RBWG Summer 2026 Classes
In-Person, Zoom, & Online Tutorials
Weekly Calendar
|
Register Here Please register first with Maribeth at [email protected] to make sure that the class is running (at times we do not have enough participants to make the class work) or is not already filled. Maribeth will respond to you within a day. Pay 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 ONCE WE CONFIRM THE CLASS WILL RUN, you pay for the full class amount up front. If you are interested in a class and cannot pay for it up front, just send Maribeth an email and we’ll work out a payment plan. Please do not pay prior to hearing from Maribeth that the class is running and a seat is available. We are unable to make full refunds if payment is received without confirmation from Maribeth first.
Our Instructors
Click here to read brief biographies for each of our instructors.
|
Fiction
Short Chapter Magic: Examining the Power of Less
Ethan Joella (1 session)
When: Tuesday, Aug 11, 2026 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $65; Non-Members $75
How often do you tell yourself just one more chapter when you’re reading? How often do you look ahead to see when the current chapter ends? In this workshop, we’ll examine how writers use short chapters to engage the reader and keep a book buoyant. We’ll look at how a scene is framed and effective ways to start and end without being too wordy. Lastly, participants will do some exercises to help begin crafting your own quick, page-turning chapters.
Driving a Car at Night II: More Assignments in Fiction
Maribeth Fischer (7 sessions)
When: Fridays, Jun 12, 19, 26, Jul 10, 17, 24, 31
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $350; Non-Members $400
If you have taken Driving a Car at Night I, or Graduate School in a Box OR you are working on a novel or a short story collection and want to keep the momentum going this summer without having to brave Rt. 1 traffic for an in-person workshop, this class is for you. Each week you’ll get an assignment that explores some aspect of fiction writing—sometimes a technique to learn (how to write a chapter that is wholly summary—no actual scene; or how to incorporate social media into your writing; how, for instance, to format texts). Other weeks, it might be a content issue (Money. What role does it play in your characters’ lives? What do they spend money on? Answering this question alone is so revealing of character!) Each assignment will deepen your understanding of your characters, which always deepens understanding of plot. Maribeth will respond with plenty of comments, suggestions and encouragement to keep you writing this summer.
Ethan Joella (1 session)
When: Tuesday, Aug 11, 2026 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $65; Non-Members $75
How often do you tell yourself just one more chapter when you’re reading? How often do you look ahead to see when the current chapter ends? In this workshop, we’ll examine how writers use short chapters to engage the reader and keep a book buoyant. We’ll look at how a scene is framed and effective ways to start and end without being too wordy. Lastly, participants will do some exercises to help begin crafting your own quick, page-turning chapters.
Driving a Car at Night II: More Assignments in Fiction
Maribeth Fischer (7 sessions)
When: Fridays, Jun 12, 19, 26, Jul 10, 17, 24, 31
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $350; Non-Members $400
If you have taken Driving a Car at Night I, or Graduate School in a Box OR you are working on a novel or a short story collection and want to keep the momentum going this summer without having to brave Rt. 1 traffic for an in-person workshop, this class is for you. Each week you’ll get an assignment that explores some aspect of fiction writing—sometimes a technique to learn (how to write a chapter that is wholly summary—no actual scene; or how to incorporate social media into your writing; how, for instance, to format texts). Other weeks, it might be a content issue (Money. What role does it play in your characters’ lives? What do they spend money on? Answering this question alone is so revealing of character!) Each assignment will deepen your understanding of your characters, which always deepens understanding of plot. Maribeth will respond with plenty of comments, suggestions and encouragement to keep you writing this summer.
Multi-Genre
Writing for Children 101: From Idea to Opening
Gina Hagler (5 sessions)
When: Mondays, Jul 13, 20, 27, and Aug 3, 10
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $250; Non-Members $300
If it’s not good enough for adults, it’s not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books. And words.
— Madeleine L’Engle
Writing for children is not about dumbing things down or being overly simplistic; it’s about finding the sweet spot between intriguing the reader with information that is geared to their level of understanding and missing the mark completely. In this workshop, we’ll cover what it takes to write for kids in grades 3-9. We’ll also give it a try.
Week 1: Who is your ideal reader
Week 2: Fiction or nonfiction
Week 3: Theme or topic
Week 4: Plot or outline
Week 5: Write your opening
This is an email class. You’ll receive the lesson and assignment for the week each Monday morning, with assignments due on Sunday. Each assignment will receive written feedback, and student questions are encouraged. You can choose whether to focus on fiction or nonfiction or take a try at both. There will also be an optional WhatsApp discussion group.
Getting Started 201: Writing the First Draft
Gina Hagler (5 sessions)
When: Mondays, Jul 13, 20, 27, and Aug 3, 10
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $250; Non-Members $350
… The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.
— Anne Lamott
This class is for those who have either completed Getting Started 101 or have a well-thought-out idea for the piece they will write but would like some guidance related to characterization, structure, and pacing. We will discuss the exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, with examples and the opportunity to complete related exercises while also applying what we’re covering to your own work. Each week, we’ll cover questions you have about structure and momentum, as well as strategies for winding up where you intend to wind up.
Week 1: Exposition & Inciting Incident
Week 2: Rising Action
Week 3: The Climax
Week 4: Falling Action
Week 5: Denouement/Resolution
This is an email class. You’ll receive the lesson and assignment for the week each Monday morning, with assignments due on Sunday. Each assignment will receive written feedback, and student questions are encouraged. There will also be an optional WhatsApp class discussion.
Workshop: Generating New Ideas in Your Writing
Ethan Joella (1 session)
When: Tuesday, Jun 23, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $65; Non-Members $75
Have you been poring over the same piece and need a break? Do you have a new idea but aren’t sure how to get started with it? Are you just generally looking for new approaches or inspiration? Then this one-day workshop is for you. In this class, we’ll do a series of prompts to help you get out of your groove and get started on something fresh. We’ll discuss issues such as where to begin and end the piece and how to achieve transparency and momentum. Writers will be invited (not required) to share work and exchange ideas. All genres welcome!
Gina Hagler (5 sessions)
When: Mondays, Jul 13, 20, 27, and Aug 3, 10
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $250; Non-Members $300
If it’s not good enough for adults, it’s not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books. And words.
— Madeleine L’Engle
Writing for children is not about dumbing things down or being overly simplistic; it’s about finding the sweet spot between intriguing the reader with information that is geared to their level of understanding and missing the mark completely. In this workshop, we’ll cover what it takes to write for kids in grades 3-9. We’ll also give it a try.
Week 1: Who is your ideal reader
Week 2: Fiction or nonfiction
Week 3: Theme or topic
Week 4: Plot or outline
Week 5: Write your opening
This is an email class. You’ll receive the lesson and assignment for the week each Monday morning, with assignments due on Sunday. Each assignment will receive written feedback, and student questions are encouraged. You can choose whether to focus on fiction or nonfiction or take a try at both. There will also be an optional WhatsApp discussion group.
Getting Started 201: Writing the First Draft
Gina Hagler (5 sessions)
When: Mondays, Jul 13, 20, 27, and Aug 3, 10
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $250; Non-Members $350
… The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.
— Anne Lamott
This class is for those who have either completed Getting Started 101 or have a well-thought-out idea for the piece they will write but would like some guidance related to characterization, structure, and pacing. We will discuss the exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, with examples and the opportunity to complete related exercises while also applying what we’re covering to your own work. Each week, we’ll cover questions you have about structure and momentum, as well as strategies for winding up where you intend to wind up.
Week 1: Exposition & Inciting Incident
Week 2: Rising Action
Week 3: The Climax
Week 4: Falling Action
Week 5: Denouement/Resolution
This is an email class. You’ll receive the lesson and assignment for the week each Monday morning, with assignments due on Sunday. Each assignment will receive written feedback, and student questions are encouraged. There will also be an optional WhatsApp class discussion.
Workshop: Generating New Ideas in Your Writing
Ethan Joella (1 session)
When: Tuesday, Jun 23, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $65; Non-Members $75
Have you been poring over the same piece and need a break? Do you have a new idea but aren’t sure how to get started with it? Are you just generally looking for new approaches or inspiration? Then this one-day workshop is for you. In this class, we’ll do a series of prompts to help you get out of your groove and get started on something fresh. We’ll discuss issues such as where to begin and end the piece and how to achieve transparency and momentum. Writers will be invited (not required) to share work and exchange ideas. All genres welcome!
Nonfiction
Advanced Experiments in Creative Nonfiction
Maribeth Fischer (6 sessions)
When: Tuesdays 9:30–11:30 am, Jun 23, 30, (no class July 7), Jul 14, 21, 28 and Aug 4
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $300; Non-Members $340
Making art is chancy...it doesn’t mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding
— David Bayles and Ted Orland Art & Fear
We’ll start early before the beach traffic, so bring coffee or tea to this intense class for advanced writers of nonfiction who want to experiment with form and structure—maybe even content--in the writing of their essays. Participants should either have taken this class with Maribeth in the past or should email her about submitting sample work before signing up. Writers should be focused on writing literary essays that they want to publish.
Each week, participants will be challenged to begin an essay using a format they may never have considered. What does an essay look like that is simply a list of things? An autobiographical essay arranged not chronologically, but alphabetically? A How-To essay about something for which there aren’t really directions or guidelines (how to get old, how to stop grieving, how to love someone unlovable?) What about a braided essay (two topics woven into one piece) or an essay about the essay you want to write but can’t? This is a challenging intense class. The goal will be to begin essays with the hope that of the five experiments we try, at least two might be something the writer can polish with a goal of publication. The classes will be workshopped-based and so, participants should be comfortable offering honest, constructive criticism.
Write Your Own Obituary
Rae Tyson (2 sessions)
When: Tuesdays, 10:00-11:00 a.m., Jul 14, 21
Where: Zoom
Cost: RBWG Members $40, Non-Members $50
Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have — a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion.
— Tom Rachman
You see it every time you read the paper: Those impersonal boilerplate obituaries really don’t paint an accurate picture of the dearly departed. And that may be the reason why my obituary writing workshops are so popular. Indeed, the best solution is: write your own — one that is both personal and creative. There is no better person to summarize your life than you. This workshop, in two parts, will help guide that writing journey. The sessions also will help you understand what to include — and what to leave out.
Maribeth Fischer (6 sessions)
When: Tuesdays 9:30–11:30 am, Jun 23, 30, (no class July 7), Jul 14, 21, 28 and Aug 4
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $300; Non-Members $340
Making art is chancy...it doesn’t mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding
— David Bayles and Ted Orland Art & Fear
We’ll start early before the beach traffic, so bring coffee or tea to this intense class for advanced writers of nonfiction who want to experiment with form and structure—maybe even content--in the writing of their essays. Participants should either have taken this class with Maribeth in the past or should email her about submitting sample work before signing up. Writers should be focused on writing literary essays that they want to publish.
Each week, participants will be challenged to begin an essay using a format they may never have considered. What does an essay look like that is simply a list of things? An autobiographical essay arranged not chronologically, but alphabetically? A How-To essay about something for which there aren’t really directions or guidelines (how to get old, how to stop grieving, how to love someone unlovable?) What about a braided essay (two topics woven into one piece) or an essay about the essay you want to write but can’t? This is a challenging intense class. The goal will be to begin essays with the hope that of the five experiments we try, at least two might be something the writer can polish with a goal of publication. The classes will be workshopped-based and so, participants should be comfortable offering honest, constructive criticism.
Write Your Own Obituary
Rae Tyson (2 sessions)
When: Tuesdays, 10:00-11:00 a.m., Jul 14, 21
Where: Zoom
Cost: RBWG Members $40, Non-Members $50
Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have — a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion.
— Tom Rachman
You see it every time you read the paper: Those impersonal boilerplate obituaries really don’t paint an accurate picture of the dearly departed. And that may be the reason why my obituary writing workshops are so popular. Indeed, the best solution is: write your own — one that is both personal and creative. There is no better person to summarize your life than you. This workshop, in two parts, will help guide that writing journey. The sessions also will help you understand what to include — and what to leave out.
Poetry
Poetry Grab-Bag
Ellen Collins (4 sessions)
When: Thursdays, Jul 9, 16, 23, 30
Where: Online Via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $200; Non-Members $230
Okay, it’s summer, and time to have some fun with writing. This class invites you to be spontaneous, to think outside the box, and to experiment with words and ideas. Carl Sandburg wrote, “Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism of words.” Sometimes the capture can be deliberate, and sometimes it is based on whimsy and intuition. This class invites you to find the whimsy and intuition. Each week you will receive a list of topics and a list of word groups. Without looking at them (please try not to cheat) you will fold up the topics and fold up the word groups in two separate piles. Then, choosing one topic and one or more word groups (this is the grab-bag) you will explore the possibilities of creating a poem with these tools. This is an opportunity to be surprised and, as Ted Kooser says, to “love playing with language.”
Where to Submit Your Poems (and How to Keep Track of Them)
Gail Comorat (1 session)
When: Thursday Jun 18, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $65; Non-Members $75
This is a class for poets who are new to submitting their work. Whether you’re considering sending off a few poems or entering a contest for your first chapbook, you should know how to write a cover letter and how to use a system to track those submissions (without knowing how to work a spreadsheet). We’ll look at chapbook samples and talk about small presses. We’ll go beyond the how-to—this is also a good manners class where we’ll discuss simultaneous submissions and what to do when a poem is taken.
Poems from Heartbreak Hotel
Gail Braune Comorat (5 sessions)
When: Thursdays 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Jul 9, 16, 23, 30 & Aug 6
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior Bay Vista Road
Cost: RBWG Members $250; Non-Members $300
The heart is watching Lifetime movies
and wishing, and missing all the good
parts of her that she has forgotten.
—Ada Limón, “Downhearted”
What breaks our hearts is usually loss. We miss the person we used to be, miss friends we no longer know. We suffer heartbreak over political upheaval or environmental catastrophe. Often, we find ourselves repeatedly writing the same poem. And we can’t write every poem about that same subject, can we?
In this five-week workshop, we’ll study the works of Ada Limón, Ellen Bass, Stephen Dobyns, and other accomplished poets to write a group of poems about the complications of own personal heartbreaks. We’ll document and confess through research and poetry forms. We’ll allow metaphor and chaos to enter our work. We’ll even find ways to take a breath to listen to the outside world.
Ellen Collins (4 sessions)
When: Thursdays, Jul 9, 16, 23, 30
Where: Online Via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $200; Non-Members $230
Okay, it’s summer, and time to have some fun with writing. This class invites you to be spontaneous, to think outside the box, and to experiment with words and ideas. Carl Sandburg wrote, “Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism of words.” Sometimes the capture can be deliberate, and sometimes it is based on whimsy and intuition. This class invites you to find the whimsy and intuition. Each week you will receive a list of topics and a list of word groups. Without looking at them (please try not to cheat) you will fold up the topics and fold up the word groups in two separate piles. Then, choosing one topic and one or more word groups (this is the grab-bag) you will explore the possibilities of creating a poem with these tools. This is an opportunity to be surprised and, as Ted Kooser says, to “love playing with language.”
Where to Submit Your Poems (and How to Keep Track of Them)
Gail Comorat (1 session)
When: Thursday Jun 18, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior (Bay Vista Road, Rehoboth)
Cost: RBWG Members $65; Non-Members $75
This is a class for poets who are new to submitting their work. Whether you’re considering sending off a few poems or entering a contest for your first chapbook, you should know how to write a cover letter and how to use a system to track those submissions (without knowing how to work a spreadsheet). We’ll look at chapbook samples and talk about small presses. We’ll go beyond the how-to—this is also a good manners class where we’ll discuss simultaneous submissions and what to do when a poem is taken.
Poems from Heartbreak Hotel
Gail Braune Comorat (5 sessions)
When: Thursdays 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Jul 9, 16, 23, 30 & Aug 6
Where: Lutheran Church of Our Savior Bay Vista Road
Cost: RBWG Members $250; Non-Members $300
The heart is watching Lifetime movies
and wishing, and missing all the good
parts of her that she has forgotten.
—Ada Limón, “Downhearted”
What breaks our hearts is usually loss. We miss the person we used to be, miss friends we no longer know. We suffer heartbreak over political upheaval or environmental catastrophe. Often, we find ourselves repeatedly writing the same poem. And we can’t write every poem about that same subject, can we?
In this five-week workshop, we’ll study the works of Ada Limón, Ellen Bass, Stephen Dobyns, and other accomplished poets to write a group of poems about the complications of own personal heartbreaks. We’ll document and confess through research and poetry forms. We’ll allow metaphor and chaos to enter our work. We’ll even find ways to take a breath to listen to the outside world.
Copyright © Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild