You can already sign up for my June classes

​ I was planning to break until the fall but, due to demand, I am offering two new classes in June:

 WRITING FICTION: SETTING AND DESCRIPTION 

START DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 2019

DURATION: 4 weeks

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Great story has a memorable sense of place. In this four-week course you will discover why setting and description are the keys to making your story come alive for the reader. Writers will explore how to describe the worlds of their stories in concrete physical detail to create sensory, subjective environments. You will learn why setting must be authentic for the reader and why setting is so important for building author credibility. This course offers the opportunity to produce a short story or novel opening (up to 2,000 words).

Who should take this course:
This course is for anyone with a work in progress, short story, novel, flash piece or memoir.

FLASH FICTION WORKSHOP 

START DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 2019

DURATION: 4 weeks

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Everyone has time to read Flash fiction. That's one of the reasons why it's become such a popular genre. Distilling whole stories into narratives under 1,000 words. Why bother? We read fiction to build empathy, to explore new realities, to escape, to be entertained and since you can't do any of that in such a short time, Flash has little value, right? Wrong. Flash is ideal for our modern short attention spans (though there's nothing really new about it). The 21st century reader has made Flash fiction In-Demand Fiction. It's ideal for our screens: tablets, smartphones, netbooks, laptops. Reading a whole story on a single screen is an aesthetic experience and best of all, it's an increasingly sought after genre offered by small presses. There's even a National Flash Fiction Day on, you guessed it, the shortest day of the year (May 16 in the southern hemisphere). So don't miss out. Join the micro, sudden, short-shorts train that doubles as an ideal way to break into publishing.

In this course, we will use short readings and instructor critiques to teach participants how to craft story ideas into flash fiction. We focus on carving your work down to its essence, while still conveying meaning through the successful interplay between character, conflict, and theme.

Course objectives:

1. To complete at least one publishable flash piece.
2. To sharpen your editing & critiquing skills.
3. To increase your confidence as a writer through understanding the basic components of a flash fiction piece.
4. To add depth to your flash fiction through literary devices.
5. To broaden your knowledge of publication opportunities for flash fiction.