Current Class List

You want to write, but where do you begin? How do you know which form and style are right for you? In this class you will find a safe place to experiment. You will have the time and opportunity to sample various formats and open up the writer in you.

Through in-depth discussion of Maud Casey's The Art of Mystery: The Search for Questions, reading of sample texts, and completion of weekly writing exercises, we'll learn to create an "inclusive, compelling mystery"—the sort that enthralls readers and leaves them rapt with wonder even after a story ends.

We will discuss the basics of memoir writing--the difference between memoir and autobiography, the pitfalls of writing about people you know and love, audience, shape, theme, research, veracity and truth, and scope. There will be a lot of recommended reading. There will be in-class exercises. There will be homework.

Jump-start your fiction or nonfiction! Learn how modern masters energize their writing. This class teaches ways to create a driving narrative. Discover essentials for developing scenes, narrative arc, powerful imagery, and evocative settings. Learn the secrets of writing secrets.

Immerse yourself in travel writing in all of its adventurous forms: from the lyrical to the journalistic, short essay to book-length memoirs, and blogging to other kinds of digital storytelling. We’ll focus on both literary travel writing, as well as writing commercial and journalistic travel pieces for the print and digital spheres. Along with reading and discussion, you'll have the chance to hone your nonfiction voice as you experiment in writing about travel.

In this six week class, students will learn the nuts and bolts of playwriting. Students will learn about contemporary trends in playwriting through lectures, the reading of exciting new plays by living writers, and workshopping original works by their peers.

Using a series of diagnostic questions, this class will discuss strategies for writers who are midway through their novel or finished with a first draft. We'll address narrative, plot, character, backstory, theme and style, as well as look at some common problems fiction writers face.

If you need to do some careful revising to get your creative nonfiction ready for submission, this class is for you. Whether you’re working on an essay or a book, we’ll give your manuscript an unflinching look. We will work together both on cutting out the extra material our work doesn’t need and fine-tuning our prose.

The grant proposal is a genre unto itself, with rules and expectations that can trip even the best wordsmith. In this class, an experienced proposal writer and grant reviewer will explain the nuts and bolts of a submission, both for individual grants and larger projects.