Class Description
This class is designed to give intermediate writers who are already familiar with workshops the intensive review they need to make their stories deeper and sharper. This course offers a model for workshopping your manuscripts in which you will receive written comments from the students and the instructor before your story is discussed in class. Instead of remaining silent, you will be an active participant in the conversation about your story, with a focus on concrete revision options. Classmates will be encouraged to incorporate content-based criticism (e.g. “how does this character challenge or reinforce stereotypes? what are the socio-cultural implications in this piece?”) with craft-based criticism (e.g. “how does the author show this character’s change over time?). This structure aims to give the writer a stronger voice in their own critique, for readers to thoughtfully examine and learn from their initial feedback during the workshop, and for everyone to leave class with a clearer revision strategy for their work. The creation of self-contained narratives can be a useful challenge for novelists; workshopping novel chapters is discouraged. Authors studied may include, but are not limited to: Leonora Carrington, Edwidge Danticat, Sandra Cisneros, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Akwaeke Emezi, and Amina Cain.
This class will be hosted using live Zoom meetings! You will be able to participate in class via Zoom videoconference from wherever you’re most comfortable. All you’ll need is a laptop or a phone! About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting via Zoom–no need to download anything or sign up for Zoom in advance! If you have questions about remote learning, please feel free to reach out to [email protected] for more information.
For a glimpse at how remote learning works, look no further than the deep Zoom discussion of writing and literature below:
Scholarship Information
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 more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, 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.