Many of us come to the page out of grief, loss, or heartbreak; we write to make sense of the impossible, the irreparable. In this workshop, we will read a range of short work by writers who have written themselves around and through and beyond these moments. We’ll find inspiration and let these...

Whether fiction or memoir or something in between, many powerful works of literature are structured in a fractured, fragmented, nonlinear style. In this course, we will experiment with forms, styles, approaches to time and place, structure, POV, character, and more, all in an attempt to tell (and...

A writer’s voice may be the most vital part of style—and the most mysterious. In this workshop, we’ll explore the formal building blocks of voice (syntax, diction, point of view) and aspects that are more nebulous (tone, implication, patterns of thinking). We’ll consider questions such as: How can...

This workshop focuses on forms of song in poetry. How can we create a sense of melody from nothing but words on a page? How can a poem cause us to clap and sway and tap our toes in time? We’ll experiment with techniques inspired by recent and ancient examples, from many traditions, as we work to...

In the words of American humorist S. J. Perelman, “Keep it crisp.” If you haven’t got time for the pain of writer’s block, this is the workshop for you. Starting at our first meeting Sunday evening, each day we’ll get a prompt for a 250-500 word “micro” personal piece to write overnight...

News flash that should reassure all aspiring memoirists out there: You aren’t, in fact, required to have experienced tragedy or trauma, or possess highly unusual or bizarre life circumstances, in order to tell a compelling story. Memoir can be entertaining—even laugh-out-loud funny!—whether based on...

In this workshop, we’ll break down the elements of poetry in nitty-gritty style, unpacking various aspects of poetic craft. Subjects in this workshop will be tailored to participants, but may include strategies in creating and deploying imagery; choices in creating line breaks; methods of creating...

One challenge of translating research into writing is building scenes or descriptive details from facts. How do writers of literary nonfiction and poetry create characters, places, and dramatic narratives rooted in true details? And how do you move back and forth between researched material and...

Strong feeling is often what drives us to write. We want our reader to experience the sadness or outrage, the delight or sense of betrayal we feel when thinking about a fictional (or nonfictional) situation. But how do we do that, exactly? How do we tell a story that’s not cold, but that’s not...

Sometimes a short story can be drafted in a great surge of inspiration, but a novel is a different kind of literary beast. How do we prepare ourselves to keep a story going over several hundred pages? What do we need to know in advance, and what might we hope to discover along the way? In this...

In this weeklong generative poetry writing class, we’ll explore many ways to write elegiac poetry. The elegy is an ancient poetic form containing the elements of lament, praise, and solace. Traditionally written in a metrical form, elegies are now typically written in free verse. Elegy often...

In this generative workshop, we’ll discuss participant poems alongside the subjects, voices, forms, and inquiries they’re in conversation with. When you write a poem, who are you talking to? What sources are you engaging with? What chorus can a poem hold? Does anyone really write alone? We’ll begin...