Workshops
“The experience of listening, sharing and writing were all nested in safety. The contributions of others were rich and personal. Lauren affirmed everyone’s efforts to come to writing in a way that would work for them.”
— a recent student
Writing Mentorship
Do you crave one-on-one assistance to begin or complete a creative writing project? Are you better served with personal guidance rather than a group setting?
Lauren can work directly with you to shape an idea that you just haven’t been able to move along. Email her for more info.
Workshops
From Wild Mind to Experience: Writing in All Directions
This workshop offers inspiration in all genres — fiction, memoir, poetry. We’ll read, discuss and write, using unconventional prompts and exercises. We’ll build listening skills, word banks and approaches, always searching to understand and capture emotion, and finding alternatives to traditional ways of phrasing.
Wednesdays • 2 to 4pm MT • December 2 to 30
Online class offered through Zoom • Five sessions • $195
Class full! • Contact Lauren to get on the waiting list.
Fresh Eyes: Making Your Writing Stronger
Revising is alchemy. If you know a piece isn’t quite working, or isn’t where you want it to be, it’s entirely worthwhile to come at it anew. There are lots of good techniques and approaches to strengthen any piece, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to try.
In this workshop, we’ll begin to make your poems, stories and essays exactly right for the ear and eye, working line by line and word by word. We’ll also discuss how to clarify images, tone and direction.
Line, Break + Ritual: How to Make Poetry
Poetry is good at distilling image and sound to bring compassionate awareness to subjects that scare or confuse us. But what is poetry, really? Can you understand it? Can you learn to write it?
For these three sessions, we’ll talk about and practice several different approaches to writing a poem. There’s both play and work in finding those wild word rhythms, building images and perspective, and learning to economize what you write to its most potent. All of this will give you a better understanding of some of the tools a poet uses.
Character Studies
Now that the world we know has tightened in, how many ways can you widen your focus? How can you find new stories and perspectives to tell? In this online workshop, we’ll explore the idea of character through a number of lenses you won’t expect—sometimes celebrating ordinary concerns, sometimes finding incredible wisdom outside of ourselves. Each week we’ll look at texts—poems and prose—that will get you thinking about craft in new ways. You will draft at least four new pieces during these sessions.
Explore and Shelter: Writing About Place
Almost everyone has a previous place they’ve lived. Some have been many places, leaving footsteps and fingerprints all around. Let’s return to some of those vistas and doorways and rooms, passing through again to find their important moments in your history. Expect to be surprised by how far your memory stretches.
How to Make Luck: Writing in Praise of the Ordinary
With so many things to worry over, we need to keep finding joy and celebrating gratitude. This feel–good workshop will help you write in praise of small beauties, large events or anything in between. Learn how to move beyond the obvious like and love into the deeper and more magnificent why. We will map at least one wonderfully ordinary element of our lives, lifting the subject up and enriching it with the finest elements of craft and wild attention.
The Surprising Form of Memory: Writing a Pantoum
The ancient pantoum is the ideal form for writing about the past. With a little direction, even uncertain writers are eased into shaping their crystalline memories, and more experienced writers will have the chance to delve into subjects that might not have opened up for them before. Excitement builds quickly as students follow the form through to its ending.