Creative Writing: Beginning the Journey
Weekday Morning Class!
Instructor: Rachel Weaver
Cost: $180 Members | $200 Non-Members
8 Fridays, September 24 - November 12 | 9:30-noon
If you've wanted to write but needed guidance to get started or keep going, this workshop is for you. You'll learn (or review) the elements and techniques of creative writing. Through brief lectures, discussions, close reading, writing exercises, and workshops of class members' writing, the class will explore the importance of style, plot, setting, character, point of view, and dialogue — the building blocks of compelling fiction and nonfiction.
Rachel Weaver holds an MFA from the University of Montana. Her stories have appeared in Vandalia and have been nominated for AWP’s Intro Journals Project and Best New American Voices. She has taught writing at the University of Montana and Community College of Baltimore County.
Download the Fall 2010 registration form
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Creative Nonfiction
Instructor: Roselyn Elliott
Cost $180 Members | $200 Non-Members
8 Wednesdays September 22 - November 10 | 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Building the narrator into a clear believable character, telling true-life adventure stories, researching nature and travel essays, and using humor and satire to tell stories are among the topics addressed in this workshop. We will read from a textbook of instruction by a series of contemporary writers to explore various types of creative nonfiction. Students will write from prompts in each class, read samples of the genre and receive assignments as a basis for crafting essay drafts for class review. Required text: Writing Creative Nonfiction, edited by Carolyn Forché and Philip Gerard.
Roselyn Elliott’s creative nonfiction has appeared in The Florida Review,
The Cream City Review, Blueline, and Adirondack Life Magazine. A poet, freelance
writer, and author of two poetry chapbooks, Rose has taught writing at PVCC, the
Visual Art Center of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Download the Fall 2010 registration form
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Fiction Workshop: A Dialogue Between Writers
Instructor: Kristen-Paige Madonia
Cost $180 Members | $200 Non-Members
8 Mondays, September 20 - November 8 | 6:30-9:00 p.m.
This workshop will allow writers at all stages of development to explore the craft of writing fiction and to discover new visions for their own work in a supportive and encouraging environment. In the context of discussing student work, we will address narrative techniques including character development, plot, voice, dialogue, setting, point of view, theme, and line-editing in preparation for submissions. Each member of the class will be expected to contribute at least two pieces of fiction to workshop in addition to written critiques of their peers' work.
Kristen-Paige Madonia holds an MFA from California State University, Long Beach. Her work is forthcoming or has been published in New Orleans Review, American Fiction: An Anthology, Sycamore Review, Inkwell, South Dakota Review and Pearl, and she recently was awarded the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival Prize. She has received writing fellowships from Hedgebrook, The Millay Colony of Arts, and The Studios of Key West.
Download the Fall 2010 registration form
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Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Douglas Nordfors
Cost: $180 Members | $200 Non-Members
8 Tuesdays September 21 - November 9 | 6:30-9:00 p.m.
This class will be a “user-friendly” workshop for beginning or experienced poets. Through the examples of their own work, participants will discuss two classic approaches: poems in which style, content, and form (free verse or otherwise) "click into place," and poems that work upon the reader in a more mysterious way. The class will be free to evolve in any way the writers as a group deem important, and weekly poem assignments will be optional.
Douglas Nordfors is the author of the poetry collection Auras (Plain View Press), and has published poems in many journals, including The Iowa Review, Poet Lore, Quarterly West, and Poetry Northwest. He holds an MFA from UVA, and has taught at JMU, UVA, and other places.
Download the Fall 2010 registration form
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NEW Tell That Story
Instructor: Mariflo Stephens
Cost: $180 Members | $200 Non-Members
8 Saturdays, September 25 - November 13 | 9:30am-noon.
We will begin with a session on finding your personal voice. Who are you when you present that story? The early sessions will focus on public speaking fear -- how to surmount it, how to use it. By listening to storytelling tapes and The Moth podcasts, we will discover how long (or not long) a storyteller has to capture audience interest. Then we will see how using certain phrases invite audience participation. You'll graduate by telling a story with Secretly Y'all.
Mariflo Stephens has read from her writing on Oprah and the Oxygen network. Her work is in Contemporary American Women Writers, The Barbie Chronicles, The Washington Post, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. The Virginia Commission for the Arts has awarded her two grants for fiction.
Download the Fall 2010 registration form
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NEW Writing Small: Little Stories with Big Impact--An Introduction to Flash Fiction
Instructor: Marie Potoczny
Cost: $180 Members | $200 Non-Members
8 Wednesdays September 22 - November 10 | 6:30-9:00 p.m.
Can you tell a complete story with character, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution under 1,000 words? 500? 300? Whatever you call it—sudden fiction, flash, the short-short story—this class will introduce you to writing with extreme brevity. We’ll look at examples of successful short-short stories, write and workshop our own. You can expect manageable take-home assignments and lively class discussion in a roundtable setting. All levels of writing are welcome—beginners and experienced alike.
The text for this class is Sudden Fiction International which may be purchased at WriterHouse or from Amazon through the preceding link.
Marie Potoczny holds an MFA in fiction from VCU. Her fiction (much of it flash) has appeared in Sycamore Review, Denver Quarterly, The Pinch, Apalachee Review, and many other fine places of words.
Download the Fall 2010 registration form
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If you register by July 31 and pay by cash or check, you can take an additional 5% early registration discount. The discount is not available when you pay via PayPal. |
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