Class Catalog

Instructor: Ray Stoeve. In this class, we'll read and discuss excerpts from YA novels that illustrate their characters' inner narratives in action, then use writing exercises to connect with our characters and their internal beliefs by connecting with our teenage selves. 

Instructor: Peter Bacho. This class is for students who wish to write—or are already writing—a memoir. Students will read memoirs by established writers, and study the techniques used in memoir, including the use of effective dialogue and tense shifts.

Instructor: Tina Tocco. If you'd like to write some stories about strange situations, wacky images, and other oddities, this is the workshop for you. Students will use prompts to jumpstart the weirdness of their imaginations, then share their work (totally optional) and receive positive feedback.

Instructor: Allison Ellis. The ghost story is among the oldest and most ubiquitous literary narratives, crossing nearly every culture and genre. In this course, learn a variety of techniques for building a ghost story, obtain peer and instructor feedback, and leave with a new draft for a chapter, short story, or essay.

Instructor: Tina Tocco. Are you ready to go deeper with your kid-lit writing? This workshop will help you get feedback on your work-in-progress from other writers who, like you, are devoted to children's literature.

Instructor: Margot Leitman. Join the author of the comedic memoir Gawky: Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase, Margot Leitman, as she guides you through refining what is funny, specific, unique, and timely about your story.

Instructor: Dilruba Ahmed. Looking for a feast of form-related prompts to help you shape your poems? Re-energize your writing with a 3-day intensive on forms such as epistolary poems, elegy, villanelle, pastoral/ecopoetry, and odes.

Instructor: Heidi Seaborn. Designed for people who've had another career and are now pursuing writing, students will act on their dreams by setting writing goals and gaining the insights, techniques, and tips to establish their craft.

Instructor: Greg November. This generative one-day workshop is all about inventory. Things, stuff, items. Creating a world on the page through objects and learning the power of ordinary items to evoke passions, fears, dreams, and all manner of big ideas.

Instructor: Peter Mountford. Whether you're looking to write stories or a novel, this course will introduce key elements of fiction (character, plot, voice, setting, and point of view), and provides a practical and straightforward foundation in craft that will help writers take their fiction to the next level.

Instructor: Corinne Manning. Desire is the experience of possibility, the burn of anticipation. This generative class will explore desire as a craft element to bring more intimacy, urgency, and possibility into your prose.

Instructor: Anca Szilágyi. In this one-day class, we will explore generating new writing from the visual art forms of assemblages and collage by looking at contemporary works available in the Henry Art Gallery's permanent collection.

Instructor: Rachel Werner. In an attempt to fill a career development gap and provide professional peer support for writers with children, this in-person, two-day retreat will include writing time, story mapping, group discussions, query exercises, and one-on-one consultations.

Instructor: Meredith Arena. In this workshop, we will experiment with forms and be open to any genre. We write with a creative form in mind, but in the genre each of us chooses. We will experiment with a few existing, and a few invented forms as we work our way to the horizon.

Instructor: Kimberly Lee. Ekphrastic writing has been described as “taking the visual and transforming it to the verbal.” In this generative workshop, participants will engage with imaginative prompts, exploring images as a source of inspiration.

Instructor: Gail Folkins. Taking cues from writers such as J. Drew Lanham, Ana Maria Spagna, Rick Bass, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil, we'll read and write essays with a nature and environmental focus, as well as explore literary tools along with research methods such as personal observation and interviews.

Instructor: Sierra Nelson. Looking toward our moon (and other moons) anew, this generative class, open to all genres, features eclectic writing experiments inspired by scientific, esoteric, and mythological ideas, to jump-start our creativity and playfully upend clichés.

Instructor: Becky Mandelbaum. In this course, we'll explore how to make a manuscript publication-ready, addressing a range of questions that typically arise during writing and revision, as well as workshop student writing and discuss how to submit work and enter contests.

Instructors: Ansley Clark & Hannah Brancato. How can storytelling help us recognize and resist the covert ways we inherit white supremacy culture? Using Tema Okun's white supremacy characteristics as a framework, this two-part antiracism workshop is an arts-based excavation.

Instructor: Sabra Boyd. Do you want to write for magazines, newspapers, and other publications? This workshop will guide you through the steps of how to pitch essays and articles to editors, and the many paths to publication.

Instructor: Aimee Christian. In this course, we'll discuss what it means to meet our own gaze and see what's really looking back and why it's worth facing that truer version of yourself.

Instructor: Laura Da'. The focus of this class is lyrical texture, which may include developing sonic patterns, tactile landscapes, and compelling juxtapositions. Students will generate new poems and incorporate strategies to revise existing work.

Instructor: Scott Driscoll. In this class, we will discuss how to recognize voice and manage shifts between author and character voices, manipulate narrative distance, and recognize levels of psychic distance in order to control how emotionally close we feel to the character.

Instructor: Wendy Kendall. Three key elements drive all mysteries: motives, means, and opportunity. In this class, you'll learn how an author exploits these three elements to build suspense, increase action, and flesh out characters.