This 5-week class will dive deep into revising short stories and empower you with personalized strategies. You’ll explore how to identify and shape your characters’ dramatic journeys, how to fine-tune plot structures, and how to achieve endings that resonate with your readers
“By writing memoir and personal essays, we give form to our histories and make something of meaning and beauty that is uniquely ours,” says instructor Katharine Harer. "I love this genre because you can be yourself, complete with your idiosyncrasies, strong opinions, flashes of wisdom and crazy moments
“Great nonfiction isn’t just about conveying facts—it’s about making readers feel,” says instructor Ray Hsu. In this 5-week class, you’ll uncover and amplify the emotional heart of your stories, learning how to shape personal narratives that resonate for readers
In this 5-week class, we'll learn how to build engaging fictional worlds, whether we’re aiming for the fantasy of JRR Tolkien or the “reality” of Jhumpa Lahiri
“In my years as a writer and teacher but especially as director of The Writing Salon, I’ve wondered how other writers build and sustain their writing practice," says Ben Jackson. "While there’s no one magic formula that works for everyone, I’ve found there are particular components that lead to ongoing passion, productivity, and purpose
“Instead of boxing you in, prose poetry opens doors you didn’t even know existed,” says instructor John Sibley Williams. “Not flash fiction, not pure poetry, and definitely not your typical memoir or short story—the prose poem breaks all the rules with flair and freedom
What does it take to write a novel? Maybe you have an idea but don’t know what to write, or maybe you’ve written dozens of pages but suddenly feel stuck. What do you need in order to keep showing up to the page
For 25 years, The Writing Salon has used the power of writing prompts to coax out writers’ work in its raw form—work that would later become novels, personal essays, poems. Write Now! will showcase a Writing Salon teacher’s favorite paths to the source of inspiration
“Every story takes place somewhere,” says instructor Katharine Harer. “Images in poetry and stories often root us in distinct places. When we write about a place, and weave together our memories and observations, we create meaning beyond a road sign or a pin on a google map
In this 3-week class, we'll look at poems by risk-taking poets like Diane Seuss, Danez Smith, and Chen Chen, among others. We’ll use these poems as jumping-off points for our work, doing prompt-driven writing inspired by what we find there