RBWG Classes, Summer 2013
We’ve got a great list of Summer course offerings!
Because we are committed to keeping our classes small and because we can only continue to do this if participants commit to and pay for all classes, we ask that you pay for the full class amount up front. To make payment easier, we’ve added a paypal option that uses credit cards. If paying up front is difficult for you, please just email us and we’ll do our best to work out a payment plan.
To see adult course offerings for each genre, click on a link below or scroll down the page.
fiction, mixed genre, nonfiction, poetry, online courses, publishing
To see online tutorials offered for young writers this summer, click here.
Because we are committed to keeping our classes small and because we can only continue to do this if participants commit to and pay for all classes, we ask that you pay for the full class amount up front. To make payment easier, we’ve added a paypal option that uses credit cards (this will be available shortly). If paying up front is difficult for you, please just email us and we’ll do our best to work out a payment plan. Click here for more information about RBWG class policies
To register for any class, simply email contactus@rehobothbeachwritersguild.com to specify which class you are interested in. Maribeth will respond to you by email within 2 days. OR click on this link to register and pay using Pay Pal: http://rehobothwriters.com/rbwg-classes/ |
Novel Explorations (eight sessions) E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.” This is a class for writers of all skill levels who are embarking on the journey of beginning a novel. Even if you’ve written one before, in this class, you’re starting anew. Whether you’ve written the first 100 pages or have no idea what the novel is about beyond a vague idea, this class is about exploring possibilities. We’ll be doing exercises--lots of them--to develop our characters so fully that they seem real, writing scenes that bring out our characters’ best and worst qualities, creating tension-filled dialogue that alters what happens next. We’ll unearth our characters’ secrets, spend a day with them at work, flashback to their childhoods, explore their homes, and, in the process, discover what our novels are really about. Mondays 5:30 -7:30 pm, June 17- August 5 Cost: RBWG Members $320; More about Maribeth |
*EXPERIMENTS in CREATIVE WRITING IIII (eight Weeks) ~ Maribeth Fischer You know you want to write something—a short story, a novel, an essay, but you aren’t sure what to write. You might not even have a specific subject, story or character in mind… Still… you long to write something… In this course, we will experiment with creative structures and techniques—a different one each week—any one of which could be the jumping off point into a more polished piece of writing. During these eight weeks, we will explore essays and stories told entirely through beginnings, essays/stories written in the form of apologies or structured around numbers. We’ll write an “I remember/don’t remember” piece and construct a biography or autobiography in one sentence paragraphs...Along the way, we’ll study examples of great writing that use the structures and techniques we are trying to imitate. Participants will be invited to complete a short assignment each week and will receive personalized feedback from Maribeth on every assignment. This course will work fine for you even if you didn’t take CW Experiments I or II--the material doesn’t build on that material) Wednesdays, June 12- August 7 * available as a tutorial through the mail More about Maribeth |
Then & Now: The Art of Memoir (eight sessions) ~ Maribeth Fischer In this workshop, we’ll be working on two sustained longer essays or memoir chapters. In the first four weeks, we’ll be writing about a specific person. This could be one’s parent or spouse or sibling, a best friend, a child, though we’ll keep in mind that all memoirs are really about the person writing them! Each week, we’ll look at how other essayists have written about those whose lives have touched their own and we’ll try to learn how to write about those closest to us by stealing techniques from these writers. We’ll discuss how to write honestly about others without doing damage, the role of metaphor in shaping our narrative., the writer’s responsibility to his/her subject matter,. In the second part of the class, we’ll focus on writing about a specific event and will explore how to move through time, when to use scenes and when summary, and how to write about what we don’t actually know. Throughout we’ll be diving into the art of revision (which literally means to “re see”) and using revision as a tool in the writing process, treating it not as a matter of fixing what is broken but as a process of searching for, finding, unearthing and saving what you have not yet explored in your writing. Tuesdays 10:30- 12:30 June 11 - August 6 Cost: RBWG Members $320; * available as a tutorial through the mail |
Seven Poets a Week Session I (8 sessions) ~ Gail Comorat Poetry is everyday speech that has something special or amazing about it, something that makes us think, wonder, or marvel. It makes us angry, or it makes us serene. It helps us to remember and to forgive...Introduction. The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Michael Simms The poems in the anthology (quoted from above and which we’ll use in this class) are sure to provide some lively discussions. They will not only act as a stepping-off point in helping us find poetry that we want to further investigate, but the examination of these poems will also help to inform our own writing. As Michael Simms also writes in the introduction, “My hope is that the reader will find poems that give voice, through song and story, to what Samuel Hazo calls in a different context the holy surprise of right now.” This is our hope as well. Each week we’ll read poems by seven poets who cover a range of styles touching on subjects such as family, love, grief, and current social issues. We’ll read names we recognize, and those we might not but will soon come to love; eight of the poets have served as Poet Laureates. Additional info: New books run from $30-33, used books are about $24. The Kindle version is $22.95. *Participants should read the introduction for this book and the sections on Kim Addonizio through Peter Blair in preparation for the first class. Tuesdays, 3:30
-5:30 June 4 - July 23 Cost: RBWG Members $200; |
Experiments in Poetry III (six sessions) ~ Gail Comorat & Ethan Joella "Nothing is as necessary yet as taken for granted these days as food—except maybe poetry." Kevin Young, The Hungry Ear As in Sessions I and II, this class is not exclusive to people who want to write poetry. It’s for fiction writers, essayists, and memoirists, too. We will take our experimentation a step further with form poems and offbeat subjects. Each week, we will focus on a specific type of poetry experiment. We will look at a variety of examples and then the class and the instructors will create a "homework" poem on this topic for the following week, which will be shared with the class. Possible topics include Ars Poetica, Food Poems, Form Poems, Fire Poems, List Poems, Found and Erasure Poems. Mondays 10:30-12:30, June 3-July 8 Cost: RBWG Members $240; |
Publish Your Ebook on Kindle (six weeks) ~ Steve Robison Enter the world of ebook publishing! This six-week course will first introduce ebook publishing options, then demonstrate the steps in preparing and formatting your manuscript, creating a cover, and self-publishing your book on the Amazon Kindle platform. At the end of the class, participants will have an e-book available for sale on Amazon.com. Prerequisites are a finished (or nearly finished) work to publish, proficiency with Microsoft Word, and an open mind. Tuesdays June 25-August 6, 6 -8 PM Cost: RBWG Members $240; More about Steve |
Micro Fiction Writing Online Tutorial ~ Ethan Joella Works of flash fiction are in high demand from literary journals. Micro Fiction Writing is a chance to write your own highly-charged, compressed short stories that stay under four vpages. During this six-week personal tutorial, you will receive five specific assignments that result in your writing five pieces of micro fiction to be submitted for feedback. We will work on a traditional short-short story, an experimental micro piece, a prose poem, a short monologue, and an epistolary piece. During the final week, we'll be putting the previous works through a substantial revision process. Cost: RBWG Members $240; More about Ethan
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Experiments in Poetry III (six sessions) ~ Gail Comorat & Ethan Joella (See above for description) Cost: RBWG Members $240;
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