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January 2019
Writing, Revising, Pitching: Getting Your Novel Out of the Drawer and Off to Market
Instructor: Randall Klein $1299* Members | $1299* Nonmembers Select Mondays 1/14/19 – 9/23/19 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM *Payment plans of $412 per quarter (3 quarters) 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…
Find out more »Flash Fiction: The Art of the Very Short Story
Instructor: Jeffrey Martin $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Wednesdays, 1/16/19 - 3/6/19 | 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM Call it what you like – flash fiction, sudden fiction, microfiction, short short – this form’s popularity has exploded in the Internet age precisely because of its brevity – typically no longer than 1000 words. Writing it well, however, is no brief act, as it demands a precision and compression of language similar to poetry in order to achieve powerful effects on…
Find out more »Finding Your Story’s Sweet Spot: What Does Your Character Want?
Instructor: BettyJoyce Nash $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Wednesdays, 1/16/19 - 3/6/19 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM Finding your story’s “sweet spot” requires identifying your character’s longing. What drives every word and deed, creating the necessary conflict that motivates readers to turn pages? In early drafts we often can’t answer the simple question: What specific, tangible “want” makes this character act this way? In class, we'll discuss published short stories such as Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” and Ethan…
Find out more »Screenwriting 101
Instructor: Michael Cordell $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Wednesdays, 1/16/19 - 3/6/19 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM Learn the fundamentals of screenwriting to increase the odds of getting your script read. This class will cover key elements of screenwriting, including story structure, character development, dialogue, and exposition. We'll talk about how Hollywood thinks (to the extent that anyone knows how Hollywood thinks). Students will also have the opportunity to submit a story outline or the first ten pages of…
Find out more »Brown Bag Craft Expo
Instructor: Jody Hesler $95 Members | $105 Nonmembers Thursdays, 1/17/19 - 3/7/19 | 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM Through interactive writing and reading exercises, we will explore basic story elements – such as narrative tension, scene, and dialog – with an eye toward how the pieces of story fit together and how we manipulate them to set readers’ expectations in our work. Whether you’re new to thinking about craft, or you want to brush up on what some of the…
Find out more »Advanced Fiction: Building Dramatic Tension
Instructor: Kristie Smeltzer $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Thursdays, 1/17/19 - 3/7/19 | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM Do you aim to have readers dashing through your short fiction or unable to put your novel down after finishing a chapter? This workshop class will focus on developing dramatic tension, that quality in effective fiction that keeps readers moving from page to page. Participants will have the opportunity for two workshops of their writing as well as other feedback opportunities. Students…
Find out more »Revision Essentials
Instructor: Amanda Korman $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 1/26/19 | 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM “Several delusions weaken the writer’s resolve to throw away work. If he has read his pages too often, those pages will have a necessary quality, the ring of the inevitable, like poetry known by heart; they will perfectly answer their own familiar rhythms. He will retain them. He may retain those pages if they possess some virtues, such as power in themselves, though they…
Find out more »February 2019
Once Upon A Time All Over Again: Retelling Fairytales
Instructor: Warren Rochelle $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 2/2/19 | 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM All fairy tales are retellings, from the stories remembered and passed on through the oral tradition of the folk tale, to the modern versions seen on TV and in film. Each retelling is a reinterpretation and a reimagining in a different context of history, society, and culture. A retelling, then, is a conundrum for the writer: how true to the original (and which original)? In…
Find out more »March 2019
Deftly Delivering Dynamic Dialogue
Instructor: Doug Lawson $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Saturday, 3/2/19 | 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM How your characters speak (or don’t speak) is a key way your readers will get to know them. Are they eloquent? Overly articulate? Academic? Or are they subtle, scheming, a quiet keeper of dark secrets? The way they talk will help reveal them—if you’re thoughtful about it. In this seminar we will focus on key ways of thinking about dialogue patterns, some core techniques…
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