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This page contains info. about membership and gift certificates, followed by course descriptions for every class. Note that in order to see the entire course description (including the teacher’s bio and student testimonials), you must click on the link that says: “Read the rest of this entry.”
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Cost: $50.00
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Saturday, April 17th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. San Francisco $95 members/$110 non-members
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In just about any writing class, you will hear these words: “Show don’t tell!” But how do you do that? “Ground your readers in their senses,” says Jane Underwood. “Run from abstractions straight into the arms of all that is concrete — peaches, hurricanes, airplane roars, empty drawers, itching wounds. During this day of sensory exploration, we’ll explore ways to come up with juicy images and details — descriptions that dance and breathe, scenes that taste and smell, characters that sing and shout, stories that are soft as the nape of a baby’s neck…or as hard as the hood of a truck about to crash. Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday, April 17th, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Berkeley $95 members/$110 non-members
Had a difficult time making time to write even though you know you want to? Perhaps you feel uninspired or don’t quite know what it is you want to write about. Or maybe you need a boost to your creativity that will help your words flow.
“We live such busy lives,” says instructor Elaine Beale. “Demands come at us from all directions. It can be very challenging to make the time to write. Besides, writing creatively requires a level of inner stillness and disconnection from the busyness that surrounds us. Sometimes we simply need to take a day to reconnect with our creative selves. Read the rest of this entry »
9 Sundays, April 18th thru June 20th (skip May 30th), 7-9:30 p.m. $335 members/$365 non-members San Francisco
“I hadn’t discovered yet what I would later find was an iron law of composition for me: the exasperatingly slow search among the words I had already written for the words which were to come, and the necessity for continuous revision…” —William Gass
Aspiring writers usually wend their ways to this workshop because “life isn’t slowing down,” isn’t offering them the space or the time to work on their fiction. They want to write, or they tinker with two-pages and never get around to completing the piece, or they have ideas rollicking through their brains that haven’t, as of yet, made it to the page. But they all come to class with one common goal: they want to write a compelling story.
Read the rest of this entry »
Five Sundays, April 18th-May 16th, 2-4:30 p.m. Berkeley $185 members/$215 non-members
Special Package Deal: Take this Berkeley class together with the Berkeley “Starting Your Novel” class (5 weeks plus 5 weeks, back to back) for the price of one 9-week class. This discount applies only if you choose the Intro to Fiction/Starting Your Novel ‘Combo‘ when you register. If you take Intro to Fiction first, then decide to take novel writing when it is over, the discount does not apply.
We writers too often need others to tell us that our writing is good,” says instructor Junse Kim. “And this is where it all goes horribly wrong. We become impatient for praise, obsessed with completing a story before learning the basic skills we need to write it. It’s the equivalent of, say, an aspiring carpenter who has committed to building a beautiful house, yet doesn’t know how to hammer in a nail or saw a piece of wood.”
Six Sundays, 2:30-5 p.m: April 18, May 16, June 6, July 11, Aug. 8, Sept. 12 $335 members/$365 others San Francisco
Prerequisite: At least one prior 5-week or longer Writing Salon memoir or personal essay class (or the equivalent)
Have you embarked on the writing of memoir and find you need some guidance and encouragement? Are you wondering about ways to craft a memoir that is indeed shapely, intense, fascinating…and publishable? “The artful memoir isn’t easy to knock off,” says Kathleen McClung. “We need skill and nuance in narrating and musing on past events and feelings to make a cohesive whole. Memoirs that matter, that truly move readers, call for soul-searching and for mastery of essential literary elements—an engaging voice, vivid scenes and characters, a careful blend of action and reflection, a unifying thread/theme.”
Nine Sundays, April 18-June 21 (skip May 31), 7-9:30 pm $335 members/$365 non-members Berkeley
“At some point, every produced screenwriter, whether working in Hollywood or in the Independents, wrote a “calling card” script – the one that got them noticed and out of the slush pile on to the production list,” says Terrel Seltzer. “In this class I’ll give practical, de-mystifying advice from a veteran screenwriter’s experience, focusing on three crucial elements to help aspiring writers get a foot in the door: 1) Concepts that sell: the need for a “strange attractor,” which is often called “the high concept idea,” 2) Characters that actors will vie to play: “structuring both the outer journey (physical plot) and the inner journey (emotional arc) of your protagonist hero, and 3) Conflict: how to get it, because a screenplay has to have it (and most beginner’s scripts don’t).
Two Sundays, April 18 & June 13, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m (plus daily online) $195 members/$225 non-members San Francisco
“The imagination,” said novelist Dean Koontz, ‘is like a muscle: The more you use it, the better it performs and the quicker you get ideas of higher caliber.’ The Round Robin is based on the same premise,” says instructor Jane Underwood. “The more you use your writing muscles, the more you will tone and strengthen them. The primary focus is PRACTICE. Every day you will practice your writing, in the same way that a piano student practices the piano or a swimmer swims laps.”
This class is structured around a carefully facilitated exchange of daily emailed writings (based on prompts provided by Jane) among all class members, plus two in-class meetings.
5 Mondays, April 19th-May 17th, 7-9:30 p.m. San Francisco $185 members/$215 non-members
Special Package Deal: Take this SF class together with the SF “Starting Your Novel” class, and receive both classes (5 weeks plus 5 weeks, back to back) for the price of one 9-week class. Note: This discount applies only if you choose the “Intro to Fiction/Starting Your Novel ‘Combo’ option” when you register. If you take Intro to Fiction and then decide to take Starting Your Novel, the discount doesn’t apply.
9 Tuesdays, April 20-June 15, 7-9:30 p.m. San Francisco $335 members/$365 non-members
Whether you’re new to writing — or a more experienced writer who’s hankering for a refresher course — this class will get you moving upward and onward. “Writing is like rock climbing,” says Todd Chapman, “except that we’re scaling blank pages instead of rock faces, exploring the temperature and texture of language as we feel our way along. We challenge and surprise ourselves and, at least for a while, find that we are moving differently through the world.”
5 Thursdays, April 22-May 20, 7-9:30 p.m. $185 members/$215 non-members Berkeley NOTE: See “Special Package Deal” at bottom
You’ve already taken an “intro to fiction” class (either here or elsewhere), so you’re familiar with the basics of craft — plot, characters, details and specifics. You know your need a beginning, middle, and end. But how do you put this knowledge into practice? And what more does your story need? What special something ? “Each story is unique, with its own idiosycratic needs,” says Jamey Genna. “Once you’ve made to through story outline or first draft, you’ve got to start digging deeper and ask yourself, Have I truly tapped into the heart of my story?”
Saturday, April 24th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. San Francisco $95 members/$110 non-members
Waiting to be struck by an inspirational bolt of lightning can be seductive, but it gets lonely out there under the tree. “Too much waiting can dampen the spirit,” says instructor Julie Bruck. “There are other ways to get in touch with your creative muse, ways that we’ll explore in today’s workshop.” Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday, April 24th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Berkeley $95 members/$110 non-members
Note: We also offer a 9-week version of this class, which many people take on a regular basis. It’s an excellent class for beginners or anyone else who wants to keep generating new material while exploring their voice as a writer.
We all have unique “writing voices,” but often we can’t really “hear” those voices ourselves, even when others can. This half-day workshop will aim to help you hear the sound of your authentic writing voice, because once you feel secure with the individuality of your voice, you’ll grow immeasurably as a writer.
5 Sundays, April 25-May 23, 10:30 to 1, San Francisco $185 members/$215 others
Memoir is not reserved only for the rich and famous. In fact, beautiful and haunting memoirs—books and essays—grow out of our ordinary lives, carefully observed. Both the distant past and the not-so-long ago can be mined, remembered and re-created skillfully in writing. This class is a guide to the mining and refining process. “The gold of memoir,” says instructor Kathleen McClung, “combines the gifts of a novelist—vivid characters and settings, lively and suspenseful narration—with a poet’s introspection and close attention to language.
9 Tuesdays, April 27-June 29 (9 weeks, skip May 25), 7-9:30 p.m. Berkeley $335 members/$365 non-members
This class will help you plunge into the personal themes that make your real life stories uniquely yours. For the first four weeks, instructor Alison Luterman will lead carefully crafted writing exercises designed to elicit the undertones and overtones that give events resonance and elevate anecdotes into the realm of art. The latter weeks will be dedicated to refining and then workshopping the pieces you have begun, bringing them to the next level of craft.
9 Wednesdays, April 28th to June 23rd, 7-9:30 p.m. Berkeley $335 members/$365 others
We all have unique “writing voices,” but often we can’t really “hear” those voices ourselves, even when others can. This workshop will aim to help you hear the sound of your authentic writing voice, because once you feel secure with the individuality of your voice, you’ll grow immeasurably as a writer. “What I want you to explore,” says Chris DeLorenzo, “is a sense of the ways in which your voice comes across as one-of-a-kind. Only then can you learn to let go of self-conscious writing—writing that sounds the way you think it’s supposed to sound.”
9 Thursdays, April 29-June 24, 7-9:30 p.m. San Francisco $335 members/$365 non-members
This workshop is intended for people who want to jump start their poetry practice and to keep the engine oiled. You’ll do plenty of writing and reading, and have lively discussions about both the craft and the process of poetry. The weekly homework assignments (workshopped the following week) are designed to provide fresh angles of approach that can suprise, even startle, both the writer and his/her readers. “We all get stuck in ruts,” Julie says, “and the class offers ways of digging ourselves out, whether we use these strategies to simply get started at writing or to revise a particularly challenging poem.”
Saturday, May 1st, 10 am – 4 pm San Francisco $95 members/$110 non-members
“I’ve done stories on everything from home computers to a profile of the Emmy Award-winning sound engineer who worked on Basic Instinct,” says Cary Pepper. “But my favorite was the one I did about a new reading program for kindergartners; the kids pulled me right into the class, and I learned more that one day than I ever learned in kindergarten. That’s one of the things I love most about magazine writing — it’s a constant learning process. It gives you a license to probe into the world. It’s also the most accessible way to break into professional writing. Even when you have no publishing credits, if you come up with the right idea, and pitch it to the right editor at the right time, you can get the assignment.” This down-to-basics introduction to the world of magazine writing will cover: Read the rest of this entry »
Saturday, May 1st, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Berkeley $95 members/$110 others
“When you truly believe a story or poem is finished—the best it can be–it’s time to introduce it to the world,” says writer and editor Jenny Pritchett. In this info-packed class, Jenny will tell you what you need to know about submitting your work to literary journals and contests, and applying for residency programs.
Saturday, May 8th, 10 a.m. to -4 p.m. San Francisco $185 members/$215 others
Great literature is always about the main players. Charismatic protagonists stay with readers long after finishing a text. Yet most aspiring writers wonder: how do our imagined people morph into “real” ones? Why is it that my characters feel so flat, passive, and obvious on the page?
“Holden Caulfield is someone I know,” says instructor Josh Mohr. “His story has life in it because of our bond, our relationship.”
Saturday, May 15th, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. San Francisco $95 members/$110 non-members
Do you love to travel? Keep a travel journal? Why not take the next step and turn your daily scribbles into salable articles? You can do this by learning two things: 1) how to improve your storytelling abilities, and 2) how to market your work.
“I’ll lead you through the steps of writing a travel story and then targeting and querying your markets (short story anthologies, newspapers, magazines and ezines),” says instructor Lisa Alpine.
Five Mondays, May 17-June 21 (5 weeks, skip Memorial Day), 7-9:30 p.m Berkeley $185 members/$215 non-members
Have you started working on a nonfiction book or memoir (or already completed one?). Have you written your book proposal yet? If not, you’re going to need one. Typically, a proposal is written before the book, but if you’ve already written the book, you’ll still need one. The proposal is the document you send to literary agents and/or editors. It’s essentially a sales pitch, making a case for why the book needs to be written, why now, and why you’re the best person for the job.
Five Saturdays, May 22-June 26 (skip May 29th), 2-4:30 pm; San Francisco $185 members/$215 others
How many times have we heard the aged expression, “We’ll see what she says about that!” There’s anticipation in hearing someone express themselves, and the same is true of fiction and creative nonfiction writing: our characters need to speak, voice their opinions, woes, aspirations, biases, phobias, regrets. “We can write lovely exposition,” says instructor Joshua Mohr, “but readers need to hear what our characters sound like, what their preoccupations are. That way they can sculpt their own conclusions about them.” Read the rest of this entry »
Five Saturdays, May 22-June 19, 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. $185 members/$215 non-members; San Francisco
“I’ve done stories on everything from home computers — back when only three companies were making them — to a portrait of the Sherman House (a landmark hotel that survived the 1906 earthquake) to a profile of the Emmy Award-winning sound engineer who worked on Basic Instinct,” says Cary Pepper. “But my favorite piece is probably the one I did about a new reading program for kindergartners; the kids pulled me right into the class and I learned more that one day than I ever learned in kindergarten. That’s one of the things I love most about magazine writing — it’s a constant learning process. It gives you a license to probe into how the world — and the people in it — work. It’s also the most accessible way to break into professional writing. Even when you have no publishing credits, if you come up with the right idea, and pitch it to the right editor at the right time, you can get the assignment.”
5 Saturdays, May 22-June 26 (skip May 29th), 2-4:30 p.m. $185 members/$215 non-members Berkeley
“Suspense writers, present and future: Remember you are in good company. Dostoyevsky, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe…there are hacks in every kind of literary field…Aim at being a genius.” —Patricia Highsmith
In this workshop, you’ll hone your skills at writing commercial fiction—romance/chicklit, mystery/detective, science fiction/fantasy—that aren’t always given the credit they deserve. “If ghosts and witches, lost loves and conflict were good enough for Homer, Shakespeare, and Dante,” says Nick Mamatas, “they’re good enough for me. A genre is like a toolbox—good writers go beyond formula and use the tools of their trade to build and make real what nobody else could imagine.”
Sundays, May 23-June 27 (5 weeks, skip May 30th), 2-4:30 p.m. Berkeley $185 members/$215 non-members
Special “Package” Deal: Take this Berkeley class together with the Berkeley “Intro to Fiction” class (5 weeks plus 5 weeks, back to back) for the price of one 9-week class. Please Note: This special applies only if you choose the “Intro to Fiction/Starting Your Novel ‘Combo’ option” when you register.
You want to write a novel, or you are writing a novel, but maybe you shy away from talking about it with your co-workers, neighbors or brother-in-law (you know the way he rolls his eyes and calls you a dreamer). So come to this workshop instead, where you’ll meet other people who are doing what you’re doing, or want to do. “We’ll talk about your idea, how to make sure it has enough weight to carry a novel,” say Karen Bjorneby. “We’ll talk about your character and make sure she’s so compelling we all can’t wait to find out what she’ll do next. . . Read the rest of this entry »
Five Mondays, May 24 to June 28 (5 weeks, skip May 31st), 7-9:30 p.m. $185 members/$215 non-members San Francisco
Special “Package” Deal: Take this class together with the San Francisco “Intro to Fiction” class, and receive both classes (5 weeks plus 5 weeks, back to back) for the price of one 9-week class. Note: This discount applies only if you choose the “Intro to Fiction/Starting Your Novel ‘Combo option” when you register.
You want to write a novel, or you are writing a novel, so come to this workshop where you’ll meet other people who are doing what you’re doing, or want to do. “We’ll talk about your idea – how to make sure it has enough weight to carry a novel,” say Karen Bjorneby. “We’ll talk about your character and make sure she’s so compelling we all can’t wait to find out what she’ll do next. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Thursdays, May 27th-June 24th, 7-9:30 p.m. Berkeley $185 members/$215 non-members
NOTE: See “Special Package Deal” at bottom
Have you already taken our “Starting Your Novel” class with Karen Bjorneby (or the equivalent, somewhere else?) and now want to take the next step? Do you have a manuscript sitting untended on your computer or abandoned in a drawer? Perhaps you have a few chapters written but haven’t figured out where the plot needs to go. Maybe you have a completed draft but want to polish it to a fine shine. If you say yes to any of these questions, this class is for you. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Saturdays, May 29th-June 26, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Berkeley $185 members/$215 non-members
“Many beginning students come to a poetry class hoping for quick critiques and suggestions for revision. There are times when it’s right to want this, but not until you’re nearing the final draft,” says Alison Luterman. ” The first ten, twenty or hundred times writing and revising the poem are a discovery process. What more is there underneath the poem? What leaps can you make? What gems can you uncover?