Five Mondays, Jan. 21-Feb. 18, 7-9:30 pm
$215 members/$245 others Berkeley
Special “Combo” Option: Take this class together together with Erich Origen’s GRAPHIC NOVEL class and get two five-week classes for the price of a nine-week class. Discount available ONLY if you sign up for the combo, not if you sign up for the two five-week classes separately!
Up and at ’em! It’s time. For you. To get going. Now. You’ve read about writing. You’ve thought about writing. You’ve talked about it, dreamed about it, bladdity bladdity blah. But when are you going to bite the bullet and just do it? Not merely once in a blue moon, but regularly, with — you know — some modicum of discipline and determination. How about now? Or if not right this minute, how about Sunday night, Oct. 7th, from 7 to 9:30 pm? Sure, it’s not easy to commit. But do it anyway. What the hell. You only live once. (And if you get more writing practice, maybe you’ll do better at avoiding clichés such a “bite the bullet,” “once in a blue moon,” “what the hell” and “you only live once.”)
Here’s how this will work: Every Monday night for five weeks, you’ll show up at the classroom, ready to write . . . or not ready to write (the point being to show up whether you’re ready or not). You will be met at the door by a different Writing Salon teacher each week. We’ve lined up five stellar Writing Salon teachers, each of whom will do their utmost to inspire and spur you on by providing a plethora of writing prompts or exercises for you to plunge into. You won’t be writing every minute you’re there, of course. You’ll take breaks, talk about stuff that comes up, and sometimes share portions of what you’ve written.
This won’t be a typical instructional “class,” per se. You will be in it mainly to get yourselves writing and generating new material. But it will be instructional in the sense that you are bound to make discoveries as you write — about craft (how much better it is to write specific dialog, for example, instead of paraphrasing), and also about things like “oh, wow, THIS is what I’ve been wanting to write about — the daughter I gave up for adoption — although I didn’t even know I wanted to write about it until I finished this exercise!”
The other great thing about this Write-a-Thon is that it’ll give you the chance to meet so many of our teachers in a relatively short amount of time. Speaking of the teachers, here’s who they’ll be, in order of appearance: Jan. 21: Alison Luterman, Jan. 28: Jess Wells, Feb. 4: Nick Mamatas, Feb. 11: Cary Groner, Feb. 18: Lisa Alpine. You can read all their bios at the end of their other class descriptions.