APPS DUE: MAY 20 | Atheneum Master Writing Program for 2024-2025 | In-person
An annual certificate program, the Attic Atheneum melds independent study under close faculty supervision, student receptions, public readings, and other special Atheneum events created around good food and great conversation, dialogue, and literary community.
Running for just under a year, the Atheneum is designed to advance your writing and seed literary life in the city. Atheneum Fellows form a unique community of literary artists and citizens.
Being a writer means being a reader. The best way to become a better writer? Become a better reader. Books are a writer's most invaluable collaborator. To read like a writer is to explore why and how a narrative works—and then mirroring it. We'll do just that through a close study of craft and grow from there. In "Read Like a Writer, Write Like a Writer," we’ll read together one essay and one short-story for our models and then, through guided discussion that culminates in a creative writing prompt, we'll share what we were inspired to write. You’ll not only come away from the workshop with new writing, but with new habits for whatever you write (and read!) next.
No, this is NOT a songwriting class. It’s a class about helping the emerging writer take her pile of random chapters, character sketches, fragments, scenes, ramblings, and moments of literary brilliance, into something of a coherent and emotionally resonant story. During this class we will explore how a writer can look within their narrative to identify the key scenes, to understand the most critical trajectory for the character(s) from beginning to end, and to build the necessary narrative to connect those key scenes and move the journey of the characters forward. Finally, each student will develop their own revision practice and understand better what their story is revealing it wants to say and what needs to be omitted. Students will take what they learn, work on their projects outside of class, then bring back examples of what they have discovered in their revision work to share with the class. Maximum 12 students
In this four-week workshop we'll be coming together in community to write together and share our creative explorations. Each week will involve a fun poetry exercise, examples from an author's book, writing together and sharing. It's not really summer and it's not really spring but it is a great time to write. Come join us!
If you're a fiction or nonfiction writer and you struggle with writing scenes, you're sunk. At some point, every writer needs a refresher on making —fashioning, construction, composing, organizing, sequencing, imagining, re-imagining — scenes. Scenes are the DNA of story telling. "Once upon a time" might get the story going, but what follows next? Scene after scene after scene. So...do you find yourself explaining too much in your stories or creative nonfiction? Do you feel your writing gets bogged down in announcing, recounting, and summarizing? What you need is some scene-making medicine. Work with Attic Institute founder and two-time Oregon Book Award winner David Biespiel to learn the keys to explain less and dramatize more. An essential workshop for all writers.
