Guided Version

In this four-week online workshop, you will generate short passages of creative nonfiction inspired by your life as we work on accessing creative flow and reconnecting with the wonder and joy of a life lived as creative witness. These vignettes could gel into their own flash memoir pieces, or they could become the basis for a longer work personal essay. Alternately, you could see them as writing practice, as a way to loosen up and access your creativity.

Overall, you can see this as a generative course in which you produce material you can continue to revise in the future. Creative production works in a cycle of play (learning to be expansive) and revision (learning restraint). In this course, we will spend much of our time working in the expansive mode—being playful and open to see what comes of that. You will then work with the material—both during this class and afterward—to craft it into revised essays.

What you will get:

• Weekly written mini-lectures supplemented by occasional videos from me

• Weekly writing exercises and readings

• Feedback from Joanna and peers on your weekly exercises.

• The option to turn in two assignments (an expanded vignette and an essay based on a flash piece or a portfolio of flash pieces).

• Private feedback from Joanna on your assignments, focusing on voice, organization, pacing, and your use of concrete detail to ground the scene.

The class will run on the platform Wet Ink in an asynchronous manner, meaning that you don't have to be available to meet at any specific times. Instead, you can access the materials on the online platform and work with them at your own pace. 

The cost is $250. Class will be capped at 15 participants.

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Self-Guided Version

I also offer a self-guided version of this class that includes the materials outlined in the guided version, aside from the feedback from me.

You will take the class with a group of peers during a five-week period, receiving feedback and support from your peers and a supportive structure in which to work on connecting to your creative center. The class meets asynchronously, meaning you can log in according to your own schedule during the five-week period.

The cost is $50.