Songwriting is an ancient form--one of the earliest means of passing on oral history. Over thousands of years, it has evolved into a many faceted art-form, a source of entertainment, catharsis or escapism. In this workshop, we will explore the songwriting process through listening, writing and editing. We will examine songs from a variety of genres and time periods to investigate what it is that makes a song “stick” with us or not. Through both individual and collaborative efforts, we…

The Poetry Workshop continues with returning members and new members with poetry writing experience. Members of the group will actively write and revise original poems, focusing on elements of craft and analyzing select poems by our best poets that effectively model those elements. All group members will have the opportunity to submit material for the workshop. Your instructor will make every effort to tailor the submission schedule to your individual goals.

Workshop is for writers who want to think seriously about book-length memoir or collections in the context of narrative voice, structure and improving their craft. We’ll work with prompts, exercises, and consider strategies for revision to help you see your memoir in a new light. Each week we'll look at exemplary readings and tackle issues such as characterization, description, scene vs. narrative summary, time and pacing, arc, and real-world consequences and ethical considerations when writing and publishing true-to-life stories. You…

Summer class for accepted members of the 2021 Teen Writers Fellowship. You must be an accepted fellow in the 2021 class to register for this class. Instructors: Jessica Kelley & Synnika Lofton

The Fiction Workshop continues where Fiction 1 left off. Returning students and writers new to The Muse (who have fiction writing experience) will be encouraged to produce and submit original work for discussion by the group. Using the students own work and stories published by established writers, the participants will take a deeper look at the essential craft elements of fiction writing. We will refine the understanding of POV and the limitations & benefits of those choices, learn revision on…

The Fiction Workshop continues with returning members and new members with fiction writing workshop experience. Members of the group will actively write and workshop original work while taking a deeper look at the essential craft elements of fiction writing. We will refine the understanding of POV and the limitations & benefits of those choices, learn revision on the sentence level, continue to learn how to give and take constructive critique, and master writing active prose. All members of the group will have…

This workshop is based on Theodore Roethke's notion that "Imitation, conscious imitation, is one of the great methods, perhaps THE method of learning to write.” In the workshop we’ll look at various poems that powerfully display specific elements of craft, such as form (ghazal, anyone, or poem with an extended metaphor?), style, theme, and more. The poems you write will be new wineskins from old, so to speak--fresh work to be shared and critiqued that remakes poems from contemporary and…