"No one’s stuff is right immediately... It’s a relationship. Between you and what comes from you. Not easy. Gonna be terrible before it’s not. And that’s okay." – Ava DuVernay
Three new opportunities to write and study with me this fall!
I did it! I did it! It took me all summer to map out my fall offerings, plus all weekend and most of today to get the webpages put together so that I could send out this Lit Salon post dedicated to what’s coming up—so here it is.
Yay!
I am so excited to share these offerings with you, and I cannot wait to write with some of you in these spaces soon. Maybe by the time the October sessions start, I'll have a book deal for my second book (the proposal is so close!). And if not, I should at least be out on submission, and we can celebrate!
Love,
Jeannine
Writing in the Dark | The WORKSHOP (maximum 20 participants, currently half full)
Six Tuesdays, September 16 – October 21, 6 – 8 PM Central
This workshop is a return to the OG 6-week, 2-hour course on Zoom that I offered from April 2020 through October 2023, when I paused it to focus on WITD on Substack and adjacent offerings. Over the course of about twenty contiguous sessions, hundreds of writers have created extraordinary new work, much of which has gone on to be published, antholgized, and honored with awards.
It’s an incredible space that has always been and will always be both wholly welcoming and consistently challenging, where you can come as you are knowing we will work hard together and make progress regardless of life being lifey, as life is prone to be. A place where kindness and rigor go hand in hand and writing comes alive.
During the pause, many (many many) of you have expressed nostalgia for the WORKSHOP and asked me to bring it back. So, here we are.
For those who have never participated in the live WORKSHOP, the full description is here. To note, WORKSHOP is not a passive space. It is not a webinar or a lecture. It is meant to come as close as possible to an in-person, real-life experience. It is very active and participatory and participants stay on camera as much as possible so that we can see each other’s faces and interact more intimately.
Waitlist pre-registration started Friday, and the workshop is already half full, so email writing@writinginthedark.org soon if you have questions before registering!
Tuition is the same as it was in 2023—$549 for the six-week course.
No application is necessary. Read the full description here, then register and pay using this link.
October 23 – 26, Thursday – Sunday
This small (10 max) in-person workshop is for writers who have or will have a prose manuscript in progress (essay or short story, memoir or novel) and are ready to workshop it using Writing in the Dark’s signature methods of deep attention, deep curiosity, and active search for opportunity and possibility.
This is deep, transformative work (both for the writing and the writer), and it’s possible for me to try to abbreviate it here—so, please go directly to the full description and don’t hesitate to email me with any questions large or small (writing@writinginthedark.org, subject line: Radical Revision).
Telling Hard Truths by Writing Hot Cold | A 3-Hour Craft Intensive on Zoom
How do you tell a hard story about an experience of trauma without retraumatizing yourself and/or driving readers away because it’s “too much?”
This intensive will dive deep into trauma-informed and highly effective craft strategies for telling hard truths with tools such as writing hot cold, flat writing, embodied writing, limited perspective narration, and other specific techniques for telling the hardest stories in ways that:
1) invite readers in rather than pushing them out
2) hold less risk of retraumatizing ourselves in the writing process
3) uncover newer and truer versions of the stories we think we know by heart
The three-hour session will include craft discussion, group close reading of published work, generative exercises, sharing and discussion of writing produced by the exercises, and time for questions.
This intensive will be recorded; replay available to all participants.
Tuition is $199 and no application is necessary. Find the full description here or register and pay using this link.
Writing Hard Truths. I've written many that are cringe worthy. I seek a new way.
You are a powerhouse! And inspiration! I've sad it before but its worth repeating — thank you for everything you bring! #TeamEmDash