Winter/Spring 2019: Multi-Week Writing Workshops
*All our workshops are capped at 10 participants*
**Multi-week workshops meet weekly for a set number of weeks and offer the opportunity to receive feedback on your work from the instructor and the group.**
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4 Weeks: Wednesdays, May 1 - 226 - 8:30pm in Williamsburg MA • All Levels • Cost: $200
Through reading samples of classic and contemporary poetry, we’ll explore several key craft elements and styles of poetry such as sonnet, haiku, free verse, prose poems, and experimental forms like picture poems and erasures. We’ll engage in a wide variety of exploratory in-class writing prompts, exercises, and revision strategies.
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4 Weeks: Saturdays, May 4 - 251 - 3pm in Williamsburg MA • All Levels • Cost: $175
How does one balance the necessity of detail with the overall arc and structure of a piece of writing? How do the details you choose to include, and choose not to include, influence how your story is told? In this class, we’ll look at details within specific craft elements: setting, worldbuilding, character, and structure. For each, we’ll examine a variety of examples and discuss how, where, and why details work, or don’t.
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• Craft Class and Workshop Policies •
Past Multi-Week Workshops
3-Week Revising & Polishing Your Poems
with Gail Thomas
For most poets revision can be daunting, and yet it is the most important step for creating work that resonates with readers. If you aren’t receiving regular feedback from a writing group or would value a different perspective, this workshop will provide tools for discovering what your poems need. We will explore issues of craft including line breaks, tense, voice, form, and imagery. Each session will focus on giving and receiving feedback on poems that you want to improve in an atmosphere of respect. Between sessions you will revise and polish. In the last session we will focus on presenting your best work: the importance of formatting and titles, reading your work aloud, and perseverance in the face of rejection. Participants will prepare a packet of poems that have been polished from previous weeks with an eye towards either reading in public or seeking publication. Please bring a laptop for this last session.
Year-Long Fiction Manuscript Group
with Kate Senecal
This year-long course aims to create a supportive community of writers who are working their way through large projects, and is specifically designed for intermediate/advanced fiction writers who are working toward completing a novel or a series of short stories, or have already completed a manuscript (novel or short story collection) they are looking to revise. Monthly meetings will include robust, supportive discussion about how to maintain an active writing practice, occasional writing prompts, out-loud sharing of works in progress and occasional on the spot verbal feedback from the group and the instructor, along with analytical discussion of craft and published fiction that correlates to craft topics that are relevant to participants' work. Monthly in-person meetings will be supplemented with intermittent online discussions, short assignments, and readings. Participants will receive written feedback from the instructor on a portion of their work and will have an opportunity to receive feedback from the group at least twice (but potentially more depending on the size of the group).
6-Week Mastering Your Memoir
with Celia Jeffries
In this advanced course, experienced students working on a memoir will receive support, guidance, and feedback. We will delve deeply into craft and work through some of the hazards of memoir: how to write about others, how to recreate the past, etc. by trying new forms and techniques, exercising different voices and structures, and working on revision. Prompts and exercises will be offered in class and as homework along with readings from masters of the memoir, both past and present. Participants may contribute to the course content by suggesting topics to focus on and by discussing their work in progress. While new writing is encouraged, this workshop is primarily for those who are interested in furthering work on an existing manuscript.
A Try At The Truth: 6-Week Intro to Memoir Workshop
with Celia Jeffries
Patricia Hampl says “Memoir is not what happened (if we’re lucky, that’s the best journalism). It is what has happened over time, in the mind as it attends to these tantalizing, dismaying, broken bits of life history. Such personal writing is, as the essay is, ‘an attempt.’ It is a try at the truth. The truth of a self in the world.” In this six-week workshop we will generate new writing, examine masters of the craft, confront the challenges of writing ‘the truth of the self’ and work together in a supportive environment to write and revise a short essay or chapter of a memoir. Later in the course, we will turn to workshopping, and participants will have the opportunity to receive feedback on a piece or excerpt from the group and instructor. Open to memoirists of all levels and experiences.
Words Are Power: Young Writers Workshop
with Kate Senecal & Carolyn Zaikowski
We believe that words are power! This 4-week workshop is for young people of all genders and communities, ages 14-18, who are interested in exploring creative writing through a social justice lens. It is perfect for teenagers who want to use writing as an outlet for their political and social concerns, as well as for their personal empowerment. Fiction writers, poets, and genre-benders are all welcome. Through interactive lessons, generative exercises, fun workshops, and readings, participants will learn just as much about themselves as they will about the craft of writing.
Narrative Nonfiction & History Writing - Sessions I & II
with Ken Mondschein, Ph.D.
This casual, discussion-based nonfiction class will pick up where the first session left off, although all new participants are more than welcome to join in! Among other things, we will revisit choosing an angle that will appeal to readers, finding the story therein, grabbing the reader's attention with sharp prose, dealing with controversies in interpretation, and organizing your information in a clear, engaging narrative style, although the class will mostly focus on sources and places for doing research, such as academic library access, journals, databases, archives, and books. If there's time, Ken will discuss how to identify an academic book's argument and how to take a new approach on the same topic. Whether you intend to write a small-scale piece such as a blog on family history or an article on the barns of colonial New England, or intend to spend the next few years crafting a multi-volume on World War II or the fall of the Roman Empire, Ken will teach you to think like a historian and tell your audience what you have to say in a way that will keep them reading.
Mindfulness Meditation & Writing - 4 Weeks
with Carolyn Zaikowski
In this four-week workshop, we'll use both writing and meditation as tools of discovery and exploration. We'll begin each class with an exploration of what “mindfulness” really means and discuss examples of classic and contemporary works that could be considered “meditative”. Each week, we'll practice guided sitting meditation, discuss our observations and insights, and complete in-class writing exercises that build on these explorations. Instructions for cultivating one’s mindful writing practice at home will be given. On the last day, we'll share and workshop pieces we have written over our time together. To participate, all you need is some open-hearted curiosity about how meditation might fit into writing practice, or how writing might fit into meditation practice! No prior meditation or writing experience is necessary. Open to writers of all levels and genres, including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, hybrid, and journal writing.
Arc of the Story - 4 Weeks
with Sara Rauch
In this 4-week craft class, we’ll take a deep look at structure. The first class will focus on beginnings, the second class on middles, the third class on endings, and the fourth class on the overall arc of a story. Over the course of the four weeks, we’ll consider how beginnings, middles, and endings play out in a variety of short pieces, both fiction and nonfiction, linear and non-linear, traditional and experimental. And as we cover the main components of structure, we’ll also touch upon character development, dialogue, and details, and how these aspects influence the trajectory of a story. Each class will include discussion of craft elements, readings that illuminate the subject at hand, and writing prompts. No workshop element, though students will produce a short story of their own over the four weeks, based on prompts at the end of each class and will end the course with a completed work. Open to prose writers of all levels.
Intro to Fiction 8-Week Workshop
with Joy Baglio (2017) & Seth Harwood (2018)
Winter 2017
In this course you will produce creative work of your own and learn how to discuss and critique the work of others. The first half of the course will be spent looking closely at published work by authors such as Russell Banks, Susan Sontag, and Junot Diaz to analyze craft elements such as point of view, scene construction, narrative strategy, and dialogue. Weekly writing assignments will include exercises on these elements and short scene work. In the second half of the course, our focus turns toward the workshop: developing reading and analytic skills using student writing. Each student will submit one piece of fiction, either a novel excerpt or a short story, for feedback from Seth and the class.
Spring 2018
In this workshop designed to accommodate both new and experienced writers, we'll explore foundational elements of craft through structured critique, analysis of published short stories, and in-class writing exercises. Writers will learn new strategies or sharpen existing ones around identifying the moving parts of fictional narratives and gaining greater control of the elements in the writer's toolbox. All participants will have a chance to workshop a story with the group and receive detailed feedback from members of the class and the instructor. This workshop is a supportive, light-hearted deep-dive into the inner workings of short fiction. Open to prose writers of all levels and genres.
4-Week Fiction Workshop: The Craft of Connecting with Readers
with Seth Harwood
In this course, students will focus on writing the kind of clean and gripping prose they’ve loved to read their whole lives. You know the feeling when a sense of reading falls away and you find yourself immersed in a book’s action, tied to the narrator’s struggle, and watching each scene unfold in your mind’s eye? That’s the kind of prose we’ll be working toward creating in this class.
Our first and possibly most surprising lesson: You don’t need a fascinating, multi-layered outline or a stellar plot concept to write like this. Instead we’ll be looking at how writer and reader connect, and build the craft elements necessary to pull readers in and to keep them eagerly turning pages. Students will develop work through exercises in the use of dialogue, visual action, and creating three-dimensional characters in scenes. This class meets four times. Open to writers of all levels and genres.
with Gail Thomas
For most poets revision can be daunting, and yet it is the most important step for creating work that resonates with readers. If you aren’t receiving regular feedback from a writing group or would value a different perspective, this workshop will provide tools for discovering what your poems need. We will explore issues of craft including line breaks, tense, voice, form, and imagery. Each session will focus on giving and receiving feedback on poems that you want to improve in an atmosphere of respect. Between sessions you will revise and polish. In the last session we will focus on presenting your best work: the importance of formatting and titles, reading your work aloud, and perseverance in the face of rejection. Participants will prepare a packet of poems that have been polished from previous weeks with an eye towards either reading in public or seeking publication. Please bring a laptop for this last session.
Year-Long Fiction Manuscript Group
with Kate Senecal
This year-long course aims to create a supportive community of writers who are working their way through large projects, and is specifically designed for intermediate/advanced fiction writers who are working toward completing a novel or a series of short stories, or have already completed a manuscript (novel or short story collection) they are looking to revise. Monthly meetings will include robust, supportive discussion about how to maintain an active writing practice, occasional writing prompts, out-loud sharing of works in progress and occasional on the spot verbal feedback from the group and the instructor, along with analytical discussion of craft and published fiction that correlates to craft topics that are relevant to participants' work. Monthly in-person meetings will be supplemented with intermittent online discussions, short assignments, and readings. Participants will receive written feedback from the instructor on a portion of their work and will have an opportunity to receive feedback from the group at least twice (but potentially more depending on the size of the group).
6-Week Mastering Your Memoir
with Celia Jeffries
In this advanced course, experienced students working on a memoir will receive support, guidance, and feedback. We will delve deeply into craft and work through some of the hazards of memoir: how to write about others, how to recreate the past, etc. by trying new forms and techniques, exercising different voices and structures, and working on revision. Prompts and exercises will be offered in class and as homework along with readings from masters of the memoir, both past and present. Participants may contribute to the course content by suggesting topics to focus on and by discussing their work in progress. While new writing is encouraged, this workshop is primarily for those who are interested in furthering work on an existing manuscript.
A Try At The Truth: 6-Week Intro to Memoir Workshop
with Celia Jeffries
Patricia Hampl says “Memoir is not what happened (if we’re lucky, that’s the best journalism). It is what has happened over time, in the mind as it attends to these tantalizing, dismaying, broken bits of life history. Such personal writing is, as the essay is, ‘an attempt.’ It is a try at the truth. The truth of a self in the world.” In this six-week workshop we will generate new writing, examine masters of the craft, confront the challenges of writing ‘the truth of the self’ and work together in a supportive environment to write and revise a short essay or chapter of a memoir. Later in the course, we will turn to workshopping, and participants will have the opportunity to receive feedback on a piece or excerpt from the group and instructor. Open to memoirists of all levels and experiences.
Words Are Power: Young Writers Workshop
with Kate Senecal & Carolyn Zaikowski
We believe that words are power! This 4-week workshop is for young people of all genders and communities, ages 14-18, who are interested in exploring creative writing through a social justice lens. It is perfect for teenagers who want to use writing as an outlet for their political and social concerns, as well as for their personal empowerment. Fiction writers, poets, and genre-benders are all welcome. Through interactive lessons, generative exercises, fun workshops, and readings, participants will learn just as much about themselves as they will about the craft of writing.
Narrative Nonfiction & History Writing - Sessions I & II
with Ken Mondschein, Ph.D.
This casual, discussion-based nonfiction class will pick up where the first session left off, although all new participants are more than welcome to join in! Among other things, we will revisit choosing an angle that will appeal to readers, finding the story therein, grabbing the reader's attention with sharp prose, dealing with controversies in interpretation, and organizing your information in a clear, engaging narrative style, although the class will mostly focus on sources and places for doing research, such as academic library access, journals, databases, archives, and books. If there's time, Ken will discuss how to identify an academic book's argument and how to take a new approach on the same topic. Whether you intend to write a small-scale piece such as a blog on family history or an article on the barns of colonial New England, or intend to spend the next few years crafting a multi-volume on World War II or the fall of the Roman Empire, Ken will teach you to think like a historian and tell your audience what you have to say in a way that will keep them reading.
Mindfulness Meditation & Writing - 4 Weeks
with Carolyn Zaikowski
In this four-week workshop, we'll use both writing and meditation as tools of discovery and exploration. We'll begin each class with an exploration of what “mindfulness” really means and discuss examples of classic and contemporary works that could be considered “meditative”. Each week, we'll practice guided sitting meditation, discuss our observations and insights, and complete in-class writing exercises that build on these explorations. Instructions for cultivating one’s mindful writing practice at home will be given. On the last day, we'll share and workshop pieces we have written over our time together. To participate, all you need is some open-hearted curiosity about how meditation might fit into writing practice, or how writing might fit into meditation practice! No prior meditation or writing experience is necessary. Open to writers of all levels and genres, including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, hybrid, and journal writing.
Arc of the Story - 4 Weeks
with Sara Rauch
In this 4-week craft class, we’ll take a deep look at structure. The first class will focus on beginnings, the second class on middles, the third class on endings, and the fourth class on the overall arc of a story. Over the course of the four weeks, we’ll consider how beginnings, middles, and endings play out in a variety of short pieces, both fiction and nonfiction, linear and non-linear, traditional and experimental. And as we cover the main components of structure, we’ll also touch upon character development, dialogue, and details, and how these aspects influence the trajectory of a story. Each class will include discussion of craft elements, readings that illuminate the subject at hand, and writing prompts. No workshop element, though students will produce a short story of their own over the four weeks, based on prompts at the end of each class and will end the course with a completed work. Open to prose writers of all levels.
Intro to Fiction 8-Week Workshop
with Joy Baglio (2017) & Seth Harwood (2018)
Winter 2017
In this course you will produce creative work of your own and learn how to discuss and critique the work of others. The first half of the course will be spent looking closely at published work by authors such as Russell Banks, Susan Sontag, and Junot Diaz to analyze craft elements such as point of view, scene construction, narrative strategy, and dialogue. Weekly writing assignments will include exercises on these elements and short scene work. In the second half of the course, our focus turns toward the workshop: developing reading and analytic skills using student writing. Each student will submit one piece of fiction, either a novel excerpt or a short story, for feedback from Seth and the class.
Spring 2018
In this workshop designed to accommodate both new and experienced writers, we'll explore foundational elements of craft through structured critique, analysis of published short stories, and in-class writing exercises. Writers will learn new strategies or sharpen existing ones around identifying the moving parts of fictional narratives and gaining greater control of the elements in the writer's toolbox. All participants will have a chance to workshop a story with the group and receive detailed feedback from members of the class and the instructor. This workshop is a supportive, light-hearted deep-dive into the inner workings of short fiction. Open to prose writers of all levels and genres.
4-Week Fiction Workshop: The Craft of Connecting with Readers
with Seth Harwood
In this course, students will focus on writing the kind of clean and gripping prose they’ve loved to read their whole lives. You know the feeling when a sense of reading falls away and you find yourself immersed in a book’s action, tied to the narrator’s struggle, and watching each scene unfold in your mind’s eye? That’s the kind of prose we’ll be working toward creating in this class.
Our first and possibly most surprising lesson: You don’t need a fascinating, multi-layered outline or a stellar plot concept to write like this. Instead we’ll be looking at how writer and reader connect, and build the craft elements necessary to pull readers in and to keep them eagerly turning pages. Students will develop work through exercises in the use of dialogue, visual action, and creating three-dimensional characters in scenes. This class meets four times. Open to writers of all levels and genres.