FALL 2019 – MIXED GENRES
ONLINE CLASSES
Inspiration & Accountability with Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
Online
Six Sundays
10:00 am to 12:00 pm (Pacific)
October 13 to November 17, 2021
With the constant distractions of everyday life, it can be difficult to devote time to your writing practice, whether it's generating pages or sending work out for publication. This six-week online class will provide inspiration and accountability to help you make the time. At each meeting, we will set personalized writing goals, share new (or revised) pages for feedback (up to 500 words), and track submission stats. You can start a novel, polish a contest submission, or explore a new idea with the group every week. This class is open to all genres and levels and it is meant to serve as a tool for reaching daily, weekly, and long-term writing goals.
The class will meet online in real time using the Zoom platform. We will contact you with details closer to the date of the class.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$315 for new students; $285 for returning students
Polish Your Prose with Chris Daley & Sacha Howells
Online
Two Saturdays
11:00 am to 1:00 pm (Pacific)
December 7 and 14, 2019
We’ve been getting many requests for a class on the true basics of creative writing—grammar, diction, and sentence-level editing. However, while these elements might be basic, they’re also the foundation of writing that delivers clarity, precision, and a compelling prose style. As co-founders of WordCraft, a writing consultant collective in Los Angeles started in 2013, Chris Daley and Sacha Howells will bring their technical skills and editing knowledge to this two-day online seminar. Participants will get a chance to brush up on those grammar lessons they missed or forgot and walk away with some tips and tricks for polished writing. Have some fun learning how to strengthen your editing abilities and improve the quality of your sentences.
This class is open to students of all levels and will meet online in real time using the Zoom platform. We will contact you with details closer to the date of the class.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$160 for new students; $140 for returning students
LOS ANGELES SEMINARS
Beyond the Book: Finding a Literary Agent with Chris L. Terry
FIRST SECTION (November 2) – SOLD OUT!
SECOND SECTION (December 15) – 3 SPOTS LEFT!
Los Feliz
One Sunday
10:00 am to 2:00 pm
December 15, 2021
You've put in the work and completed your fiction manuscript or a nonfiction book proposal. So now it's time to find an agent who can represent you during the publication process. The right literary agent will take your writing career to the next level by helping you hone your manuscript and get a book deal. But how do you find and pitch an agent who is right for you? In this one-day seminar, we will review best practices for the entire process: from researching agents and writing query letters to what to expect from an agent and the questions to ask at every step along the way. This seminar is open to fiction and nonfiction writers at any point in their writing journey who are curious about next steps once they're ready. The class will be held in Los Feliz where coffee, tea, sparkling water, and light snacks will be served.
Our Beyond the Book classes acknowledge the reality that there is more to being a writer than simply writing. Beyond the Book seminars and workshops focus on the pursuits beyond the page: how to give public readings, how to apply to residencies, how to write a book proposal, and much more.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$130 for new students; $120 for returning students
The Extraordinary Ordinary: Writing the Hybrid Prose-Poem
with Mike Sonksen
Boyle Heights
One Saturday
10:00 am to 2:00 pm
November 16, 2021
In an age of melting genres, prose and poetry often overlap. In this one-day seminar, come learn how to write a prose-poem combining both writing styles on the spot with an experienced poetry and creative nonfiction instructor, using your memories, family history, the landscape all around you, and your imagination. Beginning from mindfulness, you will explicate and synthesize threads of ideas close to your heart into a hybrid prose-poem and then you will have the opportunity to perform it in an open mic at the end of the seminar.
This class will take place at the Rissho Kosei-Kai Dharma Center in Boyle Heights, where coffee, tea, sparkling water, and light snacks will be served.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$130 for new students; $120 for returning students
LOS ANGELES WORKSHOPS
Translating Experience into Art—A Generative Multi-Genre Workshop with Kim Young
SOLD OUT
Center for the Arts Eagle Rock
Eight Wednesdays
7:30 to 9:30 pm
October 16 to December 11, 2021
(with no class on November 27)
Have you been wanting to write poetry about your own experiences, fictionalize past events in your life, or craft personal essays? This eight-week workshop will explore how writers can turn lived experience into art through an attentiveness to language, form, and surprise. Each class will begin with generative poetry, nonfiction, and flash fiction exercises. Students will read widely, studying writers such as Ocean Vuong, Rick Moody, Michelle Tea, Kiese Laymon, Robert Hass, Ángel Garcia, Carmen Giménez Smith, and others. Discussions will focus on theoretical aspects of language, memory, and truth as well as practical approaches to attending to and recovering a sense of wonder and complexity when writing about lived experience.
This class is open to students at all levels and will take place at the Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, where wine, sparkling water, and the occasional gourmet snack will be served.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$420 for new students; $380 for returning students.
(Payment plans available to returning students.)
Intensive Manuscript Revision Workshop with Kate Maruyama
Glendale
Tuesdays
7:00 to 9:00 pm
First meeting: October 29, 2021
Congratulations, you have completed the first draft of your novel or memoir . . . but now what? This advanced course is designed for the experienced writer who has recently finished (or almost finished) a first draft and now needs readers and revision. We will read one entire manuscript up to 90,000 words—start to finish, once a month—and then we’ll meet to discuss only that book. Each student will be expected to hand in a written critique of the manuscript and discussions will involve structure, character development, narrative voice, and all the elements that make a successful book-length narrative. The class will start with an organizational meeting on October 29, 2021 and repeat for as many months as there are students in the workshop on dates decided by the group.
This workshop is open to experienced writers only via application. Please contact us to receive application instructions.
The workshop will be held in Glendale, where wine, sparkling water, and the occasional gourmet snack will be served.
Enrollment limit: 8 students
$640 for new students; $580 for returning students.
(Payment plans available to returning students.)