If you’d like some company or guidance on your writing journey, here are a few writing workshops/classes offered in September and October. All classes are online (Zoom) unless otherwise indicated.
If you are an instructor and have a writing class you think would be of interest to the Writer-ish community, you can submit it here for consideration.
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9/4 Writing the Everyday: Prose that Makes the Common Uncommon
with Lindsey Deloach Jones (Craft Talks). September 4, 2024, Saturday from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm PST. Zoom workshop. $25. Sign up here.
Writers are often under the misunderstanding that trauma, major life overhauls, and wild adventures are the only subjects that make for moving nonfiction. But most hours of most of our lives are spent inside smaller, quieter experiences—and those too can be the topic of meaningful essays and even memoir. The trick is becoming the kind of writer who relentlessly pays attention to the “mundane” world, training yourself to see connections where others see nothing at all.
In this presentation, we will do writing exercises to help you transfer what you notice about your everyday life to the page, and we’ll examine others’ writing to see how ordinary things can become the building blocks of transcendent personal essays and poems.
9/5 Queer Imagination
with Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya (Write or Die). September 5, 2024, Thursday from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm PST. Zoom workshop. $50. Sign up here.
This genrefluid and generative workshop is about making work that's queer beyond the surface level content.
We'll experiment with form, language, and narrative devices and structures that are in and of themselves queer, going beyond normative modes of storytelling. How can we use things like POV, line breaks, nonlinear storytelling, etc to tell queer stories in queer ways? How can we disrupt our own writing processes to unlearn "rules" we've been taught and work toward a queer understanding of craft?
9/10 Intersectionality: Manuscript Workshop
with Stephanie Han. September 10 – November 12, 2024, Tuesdays from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm PST. Zoom workshop. $1,080. Sign up here.
The goal of this multi-genre workshop is to work towards the completion of a manuscript with the support of women who believe in your journey as a writer. This workshop honors your voice and is a place to receive feedback for the narrative that only you can write, the story (ies) that you are meant to tell. Your project may be a book of essays, short stories, or a longer work-in-progress. With helpful comments and the polishing of craft skills, you will write to the best of your ability. Your story is significant, and you and your peers agree to help each other write emotional truths on the page—fiction or non-fiction. While there will be assigned texts, there is no writing during class time.
In addition to workshop, all writers have one-on-one arranged meetings during the week they are ‘up’ and will meet one-on-one with the peers they workshop with.
9/21 Marketing Your Small Press Book
with Elle Nash (Write or Die). September 21, 2024, Saturday from 8:00 am to 11:00 am PST. Zoom workshop. $75. Sign up here.
You got the book deal! With a small press! And, though it's no surprise, they do not have a marketing department! Now what? This course will walk you through what it takes to do your own heavy lifting with publicity and how to make the most of your publication.
In this workshop, we will spend time crafting a one page "press kit" for our books, begin to build a press list that is specifically catered to your book's themes, brainstorm ideas around your book's themes that you can pitch as features or essays, and learn how to elevator pitch yourself for book events, festivals, podcasts and more.
9/28 2 Essays in 2 Hours!
with Hannah Grieco (Write or Die). September 28, 2024, Saturday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm PST. Zoom workshop. $50. Sign up here.
Are you stuck? In a writing rut? Want to try something new, explore ideas you’ve tiptoed around in the past, or just get some words on the page again?
In this class, we’ll read and write, using prompts to help you generate two new nonfiction pieces: one flash work of memoir and one personal essay! You’ll leave with two new drafts and a guided plan for revisions!
10/2 Writing the Family Narrative
with Darien Hsu Gee (UCLA Extension). October 2 – December 10, 2024. Asynchronous* online workshop. $720. Sign up here.
As writers, our ancestral history breathes through our bodies and appears on the written page, whether we realize it or not. The stories of those who came before us—and the legacies they bear, for better or worse—are what we carry. We’ll use family history, gossip, and lore, as well as photographs, ephemera, and other available documentation to discover the factual and emotional truths of ourselves and our families. We’ll explore different ways to tell these stories, even when little information is known. Each week we’ll build a small body of hybrid creative nonfiction work and look at what these narratives say about us and the people in our lives.
*This online course is conducted through Canvas, a secure website that allows students to log in to access lectures, discussions, and other course materials on demand. There are no required live class meetings. Each course is structured with weekly assignments and deadlines. Lectures and coursework are accessible throughout the week. Workshops are conducted in writing via discussion boards with your instructor and classmates.
10/30 By the Seat of Your Pants: Finding, Creating, and Publishing Creative Work
with Darien Hsu Gee (Craft Talks). October 30, 2024 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm PST. Live Zoom workshop. $25 ($15 early bird). Sign up here.
Unleash your inner pantser and transform your writing career! Learn how to turn creative sparks into structured, successful projects. We'll explore techniques for nurturing creative sparks, building confidence in your intuitive process, and maintaining focus amidst spontaneity. Whether you're a natural pantser or a plotter seeking freedom, you'll gain tools to embrace spontaneity, trust your instincts, and elevate your writing.
One-on-One Literary Consults and Coaching Sessions
with Darien Hsu Gee (writer-ish.com). Helping writers get unstuck is one of my superpowers, as is amplifying your writing and strategizing a literary career. Let me help you get to where you want to go!
- Already paid and need to schedule a session? Go to my calendar here.
- Not sure if one-on-one coaching is for you? Schedule a 30-minute complimentary session to see if working together might be a fit. Sign up here.
- Know what you need and you’re all in? Buy a bundle of 4 hours for $500 and save $100.
- Get the best of both worlds with my Coaching and a Class bundle. For $175, get an hour of coaching and a micro prose workshop of your choice (Foundation Courses excluded). For new and existing clients; available for a limited time only.
A literary consult and/or coaching session is an opportunity for you to discuss and receive guidance on your writing, your writing process, and/or your literary career. These sessions are helpful if you need to troubleshoot a troubled manuscript, want insight into the publishing process, or are ready for someone to cheer you on as you strive to meet your goals. How you use this time is up to you, or let me guide our time based on a few thoughtful questions at the start of our session. If you’d like me to review any work with you, we would do this live during our time together; you’ll receive submission/share instructions prior to our meeting.
Looking for more resources? Recorded Micro Memoir workshops are available here. If you’re looking for some inspiration, you can find a new writing prompt every Monday here.