Upcoming Classes & Workshops

"Creative Nonfiction in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico"
One-week intensive workshop
Casa Chepitos
San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico
June 22 to 27, 2008
10:00 am to 2:00 pm each day
Delve into the fine craft of creative nonfiction in the town of San Miguel de Allende. Our base will be Casa Chepitos, a charming home on a hillside overlooking the spires of Mexico’s most famous colonial town. In this one-week intensive writing seminar, we’ll explore the essential elements of nonfiction prose. Daily four-hour sessions will be devoted to short lectures, writing exercises, group discussions, and manuscript review. We’ll focus on a different element of craft each day: character development, the first-person narrator, story arc, theme, and voice. With a maximum of ten participants, each writer’s work will receive ample attention. Partial scholarships may be available.
See here for more information and to apply.

"Escritura de no-ficción"
Casa de Escritores / House of Writers
Online
Verano (julio-agosto) de 2008
En este curso de dos meses, aprenderemos los elementos básicos del "periodismo narrativo” -- la escritura de no-ficción creativa – en la tradición de Galeano, García Márquez, y Poniatowska. La curriculum está basada en la antología Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University (Contando Cuentos Verdaderos: Guía para Escritores de No-Ficción, casa editorial Plume/Penguin, Nueva York, 2007).
Inscribáse aquí.

"Self Promotion for the Chronically Humble Writer"
Four-session class
Richard Hugo House
Capitol Hill, Seattle
Monday, July 7 through Thursday, July 10, 2008
4:00 to 6:00 pm each day
So, you’ve had your work published in a handful of magazines and done a reading or two. How can you take your writing career to the next level? This one-week marketing blitz is the boost your literary life needs. We’ll start on Monday with time management and goal-setting. On Tuesday we’ll  tackle queries to publishers and book proposals. Wednesday, we grapple with grant-writing. We’ll finish up on Thursday by writing our way to a writers’ conference or residency. (The dizzying pace will keep us from remembering we’re actually shy, introverted writers!) Each class session includes hands-on practice, examples, and resource lists.
Registration begins May 2008 here.

"Writing Beyond Borders"
A short workshop
Port Townsend Writers' Conference
Centrum at Fort Worden State Park
Port Townsend, Washington
Monday July 14, or Tuesday, July 15, 2008
2:00 to 3:30 pm
One of the best things about books is that they open up whole worlds, even if readers never leave their living rooms or local libraries. But with new worlds come new borders. Author, performance artist, and cross-border philosopher Guillermo Gómez-Peña says, “for me the border is no longer located at any fixed geopolitical site. I carry the border with me, and I find new borders wherever I go.” In this workshop, we’ll write and talk about the joys and complications of literary border crossings – both those on maps and those in our hearts. Through both writing and discussion, we’ll explore how words and ideas change meaning as they cross borders, and consider the artistic, political, and ethical implications of those crossings.
Part of the afternoon workshop program of the Port Townsend Writers' Conference. Learn more about the conference and register here.

"Telling True Stories: A Seminar on Narrative"
co-sponsored by the Press Club of Cleveland
and The Plain Dealer
The Plain Dealer offices
Cleveland, Ohio
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
9:00 am to 2:00 pm
In this participatory, four-hour workshop (with a lunch break) for Cleveland area journalists, the focus will be on advanced techniques in writing narrative journalism.
For more information and to register, contact the Press Club of Cleveland.