The last couple of years have been strange, difficult, unpredictable, too predictable, isolating, stressful, and sometimes just plain boring.  Your muse has been stuck in the house along with you.  At this point, you may not on speaking terms. Your muse might be calling in sick.  Or vacationing somewhere else, perhaps a beach in the tropics, while you are still at home hoping it will return. 

This course is designed to be a vacation you and your muse will take together.  Let’s call it a week at summer camp.  There will be fun!  Challenges!  Canoeing and swimming, (metaphorically)!  And the chance to hang out with other writers and their muses.  It will be a week to re-experience the pure joy of creativity, (if you prefer a less anthropomorphic way to look at it).

Each day will consist of a fun, low-pressure mix of creative prompts, mini-lectures, and exercises, all aimed at stimulating your most creative self.  We will study the habits of great authors.  We will explore the rare occurrence of feeling “in the zone,” when words magically seem to flow, then we’ll experiment with ways to get you in the zone more often.  Topics will include writer’s block, starting new work, and how to continue even when your muse is on hiatus. 

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“Creative nonfiction” is an expansive genre of writing that encompasses a range of styles and techniques to tell life stories. Whether you’re telling a story for the first or hundredth time, it can be in this retelling that we are able to rearrange time, reconsider the nuances of memory, and begin to reorganize the turmoil of the past. Beginning with the origins of the word, “essay,”—from the French essayer, or to try—we will explore: How can form help us better tell our stories? How can choosing the right container illuminate our essays’ contents? And how can contemporary forms free up our stories and reflect the complex nature of memory?

In this workshop, we will explore different essay forms, discuss how these forms impact the reader’s experience of the essay, and experiment as we borrow and integrate new techniques in our own writing. The class will offer readings, writing prompts, and feedback on your writing. We welcome both new and experienced writers looking for exploration, accountability, structure, and supportive feedback on their work.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments; provide feedback on writing you produce in our week.

Life writing can be a radical practice of witness and testimony, taking the form of memoir, personal essays, journals, notebooks, letters, and more. This class will jumpstart your writing practice and help you shape your ideas on the page. For many of us, the hardest part of writing is getting started. This will be a generative workshop, full of prompts and short exercises, with plenty of time to share work and receive feedback. We will read wildly, taking inspiration from contemporary writers, finding ways to begin telling the stories of our lives. By the end of the week, students will have pages of material ready to develop into a longer project. This workshop is useful for everyone from true beginners to those with a work in progress.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments; provide feedback on writing you produce in our week.

The focus of this workshop will be two-fold: examining your existing drafts through constructive, encouraging dialogue; and generating new work through in-class exercises. We’ll look at a select few essays on craft and a handful of published stories to help illustrate the ideas brought up, and we’ll discuss such issues as character agency, point-of-view choices, scene development and dialogue, and plot construction. We will workshop one full story from each student. By the end of the week, you’ll not only have a solid handle on revision plans for your own work, but you’ll also come away with a deeper understanding of multiple craft elements—an understanding that you will be able to bring to your next projects.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments; provide feedback on writing you produce in our week; critique writing you bring from home.

This class will focus intensely on the novel-writing process. Come prepared to discuss a novel you’re already working on, even if that novel is only in the planning stages. In a whirlwind week we will work through the major issues of writing a novel -- instigating event, characterization, structure, and suspense. Rather than a workshop, this will be a class where new work is generated (both in and outside of class) and shared with your classmates and me for feedback. Even if you’re fairly far into a draft of a novel, this class is meant to help you rethink it, shake it up, see it anew. You will complete writing assignments to help you develop your plot, bring your characters into focus and explore your setting. We will also discuss a short novel and some novel excerpts for inspiration and craft ideas. You’ll go home with a clearer sense of your novel and renewed trust in yourself and your writing process.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments; provide feedback on writing assignments you produce during our week.

Our travels through life are unavoidably interesting. Whatever happens to us—a hike through the desert, a night stuck in the airport, a trip to Hawaii, a stay in the hospital— anywhere we go and anything we do there—becomes a captivating adventure if we pay close attention and turn it into a story. And turning whatever happens in our travels into something we can write about makes us pay attention to whatever’s there, while something is happening or after the fact, and that makes everything more interesting and enjoyable; even the hard stuff becomes easier. In this class, we’ll use easy, fun, foolproof writing exercises to turn our travel stories into writing that’s fresh, exciting, and surprising. We’ll create a small creative community in a strictly positive environment. And we’ll talk about how to use writing as a life tool that can turn every trip we go on, whether it’s exciting and wonderful or not so wonderful, into a transformative experience, for us and our readers, allowing us to make the most of our travels through life. This class welcomes writers at all levels.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments.

Maybe you’ve written a killer opening, and you have an idea for an electrifying ending. But now you’re in the sagging muddle of the middle of the novel, and you’re not sure how to find your way out.

We’ve all been there.

The middle can be a confusing spot in a book, when we may feel like we don’t have enough to say, or when we may feel like we’ve written too many words and we’ll never get to the ending.

In this weekend workshop, you’ll learn strategies to get your story back on track, so that you can propel towards that electrifying ending. You’ll respond to in-class exercises, which we’ll share on a volunteer basis. (We’ll read aloud, so no need to print out.) This class is focused on generating new material, but writers who are in the middle of a project are free to use their current work as springboards to complete the exercises and assignments. Intermediate and advanced writers who are already working on a novel might be best suited to attend. While the class is focused on the novel, memoirists who believe the class might be useful to them are welcome to attend.

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This workshop offers writers of fiction and nonfiction an opportunity to develop their scene-writing skills and, ultimately, their ability to craft more compelling stories. In our weekend, we will complete up to twelve exercises, as time allows. We'll experiment with specific elements like color, tradition, food, music, seasons, environment, fruits of the spirit, change, and more to write powerful and memorable scenes. Participants will complete a number of exercises outside of class, then share their writing in workshop.

This workshop can help if you are just beginning a project or if you have work underway and need a better understanding of how to enhance your scenes.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments; provide feedback on writing you produce in our weekend. 

Yes! It’s back! Post-lockdown, in person, and better than ever, the popular Promptapalooza prompt-a-thon promises to stock you with enough fresh material for 10 narrative essays, stories, or even a book, to flesh out over the months following the class. In an invigorating, supportive, no-pressure environment, we’ll use tested and effective writing prompts to get some “seedlings” planted for further development after the course. We’ll have some time to discuss and share our work each day and get some light feedback on how to proceed with the work we’ve generated, as well as get a list of prompts to generate new material at home. Get ready to surprise yourself with your own creativity and reconnect to your love of writing. It’s a fast-moving, exciting, generative class that’s adaptable to nonfiction and fiction writers of any experience level. 10 prompts. 2 days. Let’s do this!

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments.

Sometimes the best way to develop your story is to write around the edges of it, to discover the world around the plot, the history of characters, the provenance of an object. In other words, sometimes you have to explore ideas that won't go directly on the page but will flavor everything else that does. The map of the old house, the contents of the bedside table, the one missing from the family photographs – none of these are focused directly on the plot, yet they often hold the key to that elusive plot point or reveal the subconscious drives behind your character's actions. Why? Because in a well-written story, everything connects. If writing is weaving, then every character, every event, and every object is a thread that strengthens the whole.

This workshop is best suited to writers well into their draft, whether that is a novel or a short story. Writers should leave the workshop with a new understanding of their work and a clear path to revision.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments.