It is not uncommon for fear and trembling to set in when a writer tries to weave together their story. Some sit down and start cold turkey..."He was a dark and stormy knight..." They freeze up. Stop and try to attempt a different scene in another chapter, "She was a little dark storm cloud.." Loop back around. Kill Aunt Esmeralda in chapter 22. Add a rescue Ponski with supernatural powers in chapter 14. Freeze up. Soon the writer inevitably starts…

Summer class for continuing members of the 2019 Teen Writers Fellowship. You must be an accepted 2019 fellow to register for this class. Please note: This class is an online class. To participate, students must have a stable internet connection and a computer or device with a webcam and microphone.

The Fiction Workshop continues with returning writers and new members with fiction writing experience. Members of the group will actively write and revise original short stories and chapters of novels. All members of the group will have the opportunity to submit material for the workshop. You will have at least two to three opportunities to be critiqued during the session.   Please note: This class is an online class. To participate, students must have a stable internet connection with a…

Memoir and all creative nonfiction is the work of memory and craft, style and substance. In this class, we will move toward uncovering the true stories about ourselves and the world and telling them well. We will learn, through published texts and writing exercises and assignments, how creative nonfiction writers include vivid characterization, narrative structure, dialogue, imagery, and voice to a wide range of stories, including memoir, personal essays, profile pieces, travelogues, literary journalism, and more. Each member of the…

Returning writers and new members with advanced fiction workshop experience will actively write and revise original short stories and chapters of novels as well as consider various aspects of the creative and professional life of the fiction writer. All members of the group will have the opportunity to submit material for the workshop, with at least two to three opportunities to be critiqued during the session. Please note: This class is an online class. To participate, students must have a…

Are you ready to launch your writing career? You’ll need an online presence where readers can find you. Whether you are already published and need to create an online portfolio, or you are just getting started and would like to begin blogging, an author website and blog will help you begin to build your online platform. We’ll work through the step-by-step process of setting up the typical three-page author website, and we will examine ways to keep a blog fresh…

Whether your characters are exploring alien ruins on a sunless planet or commanding an interstellar battlefleet, how you present the geography of space can lend verisimilitude to your science fiction writing. Starting with our local stellar neighborhood, we will examine some classic nearby stars--including Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani--before moving out to explore the broader structure of the Orion Arm. We will survey star clusters, rogue planets, pulsars and nebulae, and then consider the galaxy on a grand…

What's to be done with those poems stuffed in folders or buried in a stack, unfinished and abandoned? If you're like me, those poems contain gems of words and insight, maybe a few well-wrought lines, but you can't seem to keep the energy going or capture the concept. This four-session workshop offers proven revision strategies for structuring, tightening, electrifying, and deepening your poems with richer meaning and authenticity. We'll read poems by our best writers to see how they achieve…

In this workshop, you can explore fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and more. Each meeting, teachers will lead different breakout groups, focused on different genres, with creative exercises, prompts, and readings. You can learn a new genre or sharpen your skills while working on something you are already writing and have ample time to share and comment on each other’s work. Plus, we’ll have a visit or two from our comic book writing teacher to work with visual stories. Come hone…

In this seminar, through the examination of contemporary literary works and in-class exercises, we will analyze what elements of craft are necessary to create a voice for a nuanced, three-dimensional protagonist. This class will focus on the first-person point of view. Some questions we will address in this seminar: 1. How do you carry a story with an unpredictable narrator? 2. How do you capture a character's interiority? 3. How do you exhaust all of the power of "I"? 3.…