Jumpstart Your Writing
Four weeks: June 30 – July 28
Five weekly group video calls: Sundays 8 – 9:30 pm EST
(Recorded if you miss a session)
Limited to seven participants
$250
This four week online writing workshop will give you exercises, feedback and community to re-invigorate your creative process, whether you’d like to start writing for the first time, begin a new project, continue your work with a fresh eye, or delve back into a project you’ve spent time away from.
Geared for prose writers working autobiographically in fiction or nonfiction, and with an eye towards social change.
Weekly readings and exercises will be given during the week for you to work on your own. Members will then post responses to exercises in order to get feedback from Nancy and the other participants. We’ll meet through videoconferencing to discuss writing process issues and to report on our progress, so there will be accountability built into this month long project. Content of readings – short stories, memoir and personal essays – will cover issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, health, etc. An introductory video session and online survey will insure that you’ll receive exercises on topics designed for your interests and needs. Possible topics could include:
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deciding on a writing schedule
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sharpening your eye for detail and your ears for dialogue
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experimentation with character and point of view
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transmitting a sense of place
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radical approaches to structure
You’ll end the month with a plan for developing and continuing your work.
To apply, please email nancyagabian@yahoo.com two paragraphs that 1) explain your interest and/or experience in contributing to a writing community – whether online or in person, and 2) describe your writing goals for this workshop. Attach a 1-3 page sample of writing. Application deadline: June 23.
For more information, email nancyagabian@yahoo.com.
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About the instructor, Nancy Agabian: I have nearly twenty years experience teaching writing in community. In academia, I’ve taught memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, poetry, fiction and playwriting. Writing and teaching interests include (but aren’t limited to): family histories; social change & justice; performance art and activism; housing design & reform; cross cultural & queer experiences; the intersections of race, class, gender & sexuality in identity; and the personal as political. Former students have gone on to publish, perform, teach, and attend MFA writing programs.-
MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University
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Author of the memoir Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and a Saroyan International Writing Prize
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Instructor of creative writing at Queens College and NYU