In this weeklong dive into the popular novel, participants will develop and enhance a novel project by better understanding specific writing features, elements, and approaches such as plots, subplots, and plot points; characters and dialogue; learning to layer for clarity and depth; and spirit, nature, and experience. Through discussions and strategies aimed at these elements of the popular novel, participants will receive motivation and direction to build their novels and expand their writing skills. Participants will generate new writing through various exercises as well as read each other’s work and offer feedback. You will leave the workshop with a clear vision of how to move forward. The class is appropriate for writers in their early stages, but more seasoned writers can also benefit. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in 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 guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend. Feedback for in-class writing is strictly positive.

Close your eyes and imagine the drawing room scene in which Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. Now imagine the Tea Party scene with the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. What about the scene in The Shining in which Wendy sees what her husband Jack has been typing all this time? Now think of a vivid scene from a novel or memoir from your reading. Can you picture everything clearly, as if you’re watching a movie? World building is not just for fantasy writers. All fiction writers and memoirists must build our worlds, whether the world is Edwardian England, an imaginary land through a rabbit hole, a haunted hotel in Colorado, the world of your 1970s childhood, or the world we’re all currently living in. When we do this, scenes come to life and readers truly enter the world of our stories—and don’t want to return to the “real world” again. In this weekend workshop, we will: Introduce the concept of world building. Study a few examples of well-built fictional and autobiographical worlds. Learn how to create a history and timeline (backstory) for our characters. Visualize our worlds, using various techniques. Learn techniques that will help us create vivid scenes—and then put them into practice through exercises. Discover the just-right balance between exposition and dialogue in scenes so that they come to life. Be a member of a supportive and stimulating community of writers. Write! The class will consist of a combination of lecture, discussion, writing, and sharing. We will do various exercises throughout the weekend to work on world building, and you’ll have the opportunity to receive verbal feedback on your work. Writers may bring work from home to work on or generate new material—or both. This class is appropriate for writers of all levels. We can’t wait to enter into your fictional or autobiographical worlds! In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend; workshop writing you bring from home.

Cursing the blinking cursor? Maybe you’ve reached an impasse in your project. Maybe you’ve wanted to start a project for a while but you can’t seem to find the way in. There are only a few lucky writers who never seem to have this problem, and for whom the words flow forth unimpeded. For the rest of us, some literary Drano™ comes in handy from time to time. This course for writers at all levels aims to help you figure out where you’re stuck, why you’re stuck, and how to get moving so you leave the class inspired and reengaged with your projects. We’ll look at helpful tools for overcoming your blocks, use in-class writing exercises to address your issues, and get words on paper to motivate you to move forward beyond the class. Together, we will slay writer’s block in a fun, inspiring atmosphere. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; workshop writing you bring from home.

This advanced prose workshop is intended for students who’ve completed a draft, or a substantial portion of a draft, of a novel or a longform work of nonfiction, be it memoir or narrative. It’s designed to answer the question: I’ve come this far, now what? To begin, we will consider up to 7 double-spaced pages of material that students bring from home. These pages could be the opening scenes of your book, but that’s not a requirement. Students will also generate a new “missing” scene, so be prepared to write. During our weekend together, class members will be guided through the process of transforming an early draft into a polished one, or a polished draft into a final one. I’ve completed this process quite a few times and guided many students through it as well. What will make the manuscript better? Does the book start where it should? How do you know when you’re done? In whose voice, or voices, should the narrative be told? What crucial scene have you omitted because it’s difficult, or even terrifying, to write? We’ll attempt to answer these questions and more. You’ll come away with one new scene. We’ll also touch on what to do with your manuscript once you’ve finished. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; workshop writing you bring from home.

In this team-taught, generative workshop, poet Caryl Pagel and fiction writer Madeline McDonnell will wage a battle for generic dominance, trying to win students over either to the side of poetry or fiction once and for all, because writing is a zero-sum game. Just kidding! In fact, Caryl and Madeline will help poets find their inner liars, and fiction writers their inner lyres. We will spend the weekend collaboratively reading poems and short works of fiction, exploring their correspondences and conversations in form and content, and then completing exercises engaging the strategies discussed. All the while, we will consider: How might we find plots in prosody and lyrics inside story arcs? What’s the difference between poetry and fiction, anyway? Does it matter? Students should expect to emerge with the starts of several new pieces—but will they be poems, stories? Stoems? Pories? We don’t know, but they will definitely be magic! In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts.

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” Emily Dickinson wrote. In this all-genre workshop, we will take inspiration from Dickinson’s poem and tell it queer, approaching language and its joyful possibilities from an angle of queerness. During our weekend, we will read and discuss work by writers who illuminate queer points of view and we will generate new queer writing of our own. Through in-class prompts that build on one another, we will explore queerness not only as subject but as an artistic practice, the very lens through which we envision and release our writing. As we pick up our writing tools—the sounds and shapes of our words, the music of our sentences—we can ask: What makes a setting queer? How about dialogue? What choices does queerness offer our protagonists and poems? Where does our imagination go when we allow queerness to bloom at the very heart of our creativity? By writing, reading, and sharing together, we will foster a safe, resonant space to bend our language into an instrument of pleasure, witness, and truth—“The Truth’s superb surprise,” as Dickinson says. This workshop is open to all writers. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend.

What is theme? How do I structure a novel? How can I discover and write exciting characters? What’s the difference between writing scene versus exposition, and how do I do it? If you have asked any of these questions of yourself while staring at the blank page, this is the right course for you. Geared toward beginning and intermediate fiction writers, this class will provide fun, engaging writing exercises, fascinating instructional handouts, lively discussion, and a safe and supportive critique workshop. Step-by-step instructions on basic skills will help you uncover with simplicity and precision the fundamental craft of writing fiction. New work will be generated during class time, but students are also free to revise and work on their previously written fiction. Everyone will have a chance to workshop their writing, (bring yours from home or start fresh in this workshop) and ask questions about how to move forward. All fiction genres welcome. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend.

Poetry is rich with the tradition of the homage poem, a poem in conversation with or inspired by another poem or person. In this space, we’ll honor “honoring” in both poetry and prose—and kick things up a notch. We will amplify this tradition with “afterthoughts,” applying similar gestures to prose. Has a piece of fiction or nonfiction stayed with you? An author’s daring conceit or choice of subject inspired or infuriated you? Do you wish to write back, or forward? Let’s. Together, we will exchange and read affecting work, and then write in response to our fellows—in praise, imitation, and/or criticism. Expect energetic and playful in-class prompts, open-mic opportunities, brief lessons on intertextuality, and pointers on how to reimagine or interact with original works in order to make your own contributions. We’ll start out in conversation with strangers and learn how to follow our own influences, questions, and fears. On the craft level, our focus will be on tone and voice, by way of allusion, citation, imitations, and transmutations. Genre will be a secondary consideration. What we have to say precedes how we say it. This is in part a class designed to help poets lean into prose and to get the poetry-curious turning to verse. Genre dedication and genre experimentation are both welcomed. Reading selections will be provided. Here’s to writing responsively, responsibly, and courageously! In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend.

How can playwriting give us new insight into fiction, poetry, and more? This workshop explores experiments in playwriting—for writers from across genres. It’s designed for anyone who’s curious about how techniques from theater can inform their work in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, scripted forms, a personal writing practice, and more. Come refresh your dialogue, come explore how theatrical formats can inspire your poems and essays, come revise a piece by considering ideas from theater and performance studies. We'll take inspiration from works that distinctly approach dialogue, character, staging, performance, pacing, format, and other elements. And we’ll ask how those techniques can help us generate and revise our work. This workshop supports the generation of new writing and/or the revision of older work, all in a supportive and close-knit environment. Activities will include in-class writing and discussion, review of one another’s work, and analysis of published sources. No previous experience with playwriting or theater is required, and the course warmly welcomes writers who have no interest in being performers themselves. For two days, we’ll ask what playwriting can inspire for our writing, helping everyone gain insights that can energize their work and help it come to life on and off the page. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend; workshop writing you bring from home.