Schedule

Some stories are better heard than read. Also, let’s face it, it’s fun to tell a story out loud. In Writing a Story Meant to Be Told Out Loud, you’ll write to a prompt and then learn how to make what you wrote in class a stage-worthy story. You’ll get Writing Class Radio’s top tips for making your story sing. Our tips work on the page as well. Listen, even if you sweat through your shirt at the thought of telling a story out loud, this workshop is so much fun. You won’t be made to sweat if you don’t want to. Promise.

Young Adult Novels-in-verse are on the rise but the mainstream’s (new) love affair with lush language is nothing new to the poet. This workshop will explore genre-bending styles of writing YA novels, from poem inception to novel conception.

Screenwriting is telling a story in pictures. A story is a plot. A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition, and as a result of a struggle comes to a win or a loss. We’ll talk about plot; we’ll talk about character, and we’ll talk about structure. Structure is everything. Screenplays must be a specific length, be written in a specific format, bound in a specific way, and consist only of action, description, and dialogue. You can’t illustrate them, add music to them, and you can’t depart from the format. We ought to identify with the hero, who must pursue a visible goal. The plot must contain a number of major turning points which occur at precise moments.

Using Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to things” (“Oda a las cosas”) as our maxim, we will explore arrivals to the sublime via naming and detail. William Carlos Williams wrote, “No ideas but in things,” and Pound applied “imagism” to H.D. who was influenced by Sappho’s compressed

lyrics. Please bring along one or two family photographs (family of origin or family made of friends) for a generative poetry prompt.

We all bring our own personal histories into our work. For this class, we’re going to discuss the road … harder … taken. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to have lived life on the streets, dealt with addiction or abuse. What it does mean is we are going to cover the darker parts of life. If you are “fortunate” enough to come into this with a background education from, we’ll call it, the school of hard knocks? Terrific. If not, no worries. That’s what imaginations are for. Dennis Lehane once described noir as the story of a person falling from the curb into the gutter. I might be paraphrasing. But I can’t think of a better description. Pain. Woe. Despair. Sadly, if done right, these elements can lead to provocation and, yes, entertaining works, both fiction and non-. Many readers relish the opportunity to look through those grimy windows and peek at the dysfunction swirling inside. I’m not just talking about the destitute, impoverished, and downtrodden. Life hits us all hard, and has a way of dragging even the elite to the lowest point. We do this through language, plot, characterization, and ethos. In this workshop, we will delve into those shadows where even angels fear to tread.

The hermit crab essay is a fun short form gaining in popularity — an essay that borrows its structure from an ordinary non-literary source, such as a recipe, a crossword puzzle, or a questionnaire, and uses that structure to propel itself forward, much like the vulnerable hermit crab borrows another creature’s shell to make its way across the dangerous ocean floor. As we look at examples by Brenda Miller, Suzanne Farrell Smith, Esme Weijun Wang, Michael Martone, Anuska Jasraj, Lauren Trembath-Neuberger, Carmella Guiol, Patrick Madden, and Jill Talbot, I’ll share some tips and tricks about this hybrid form that’s surprising successful at helping writers access difficult material. We’ll end our session with a prompt followed by writing time and then share our hermit crabs with the class.

Editors Lynne Barrett, Joe Clifford, and M.J. Fievre examine the challenges and pleasures involved in the creation of an anthology. They discuss the many facets of the anthology process, including editorial vision and aesthetic decisions; collaboration with contributors, editors, and publishers from various regions and cultural backgrounds; sales, marketing, and distribution, including readings, social media engagement, and classroom adoptions; and unexpected legal, ethical, and practical issues in the often competitive tone of our times.

Host Mike Kiniry and the Three Song Stories crew will record an episode of the radio show/podcast with fiction writer Tod Goldberg to find out which three songs tell the story of his life.

Ever read (or write) a story where the hero or heroine just doesn’t seem to pop? I have. Like a thousand times. This intensive (but fun-filled!) seminar will investigate why some characters leap off the page, while others just sit there. We’ll look at the work of Joyce Carol Oates, Sylvia Plath, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, and others in an effort to examine all the untapped ways that authors can create layered, multi-dimensional characters. And we’ll work on an in-class exercise to bring the lesson home.

The pleasure of poetry is frequently felt in the dynamics of language and voice, and yet too, one experiences a poem as an act of the imagination when language unfolds as a palpable journey or argument, much like a sonnet, or as a litany, much like a catalogue poem. Participants in this workshop will learn and write drafts of poems based on the different types of dramatic turns. This is a generative workshop in which all levels of writers are welcomed.

For any writer who ever felt overwhelmed by the BIGNESS of their story, this is a workshop that introduces a concept I call “the container.” We look at how to explore large themes by focusing on a single scene or experience. Beginning by examining the raw material of our lives, we’ll look at the difference between simply reporting what happened and creating a a story arc for readers and listeners that lets us discover not simply what happened, but what it meant. We’ll consider issues of craft as well as emotion—looking at structure, descriptive language, point of view, dialogue, voice, and the core question “What is my story really about?” And because no writer of memoir can avoid the question of how to tell his, her or their story without including other characters in our lives, we’ll examine a writer’s personal responsibility to the people whose paths have intersected with our own.

Songwriting is for the lazy. Songs are finished when the writer says they are. Eavesdropping, gossip, lies, accusations, and shit-stirring are all valid tools I encourage you to use when writing a song. We drift through the world, out of control — a song is something you can own, something you can control. Give your voiceless self a voice with no need for anybody else’s approval.

I've been a teacher for a long time: at the NYU and Columbia graduate schools, at Sanibel, for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, lots of other spots — and I am convinced writing can be taught. This class will emphasize shop talk, and teach the nitty-gritty. Nothing fancy or conceptual, just stuff like: how to begin a story, and how to introduce a character. What makes a sufficient ending. What's the best way to think about plot? Then we'll dig deeper, and take up such questions as, “What is the relationship of plot to sub-plot? How does one hold the reader's attention?” Of course, in Art, rules must be flexible — but I ask my students to think of writing in strategic terms; each story-telling decision needs to make tactical sense. With that in mind, we'll examine — with fantastic esprit de corps and enviable style — the tenets of the Art of Narrative.