How useful the emoji! Beyond their charm, these little images clarify tone, save us time and sometimes trouble, and offer pops of flair to our otherwise mundane communication (fireworks! dancing lady in red!). How, we wonder, did we ever communicate without them? And now that they’re here, how can written language hope to keep up? Well, consider this two-day bootcamp a celebration of that most incredible of human technologies—the sentence. We all have our patterns for sentence-making, our go-tos of syntax and diction. Which means that we’re all at risk of settling into ruts. This class aims to diversify our toolkits, starting with a clean distinction between two primary types of sentences. From there, we’ll move among in-class, generative writing exercises, brief craft lessons, and close-reading discussions about exemplary sentences drawn from novels, stories, essays, and poems. Because the best way to become a better sentence writer is to become a better sentence appreciator. We will emulate, appropriate, and absorb from literature’s best teachers. This course will benefit new and experienced writers alike–any sharing of work will be voluntary and the critical atmosphere will be one of discovery, exploration, and mutual support. All students will leave this weekend with a richer understanding of diction, syntax, and the interplay between speaker and voice. And, perhaps, a better understanding of what we mean by that elusive, slippery thing we call “style.” 

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend.