The young adult novel is one of the fastest-growing, exciting genres in publishing these days. With complex young characters, realistic dialogue, and gripping prose, readers of all agescan’t get enough of these novels. In a supportive and inspiring environment, this class will explore all the elements of a Young Adult story’s plot, character, setting, and voice—through in-depth lectures, discussions, manuscript workshopping, and writing exercises. Also covered is the current marketplace for young adult fiction and how to query agents. You leave the class with a completed first chapter and a rough outline of your entire book, as well as the tools to continue writing on your own.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is June 4, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
In her Creative Nonfiction essay “The Braided Essay as Social Justice,” Nicole Walker argues: “The braided essay isn’t a new form. In fact, I think nearly every essay uses a kind of braiding…perhaps,” she continues, “the braided form is most effective when the political and the personal are trying to explain and understand each other. Among personal essays, braided essays are a form particularly welcoming to the vast array of ways—our obsessions, expertise, and contexts–that each of us uses to try to explain the personal. How distinct do the threads in a braided essay need to be and how regular does the movement between strands need to remain in order to guide readers through the piece?
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is June 4, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
The focus of this course will be the creation, development, and discussion of autobiographical fiction. The hope is that students will walk away having further learned how to mine and forage their memories and lives to act as foundations for future work through exercise and conversation. We will continue or begin writing our own autobiographical fiction, provide thoughtful critique, and explore what autobiographical fiction is through various readings and discourse.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is June 4, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
This course is designed for writers who want to develop a script on which they have already begun to work. This may include anything from a full-length play to a one-act play to a series of short plays. The class will explore the skills and qualities of effective stagecraft by reading and discussing the participants’ scripts in a supportive and challenging environment, with the goal being to get their plays ready for production.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is June 4, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
Over the course of six weeks, I will guide you into starting a novel and staying motivated while writing the first chapters! This online class will offer craft discussions, intensive study of a mentor text, instructor feedback on a synopsis, as well as approximately 40 pages of work. We will use Canvas for online interactions and Zoom for live webinars. You will develop a supportive creative cohort as you work on developing your novel-in-progress, and by the end of the six weeks, you should have at least forty pages of a novel completed, though it need not be in polished form.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is March 15, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
This course is designed for writers who want to develop a one-act play on which they have already begun work. This may include a script than runs anywhere from 20 to 40 pages in length. We will explore the skills and qualities of effective stagecraft by reading and discussing the participants’ scripts in a supportive and challenging environment, with the goal being to get their short plays ready for production. This course would be the natural place to go next for students who have already taken Introduction to Playwriting or Writing the Ten-Minute Play. It would also be a good place for people to start if they have studied elsewhere but have a script in development.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is March 15, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
How do we shape our work into polished, powerful prose? In this six-week course, we’ll combine writing workshops with reading assignments that illustrate a variety of creative nonfiction techniques. We will focus on structure, revision, and adding depth to your work. Students in this course are required to bring a work in progress or a section of a work in progress (5,000 words or less) to the first class session.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is March 15, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
In this workshop, we will explore the craft issues related to flash nonfiction. Writing shorter pieces of 700-1,000 words, will allow you to work on intensity of language, wrapping an idea in a compelling story, and exploring structure, word choice and voice. We will also read and discuss flash nonfiction essays in our text.
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion. No class on April 23rd.
The deadline for registration is March 15, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 14 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
Characters are the driving force behind story. Indelible, passionate single-minded characters allow audiences to see themselves not just as they are but as who they might be at their heroic or anti-heroic best. Crafting characters of this caliber and placing them in high wire do or die situations sells stories across genres and platforms and can help put the writer on the map. How can we write CHARACTERS so as to exploit their full potential?
Notes: This course takes place via Zoom and leverages the Canvas platform for materials and occasional class discussion.
The deadline for registration is March 15, 2023, at 5 p.m. Enrollment is limited to 12 students, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
