Every poem is a living thing, an experiment in feeling and image, an exploration of psyche, an artist’s creation—a perfect example of crystalized subjective experience. Because the eye of the critic (and journal editor) is notoriously subjective, it is impossible to predict what they will love or hate. But it is possible to polish your poems as best you can and to avoid common craft choices that many editors have historically found distasteful. In other words, to publish work in literary journals, it is important to revise your poems meticulously so that it is their content and not their craft that an editor passes judgment upon. In this workshop, we will discuss concrete revision strategies, with an eye toward identifying your personal poetic values and developing a revision methodology based on them. Craft topics that will be discussed include beginnings and endings, diction, register, line breaks, titles, image and image progression, and form and content. We will revise poems you bring from home and discuss avenues for future revision and expansion. By the end of the course, writers will have developed a toolbox of revision techniques that they can apply to their poems to make them as “clean” as possible for editors’ eyes. 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.

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.

Are you writing a memoir? Need a little extra push down the road? This weekend course will get your motor running, revving, and racing in a cavalcade of memoir exercises! I’ve been writing and teaching memoir for almost twenty years, and I’ve gathered the most inspiring and time-tested prompts for two jam-packed days of creativity. Topics will include: crafting characters from real people, creating scenes that are riveting, developing yourself as a character, and digging deeper to find the emotional core. We’ll explore adding sensory details and setting to elevate your story, and (of course) writing scenes with humor. Some exercises will be short, some will be long. We’ll experiment with a wide range of techniques to tell your story, and ideas on how to enrich it. You will have the opportunity to read aloud some of your new writing with the class. Bring a notebook or laptop—or both! Together, we will write a ton. At the end of the weekend, you will have a lot of new pages to add to your memoir, new pieces to expand upon after class is over, and new insight on how to make your memoir zing. We’ll have an inspiring, sometimes hilarious, butt-kicking weekend together. This course is designed to move you far ahead down your memoir path, whether you are just getting started or well on your way. We will cheer each other on, and leave with full notebooks, full hearts, and a bunch of new writing friends. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts.

Got a great idea for a movie or TV show? Anyone ever tell you that your book should be on the big screen? Maybe your latest great idea features characters in a world that feels like it belongs to a TV series? Join award-winning screenwriter, producer, and story consultant Kat O’Brien in this weekend workshop to demystify the process of adapting, pitching, and producing your writing for film and television. This workshop will be an opportunity for writers of all genres and levels of experience to refine pitch materials for an existing project, and/or generate new pitches through guided exercises and prompts. We’ll identify the qualities that make story ideas viable for film and television and explore how to position your work strategically for the most suitable platform. Each day will combine lecture, discussion, time to write, and workshops delivering writer-centered feedback and first impressions on writing produced during the weekend. Our first day will provide you with an opportunity to answer your burning questions and take home a toolkit to refine your (new or existing) pitch overnight to present and workshop the next day. Writers will leave class with a creative, strategic, and tactical understanding of how to pitch movies and television like a Hollywood insider. Our workshop will leverage pitching as a tool for more robust story development, and help writers understand how various pitch techniques can attract producers, financing, and/or collaborators to help them make their silver screen dreams a reality. Whether you’re new to screenwriting and producing or looking to refine your pitching technique for all formats and platforms, this weekend intensive will offer a dynamic, supportive, structured environment to help you realize your ideas from pitch to screen. Takeaways: Brainstorm multiple new ideas for viable films and/or TV shows. Refine ideas into professional pitch materials such as loglines, synopses, and one-pagers. Navigate next steps to develop your feature or TV idea as a screenplay. 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.

When a poet steps to the microphone, truth on the tip of their tongue and vulnerability in their voice, you listen. But what writing techniques does a performance poet use to hook their audience? From the syntax of the first line, to the structure of the whole poem, spoken word artists have found multiple ways to keep the audience’s attention. You may be a master at creating images, a poet who can capture passion and pain, even a talented storyteller, but if you cannot hook your audience, they won’t stick around long enough for you to prove it. Designed for novice and experienced poets, memoirists, and storytellers, this workshop will focus on the hook by examining the spoken word artists that have found a way—in just a minute—to capture the attention of millions of viewers online. In our sessions, we will study the techniques employed by artists such as Neil Hilborn, Javon Johnson, Sabrina Benaim, and Blythe Bard, and we’ll use them to create our own hooks. Then we will engage in a workshop, constructively critiquing old or new works. We will finish our time together by presenting our final, polished hooks. 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.

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.