Upcoming Events
Finding Your Voices: Helping Your Writing Talk (And Listen)
Description
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...
Fiction Bootcamp: From Writing Prompt to Full-Fledged Narrative
Description
This workshop is designed for students writing their first novel (or short story) or those who are starting the next one. Purposefully crafted for beginning and intermediate writers, Fiction Bootcamp is created specifically for writers who are fuzzy about where to begin, what do to next, and how to...
So Now What? Advanced Novel Workshop
Description
If you’ve already written the better part of a novel—or maybe even completed a rough draft—chances are there’s still a lot to do before it’s ready to submit to an agent or publisher. In this class, we’ll focus on the revision process, with a heavy emphasis on your first thirty pages and overall...
Mystery, Suspense, and Fascination in Fiction and Nonfiction
Description
Mystery is the heart of all narrative, its pulse the fine tension between question and perception, wonder and suspense. For the purposes of this workshop, our prose need not hinge on a crime, a culprit, or a private eye. We will build inquiry into fictional ecosystems and discuss how the mechanics...
Spiritual Writing: Listening to Our Lives
Description
In this spiritual writing class, we’ll explore what the people, events, emotions, and experiences in our lives have to teach us, and ponder what we feel, sense, and know—or don’t know—about hope, grace, love, life, and death. Every day we’ll “listen” with our writing to another part of our lives: We...
Approaching Revision: An Advanced Fiction Workshop
Description
This workshop is designed for fiction writers who are familiar with the workshopping process, who feel comfortable with at least some of the craft elements, and who have work they would like to keep revising. The class will give constructive feedback on new manuscripts, highlighting what is working...
Going the Distance: From Chapter One to “The End” of the Novel
Description
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that starting a novel seems easy enough but finishing a novel is hard as hell.” Jane Austen didn’t say that. But she and other authors have long grappled with the problem of taking initial inspiration through the marathon process of realizing a finished work...
Turning Art into Fiction: Story Songs and Painted Plots
Description
It goes without saying that fiction writers need to read fiction—carefully, flexibly, broadly, deeply! But what clues and cues might be found in music and visual art that we can borrow for our written works? In this generative workshop, we will listen to music, look at art, and read the fiction and...
Summer Camp (For Your Muse)
Description
For many of us, the last few years have been strange, difficult, unpredictable, isolating, and sometimes just plain boring. Your muse has been stuck in the house along with you. At this point, you may not be on speaking terms. You might have a project that’s creaked to a dead stop. This course is a...
Think Twice/Think Again: Making Poems from Inspiration & Calculation
Description
We'll spend a week together generating poems, and each day we’ll start something new together. Each class will kick off with a lyric “scramble,” a playful dive into language using liberating constraints to create fresh ideas. We’ll then consider the work of two poets (one contemporary and one pre...