To borrow a cliché, let's go down the rabbit hole. But on the way down, let's observe the dirt, the worms, the twists, the darkness, the sacred and the profane. For a writing project, whether a short story or a novel, trope can be an entry point. Think: a locked room mystery, dark academia, a midlife crisis. Similarly, on the sentence level, cliché can be relatable and point the writer in the direction of deeper truth. Finally, identifying generic language and abstraction can guide revision. This session will draw from popular novels and explore how literary writers use character and voice to successfully subvert trope and cliché to create meaning.

This lecture will mine the logic behind the common assumption that a poem cannot be translated, and will argue instead for what is gained in translation (answer: all of literature as we know it). Through considering the work of Sir Robert Wyatt, Federico Garcia Lorca, Lady Gaga, Sofia Coppola's horrendous film Lost in Translation, and others, we'll move from the question "Can a poem be translated" to the question "Can a poem avoid translation?" to the question "Can a poem even be written in the first place (without translation)?"

We often want memoirs to read similarly to the way memories play in our heads, but memories contain lots of implicit details that can be easy to overlook. Fabrics, textures, colors, and smells can help position the reader in seemingly forgotten time and space. Finding and using these details to our advantage can add significantly to the landscape of a scene. This presentation addresses the questions: What are some ways we can adjust our mindset to focus on these details? When interviewing people about the past, how do we get details that help fill out a scene? What goes into interview and research prep? What are some useful go-to interview tactics and questions? How do we locate and use digital archives, and what tools can we use to help expedite the interview and research process?

If you want your fiction to be read, you must make it as unputdownable as possible. As Shirley Jackson writes in Garlic in Fiction, “The reader is, after all, a kind of silent partner in the whole business of writing, and a work of fiction is surely incomplete if it is never read. The reader is in fact the writer’s only unrelenting, genuine enemy. He has everything on his side; all he needs to do is close his eyes and any work of fiction becomes meaningless.” So how can you keep a reader reading? While the first draft is for you, revision is all about the reader. You must revise ruthlessly until you’ve made your story as surprising, seamless, and vivid as it can be. Revision is my favorite part of the writing process, but it can also seem daunting. Rather than telling myself that I have to “make it better,” I approach revision in stages that allow me to uncover new meanings, gain a deeper understanding of my characters and, finally, say exactly what I want to say. In this talk, I’ll share some revision tips and some of my own revision practices. My aim is to encourage you to write what you really want to write in the most effective way possible.

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. Read more...

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.

How much of a life can be squeezed into a paragraph? This will be the challenge during our weekend retreat, as we tackle this most common unit of composition. Reading and appreciating these small blocks of type, none of them common, will be our first task. Our focus will be on those sparked by a memory. We will read from After the Fact, by poets Marvin Bell and Chris Merrill. We will read from Margaret Renkl's Late Migrations. We will also read paragraphs you love, those pulled from your bulletin boards or bracketed in the books on your desk. And we will respond with work of our own, producing paragraphs some might call prose poems. Others might feel more like anecdotes. In any case, your writing will shine and deepen, as fellow writers awaken what Philip Lopate calls "that shiver of self-recognition." In their famous Elements of Style, Strunk and White ask us to "remember that paragraphing calls for a good eye as well as a logical mind." Yes, let's certainly employ the former, the visual shape on the page. As far as the latter, well, we will have some fun. Can you write a book like this? Yes, you can. To start you right off upon registration, my introductory letter will include examples and prompts, so you'll hit the ground running, with paragraphs ready to be read and answered in kind. Writers at any level of experience are most welcome. Read more...