Class Descriptions: 1-Day | 2-Day | 3 & 4-Day | On-going Classes

On-going Writing Classes, Labs, Workshops, and More

Weekly Evening Workshop
This weekly class (generally 12 sessions of 2.5 hours each session) is designed to form a small, supportive group of writers who read, write, discuss and review each other’s work. This working group is open to writers of any genre or level of experience. This is a workshop in which each student can define and expand their own work and dive headlong into the ecstatic business of writing. We will investigate new techniques, experimental forms and texts that break boundaries and stretch the limits of language. Through a range of weekly writing exercises we will play with language, meaning and form. Time in class will be spent reading our work to one another, critiquing/ discussing our work and writing together. And, as always, we will get back to the serious business of talking, laughing, drinking tea and just generally having a good ole’ time. These weekly sessions are offered on Wednesday and Thursday late afternoons/evenings to writers in the Boulder Guild. Classes run in the Fall (August-November) and Spring (January-April) semesters.

Prose Writer’s Lab
This weekly class (generally 12 sessions of 2.5 hours each session) is for a small number of supportive, working prose writers who are already engaged in the process of creating a project, book, collection, memoir, text or series. We will examine our on-going work and discuss various aspects of the craft of prose including development of the text, plot, character and voice, as well as the process of editing, revision and options for publishing. We will also look at some examples of contemporary and important works of prose (fiction and non-fiction) provide feedback on one another’s work and write together in class. This group is for writers of all types of prose, including short stories, novels, memoir, experimental fiction, hybrid texts and other forms.

Poetry Writer’s Lab
This weekly class (generally 12 sessions of 2.5 hours each session) is for a small number of supportive working poets who are already in the process of creating a body of work, long poem, series or collection. In each of these sessions we will write together, examine our on-going work and discuss various aspects of the craft of poetry, including shaping of the poem, examples from the work of other poets, the process of editing and revision and options for publishing. This group is for writers of all types and forms of poetry, including linear, experimental and hybrid texts.

Saturday Afternoon Salons
These weekly salons are a chance for writers to share their on-going work with one another and to generate new text. Through these sessions we will revise the great literary tradition of a “salon” (a place where a community of working writers would gather to read excerpts from their current work and/or talk about their current writing projects). The goal of these salons is to listen to one another, ask questions and help the reader see what direction the artistry might be moving in, not to critique the work line by line as we would in a regular on-going workshop. Reading to one another will be followed by in-class writing exercises designed to allow each writer to create new texts to add to their body of work.

2-Week Writing Bootcamp (15,000 words or 30 pages in 12 days)
Have you ever wondered what you are really capable of as a writer? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to write every day, to fill pages and pages (without waiting until your thoughts, ideas or habits are perfect) and stand back each week and take a look at what you’ve done? This 12-day writing boot camp is not only about generating volume; it’s really about building the daily practice of being a writer.

Joining this class will require a commitment of at least 1.5 hours a day for 12 days. You will spend this time in a pattern of reading, writing, noticing and intentional imagining/daydreaming. These are the key elements in the writer’s life. Students will have daily writing goals but with a broad range of permission and possibility for how they reach those goals. (This class is especially helpful for anyone who has a writing project that is stalled or moving more slowly than you would like.) The goal is simply to write, to immerse yourself in the generation of text, not to edit that text or perfect it, that is work for another time.
Daily writing exercises will be given to help generate multiple possibilities for how to begin the practice each day. Four group meetings will be held: one to set up each writer’s two-week commitment, two check-in meetings during the boot camp and one final meeting at the end of the process to celebrate how much we got done and to debrief the experience.

Writers who are comfortable generating text on the computer will be required to e-mail daily texts to the faculty member by 12:01 a.m. each night (in order to have your work received and to clear the mind and desktop for the next day’s writing). Writers who generate text with pen and paper will set up a structured and intentional place to keep track of finished pages. This boot camp is open to writers of any genre, from prose to fiction to poetry to haiku to memoir. All you need is a dedicated time each day and the willingness to surprise yourself.

Writers’ Guild Community Reading
Well, here it is, your opportunity to read some of the work you have generated this year! Whether you choose to read a few pages from your on-going novel or a three-line poem you wrote this morning, come join us in celebrating the work and cheering one another on. Wine and cheese will be served and families and friends are welcome to attend! This event is free and will be offered in all Guilds at various times throughout the year. This event is offered annually in the Houston community and occasionally in the Boulder community.