Announcing our March 2024 classes! Join Mayukh Sen in a nonfiction workshop and Logan Hoffman-Smith in a multi-genre craft class.
We’re excited to launch these new classes. More info is below, and you can browse the lineup of present and past classes here.
Writing Your Life Through Movies with Mayukh Sen
Workshop:
Saturdays, 2:00 PM–4:30 PM ET
March 16th–April 6th
Open to all writers of color
"Stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us," Richard Dyer once wrote. In this four-week workshop, we’ll interpret Dyer’s axiom through the lens of memoir, learning how to write about actors on film and what they mean to us. The parasocial bonds we, as viewers, sometimes forge with performers on screen can be uniquely clarifying: They allow us to see our hopes, fears, and desires reflected back at us in ways that other forms of art just can’t capture. It follows, then, that these relationships make for fertile terrain for memoir writing. What can the work of the stars we watch on screen teach us about ourselves?
The generative exercises in this workshop will involve learning how to write about scenes on film while focusing on a performer’s gestures, mien, and affect; how to map a performer’s work on film onto the narratives of our own lives; and how to make yourself a character worth the reader’s emotional investment. We will also discuss pragmatic matters, such as best practices for pitching and submitting essays for publication. Students will walk away from this four-week workshop with an essay that meets all the above criteria, using a performer’s life and work as a window into telling your reader who you are in the world.
Braided Narratives with Logan Hoffman-Smith
Craft Class:
Saturday, 2:00–4:30 PM ET
March 23rd
Open to all writers of color
As writers, time and memory are mediums through which we transcribe the experience of consciousness. How is our tactile experience of the present texturized by our past? And how do we weave these often disparate threads into something tangible? In this class, we will work to define and create braided narratives. We'll draw upon examples by writers such as Sofia Samatar and Sabrina Imbler as we perform craft analysis and work on in-class writing exercises. We'll leave with a solid understanding of braiding and associative logic, as well as the beginning of a new work in progress!
All classes will take place on Zoom and the class times listed are in Eastern Time. There are scholarships available and deadlines are listed on the individual course pages.
View our full selection of online classes on our Online Classes Page.
See you online!