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.”

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