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January 2021
Advanced Fiction (Online course) – This class is full!
Instructor: Sharon Harrigan $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Mondays and Wednesdays, 1/11/21 – 3/3/21 | 9:30 am – 10:45 am Requirements: Students are asked to purchase Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction by Benjamin Percy. In this class, we will spend Mondays studying techniques that will make your fiction more engaging, gripping, and vivid. We will discuss selections from Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction by Benjamin Percy, as well as short stories and novel excerpts from Bret Anthony Johnston, Rebecca Makkai, and others. On…
Find out more »Multi-genre course: The Language of Environment (Online course) – This class is full!
Instructor: Erika Howsare $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Mondays and Wednesdays, 1/11/21 – 3/3/21 | 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm “Nature writing” might make you think of Thoreau or John Muir, but it’s obvious that the world has moved beyond the state of idyllic wilderness. We need writing that tries to reckon with our current conditions—finding words for the grief, rage, and yet joy and connection that we feel in the midst of the Anthropocene. This will be a multi-genre…
Find out more »Evening Creative Nonfiction (Online course) – This class is full!
Instructor: Brendan Wolfe $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Mondays and Wednesdays, 1/11/21 – 3/3/21 | 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm In this workshop, we'll critique student writing in addition to considering samples of a few published selections. We’ll consider essays and memoir as a distinctive genre, with the goal of moving from the chin-strokingly philosophical—"What is a true story?" "Is it memoir or mem-wah?"—to the more practical: "How should this story be told?" "How do I convince my readers to…
Find out more »Explorations in Imitation: Using Poetry to Communicate the Uncommunicable (Online course)
Instructor: James Cole $189 Members | $210 Nonmembers Mondays and Thursdays, 1/11/21 – 3/4/21 | 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm The goal of poetry has always been to communicate sensation and emotion through keen deployment of sound, structure, and image. However, the concrete nature of language imposes limits on our ability to share experiences. How does one use noumena (things as they are) to convey phenomenon (things as they appear) in an effective, engaging way? How can poets produce nuance…
Find out more »Putting the Pen to the Page: Drafting Your Novel in One Year (Online class) – This class is full
Instructor: Kristen-Paige Madonia $1,399* Members | $1,399* Nonmembers Select Tuesdays, 1/5/21 - 8/31/21** | 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM *Payment plans will be available to students accepted into this program. 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 published author at an MFA-level of instruction as they write their way through the…
Find out more »Memoir in a Year Part I: Writing the First Draft of Your Book-Length Memoir (Will meet on-line)
Instructor: Sharon Harrigan $1,399* Members | $1,399* Nonmembers Select Thursdays, 3/5/2020 - 2/18/2021** | 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM *Payment plans of $360.25 per quarter will be available for students accepted to this program. **For a complete list of dates, please see the 2020 Memoir in a Year Part I Syllabus Have a powerful life story you absolutely must tell? Looking for support as you harness the power of that narrative? During Memoir in a Year Part I: Writing the…
Find out more »Chopped: The Writing Class (Online course)
Instructor: Jody Hobbs Hesler $115 Members | $128 Nonmembers Thursdays, 1/14/21 – 3/4/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Inspired by the TV cooking game show Chopped, this generative writing class will present students with a new "basket" of four "ingredients" each week. "Ingredients" might include objects, people, moods, genres, etc. During our writing time, each writer will not only include all four items, but must "transform" them so that they work together organically. Students may write fiction, nonfiction, or…
Find out more »Engaging Beginnings, Middles, and Endings When Writing for Children & Teens (Online seminar)
Instructor: Kathryn Erskine $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Session One: Sunday, 1/24/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Session Two: Sunday, 1/31/21 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Whether you’re writing a picture book, chapter book or novel for young readers, what are the elements you need for a great beginning? How much is enough to introduce the story and what is too much information? How do you manage the murky, meandering middle without getting sidetracked by beautifully written scenes…
Find out more »February 2021
Snowed Under a Blizzard of Unfinished Stories? (Online seminar)
Instructor: BettyJoyce Nash $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Weekend One: Saturday & Sunday, 2/20/21 & 2/21/21 | 10:00 am – 11:15 am Weekend Two: Saturday & Sunday, 2/27/21 & 2/28/21 | 10:00 am – 11:15 am How many days does a blizzard last? That's an unanswerable question, but this short story "blizzard" will span four days. Bring your blanket, bring your hot chocolate and bring a short story you want to polish for publication. We’ll examine point of view, character development, and story arc, but we’ll…
Find out more »March 2021
Memoir in a Year Part II: Finish and Revise the Draft of Your Book (Online course) – Waitlist only
Instructor: Sharon Harrigan $1,399* Members | $1,399* Nonmembers Select Thursdays, 3/4/2021 - 2/17/2022** | 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM *Payment plans will be available for students accepted to this program. **For a complete list of dates, please see the 2021 Memoir in a Year Part II Syllabus This class is a follow-on to the 2020 Memoir in a Year Part I year-long course. It will continue the study of memoir craft and technique, include in-class writing exercises, workshop new and revised…
Find out more »Writing The Pandemic Through SciFi: Plague Tales (Online seminar)
Instructor: Warren Rochelle $60 Members | $65 Nonmembers Session One: Saturday, March 6, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Session Two: Sunday, March 7, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Imaginative responses to the pandemic are beginning to appear. But plague literature, plague fiction, has been around for a long time. Boccacio writes about the Black Death in The Decameron in 1349-1353. In 1722, Daniel Defoe published A Journal of the Plague Year, "the account of one man's experience of the year 1665, when the bubonic…
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