to better bolster our understanding of the poetry we produce. This will be coupled with experimental writing exercises and one-on-one conferences, which will help students identify their strengths, weaknesses, and other literary fingerprints. Students will eventually construct a chapbook composed of new and old poems built around the personal themes identified in the course.

Classes meeting once a week

Advanced Fiction: First Novels, First Pages
Instructor: Bruce Holsinger
$100 Members | $108 Nonmembers
Tuesdays, 6/1/21 – 7/6/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm

Class Requirement: Students are required to submit a one-paragraph description and the first ten pages of their novels to the instructor for approval to enroll in the class. Please email the sample to programs@writerhouse.org.

As any agent or editor will tell you, a fiction submission can stand or fall on the strength of the first page. Does the page resonate with a voice that pulls you in? Do the novel’s opening sentences seduce the reader with a beguiling premise, an impossible situation, a provocative glimpse at an imagined world to come? Does the first page create suspense, intrigue, fascination? Most importantly, do these dozen-odd sentences compel the reader to keep reading?

This class will explore the art and craft of the first page. We’ll take our examples from novels published in the last twenty-odd years: the openings of award-winning and bestselling debut novels that had to run an impossible gauntlet of evaluation and skepticism to win their authors a contract, publication, and acclaim—to say nothing of readers. We will carefully consider the formal and stylistic elements that go into a powerful opening: point of view, character, voice, figurative language, suspense, and so on. We’ll also think about how early pages set the stage for the novel to come, and how they bear on story structure, character, and premise. Examples will come from across the genres of fiction, including thrillers and mysteries, romances and fantasy, literary fiction and domestic suspense. Participants will workshop first pages from their own novels in progress with their classmates.

Reading for Craft: Fiction and Nonfiction (NOTE: CLASS LENGTH, START DATE, AND REGISTRATION FEE HAS CHANGED!)
Instructor: Jody Hobbs Hesler
$100 Members | $108 Nonmembers
Thursdays, 6/10/21 – 7/15/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

In this class we’ll read published short stories and essays that employ craft strategies in especially unique or effective ways. We’ll dig deep into each piece to see what makes it work, or what keeps it from working, for each of us. Stronger readers make stronger writers, so we will be able to apply what we learn from our reading to our own work. Discussions in class will range from craft issues that the pieces raise – dialogue, characterization, tension, voice, etc. – to ways these pieces might inspire or challenge us in relation to our own work.

Daytime Poetry: Advanced Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Chet’la Sebree
$150 Members | $165 Nonmembers
Wednesdays, 6/9/21 – 7/14/21 | 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm

In this advanced poetry workshop, we’ll work on further developing our voices as poets through discussions, workshops, and close readings of poems. Students will walk away from the class with a clearer sense of their individual practices as poets. By Wednesday, May 26, students registered for the workshop will be required to submit a short packet of poems (3-5 pages) and read a short packet of materials provided by the instructor. Students are required to have taken at least two poetry classes.

Seminars

Quatrains: A Workshop
Instructor: Neil Perry
$60 Members | $65 Nonmembers
Session I: Sunday, 6/13/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Session II: Sunday, 6/20/21 | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

In this workshop we’ll do a deep dive into the quatrain – what does it mean to write in these stanzas? Where have they taken poetry in the past? What can we do with them? We’ll talk about, of course, formal considerations, but also some more philosophical ones. Participants will produce original work in this seminar, which will meet twice–first to see where the quatrain might take us in discussion and a week later to workshop poems written in the wake of that discussion.

The Facts of Fiction Seminar Series
Instructor: Kristie Smeltzer

This seminar series covers four of the core concepts for writing effective fiction. Writers may take the entire series or only specific sessions. Writers who sign up for all four seminars will receive a $5 credit for each seminar completed. The total credit will be applied after the last seminar. The credit may be used to offset registration fees for future classes or seminars at WriterHouse and must be used by 6/30/2022.

Seminar 1: Creating Compelling Characters
$30 Members | $35 Nonmembers
Saturday, 6/5/21 | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Strong characters can cover a multitude of sins in fiction; they draw readers into the worlds writers create and are our companions there. We pick up their struggles as our own, and turn from page to page to see what becomes of them. Whether we like them or simply find them interesting, characters keep readers connected to the story.

Fictional characters need to feel authentic—fully developed beings with needs and wants, quirks and flaws. They also need to be more interesting and in more conflict than their real life counterparts. How do we create believable people on the page?

This seminar will help writers understand what makes characters compelling and identify things to consider when developing people to live in their fiction.

Seminar 2: Nailing the Narrative Arc

$30 Members | $35 Nonmembers
Saturday, 6/12/21 | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

The most interesting characters in the world cannot save a piece of fiction with no plot. Readers expect a series of events to unfold that draw them along, with the stakes consistently rising as the story moves towards the climax. In some types of fiction, the expectations for the narrative arc are built into the genre norms. A detective story will have a crime that needs to be solved. A romance will have a relationship that needs to be developed. Other types of fiction may have less predetermined plot expectations, however the writer’s burden remains the same: how do I create a series of events that feels authentic for my characters and engaging for the reader?

Participating in this seminar will give writers a set of tools to use when they are plotting narrative arcs to keep readers up past their bedtimes.

Seminar 3: Balancing Backstory and Action

$30 Members | $35 Nonmembers
Saturday, 6/19/21 | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

You’ve breathed life into compelling characters and envisioned a plot that will keep readers turning pages. Now how do you balance exposition, description, and action in your fiction to make it all work together?

Portioning these elements effectively is often what separates good writing from great. When done well, readers may not even notice because they’re too busy being immersed in the story. When not done as well, readers may get bored, find the pacing uneven, or long for more info.

This seminar will help writers evaluate what the story needs when and how to balance backstory and action to keep readers grounded with the pace still moving.

Seminar 4: Drafting Authentic Dialogue

$30 Members | $35 Nonmembers
Saturday, 6/26/21 | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Effective dialogue is like the Swiss Army knife of fiction. It contributes to character development and helps move the plot along. Sometimes dialogue helps root us in a setting, and it is essential to making scenes work. Need to increase tension? Dialogue can do that, too.

Dialogue needs to sound like something real people would say, only better—more intense. We expect characters to sound distinct, and when done really well, a reader is able to distinguish who is speaking without having to rely on a dialogue tag.

Writers taking this seminar will work on developing their ear for dialogue and learn techniques to help them write unique, authentic dialogue for all of their characters.

To register for any or all of these seminars, download and mail in the Registration Form along with your check. To qualify for the member preview discount, registration must be postmarked by April 21st. Must be a current member to qualify. If unsure of your membership status, please email programs@writerhouse.org.