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
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, craft discussions 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.
Character Studies
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.
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.
Plate Tectonics: Building Richer Poems through Shifts and Layers
Sometimes a poem you’ve been working on just isn’t getting where you want it to go. You might need a seismic shift, or you might simply need to plant a new seed in what you thought was hardened ground. A poem can often be made deeper and more resonant with time and a few techniques.
This workshop will help you integrate and overlap approaches that will help the poem evolve. Come prepared to work (or really play!) with new ideas and directions. Open to writers at all levels.
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.
The Surprising Form of Memory: Writing Pantoums
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. We may also look at other structures that can widen a poet’s perspective.