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Tag Archive for: Online Class

WORDPLAY CLASS: First Page, Last Polish (part of The Loft’s Wordplay festival)

Your opening is the first thing an agent or editor will read—and you don’t want it to be the last. But you’ve seen your own first page so often that its strengths, flaws, gaps, and even typos are invisible to you now. So often, all we can think to do to polish it up is add more descriptors—perhaps the last thing it needs. In this class we’ll hone the crucial elements of reader orientation, clarity, intrigue, promise, diction, and perspective—the things that make a reader keep reading, or move on. We’ll also talk about how to get a story really going, even in its first paragraphs, without sounding desperate—something harder than it seems.

on July 5 2023· Tagged: , , , , , ,

The Porch: The Origins of the Original with Visiting Writer Rebecca Makkai

When we sit down to write, the first words, scenes, characters, conflicts, and settings we come up with are often the least original ones of which we’re capable. Digging past the obvious, the stock (and even the products of the collective unconscious), we might finally arrive at stories that are strikingly new and memorable. In this class we’ll cover some key elements of originality — specificity, idiosyncrasy, complexity, repetition, and change — and talk about accessing them both in drafting and revision.

For writing to succeed, it must be both well-executed and original. While originality might seem intuitive, or even a product of the writer’s personality, it’s in fact a skill that can be sharpened. That’s what we’ll be doing.

Online Workshop Via Zoom

Saturday, April 30th, 2022 | 2:00pm – 4:00pm CT

$68 for members

$75 for non members

on April 30 2022· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 29 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 22 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 15 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 8 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Hugo House Workshop: “Blind Date”

This brainstorming workshop will explore the alchemy of combining seemingly disparate concepts into one narrative. We’ll each take our own unused, unloved ideas and, after we discuss the fine art of narrative matchmaking, set them up together for a lifetime of happiness—or at least a few paragraphs of fun. In addition to something to write with, bring whatever notebook or computer file contains your miscellaneous ideas. You’ll leave with the makings of several new pieces.

Due to COVID-19, all classes will take place online-either through Zoom or through Wet Ink, Hugo House’s asynchronous learning platform.

Member Price: $135

Non-Member Price: $150

Minimum Class Size: 10 / Maximum Class Size: 20

on June 24 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Lighthouse Lit Fest: Interiority Complex

The great advantage of prose (over theater, film, and life) is that we’re privy to characters’ interior states. But how can a writer get thoughts and emotions across, other than by stating them flat-out or by updating us constantly on breathing and heart rate? We’ll explore ways to use tangent, gesture, backstory, action, association, and more to give characters a rich internal life without resorting to the old cardiopulmonary check-in.

This class accommodates 25+ writers.

on June 10 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Lighthouse Lit Fest Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: The Arc Of Story, The Architecture Of Plot With Rebecca Makkai

No one’s ever going to force you to write a traditional plot arc, but the tools of narrative momentum—cause and effect, development, change, stakes, suspense—should be in every writer’s tool kit, if only so we know what to rebel against. We’ll workshop student fiction in this light—focusing on arc, on shape, on plot or the intentional lack thereof—asking, in every case, what moves the story along, and how it earns and keeps its audience.

Accepted participants will submit up to 20 pages of fiction by May 10, either a complete short story or a section of a novel, and will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with Rebecca during the week of class.

Priority applications for Lit Fest Advanced Workshops close at midnight MT on March 13. Accepted applicants will be notified and able to register for this workshop in early April. Apply here and learn more about Lit Fest here.

 

START DATE: Mon, Jun 07, 2021 | 9:00am – 11:30am MDT
END DATE: Fri, Jun 11, 2021 | 9:00am – 11:30am MDT
VENUE: Zoom: Remote Participation
LEVEL: Advanced

on June 7 2021· Tagged: , , , , ,

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