Class Description
Religion ranks right up there with sex and money as a taboo topic at cocktail parties, but faith—finding it, losing it, fighting wars over it, or having nothing to do with it—provides rich fodder for writers. In this three-hour seminar, we’ll analyze essays of varying length about religion by authors such as Dani Shapiro, Bret Lott, and others, and pose questions for discussion. What does it take to craft a successful essay about religion? How do you avoid sounding preachy? Where can you pitch your articles and essays on religion? Which topics resonate with literary journals, magazines, and even national parenting blogs that pay? The seminar, open to writers of all levels, will include a writing exercise with religion as the focus and brainstorming of ideas.
Part of GrubStreet's Special Topics in Nonfiction, a group of classes dedicated to exploring different craft elements of creative nonfiction. For more class offerings, click here.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.