RBWG Autumn 2023 Classes
In Person and Online Tutorials via Email
Weekly Calendar
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Register Here Please register first with Maribeth at fischer.maribeth@gmail.com 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.
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Our Instructors
Click here to read brief biographies for each of our instructors.
Special Writing Challenge
Promises to Keep III: A Fourteen-Day Poetry Challenge — Gail Braune Comorat (2 weeks)
When: Sep 10-23
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $50; Non-Members $60
An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of promises. — Mae West
One of the most important things we can do as poets is to begin lines for a new poem. We need to just sit in the chair and write. Even if it’s only for thirty minutes (an ounce of performance!).
For fourteen days, our challenge will be to write a poem a day, a great way to welcome autumn. Each morning, those who accept this challenge will get a short email offering a sample poem or a prompt idea for inspiration. Whether or not you follow the prompt is optional. The point is to write, to create new work.
There will be no critique, just a community of poets all vowing to make writing a priority for these two weeks. At the end of week two I’ll ask each writer to send me one poem that was written during this challenge (optional). I’ll share those examples with the group as a way for us to celebrate our accomplishment and get to know each other a little bit through our writing.
When: Sep 10-23
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $50; Non-Members $60
An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of promises. — Mae West
One of the most important things we can do as poets is to begin lines for a new poem. We need to just sit in the chair and write. Even if it’s only for thirty minutes (an ounce of performance!).
For fourteen days, our challenge will be to write a poem a day, a great way to welcome autumn. Each morning, those who accept this challenge will get a short email offering a sample poem or a prompt idea for inspiration. Whether or not you follow the prompt is optional. The point is to write, to create new work.
There will be no critique, just a community of poets all vowing to make writing a priority for these two weeks. At the end of week two I’ll ask each writer to send me one poem that was written during this challenge (optional). I’ll share those examples with the group as a way for us to celebrate our accomplishment and get to know each other a little bit through our writing.
Poetry
The Importance of Form II - Writing Form Poems - Gail Braune Comorat (4 sessions)
When: Tuesdays, Oct 3, 10, 17, 24
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $200; Non-Members $230
The more emotional the content, the greater the need for form to stabilize it -- Billy Collins
Have you ever begun a poem and wound up abandoning it? Sometimes, when we try to control what we want to say in a poem, we feel that the poem isn’t doing the work we want it to do. Turning to poetic forms can help us make sense of experiences that have disturbed us or ones we don’t fully understand. Through writing poems with strict rules, we no longer try to control the poem and its journey. Form poems can guide our writing and help us to tell the stories that we’ve been trying to write.
When: Tuesdays, Oct 3, 10, 17, 24
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $200; Non-Members $230
The more emotional the content, the greater the need for form to stabilize it -- Billy Collins
Have you ever begun a poem and wound up abandoning it? Sometimes, when we try to control what we want to say in a poem, we feel that the poem isn’t doing the work we want it to do. Turning to poetic forms can help us make sense of experiences that have disturbed us or ones we don’t fully understand. Through writing poems with strict rules, we no longer try to control the poem and its journey. Form poems can guide our writing and help us to tell the stories that we’ve been trying to write.
Fiction
Driving a Car at Night: Assignments in Fiction — Maribeth Fischer (8 sessions)
When: Fridays, Sep 8, 15, (no class on the 22nd) 29; Oct 6, 13, 20, 27; and Nov 3
Where: Online via Email
Cost: RBWG Members $400; Non-Members $450
[Writing is] like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.— E.L. Doctorow
This is a tutorial for writers who have taken Graduate School in a Box (which introduces key concepts in fiction writing) and want to continue learning new techniques to use in fiction. It’s also a tutorial for those who have embarked on a novel or short story and find themselves stuck, not sure where to go next. Each week in this tutorial, writers will be given an assignment (with examples from a work of contemporary fiction) that helps develop character or plot and also helps the writer hone a key skill crucial to fiction writing. One assignment might ask you to develop your character’s backstory, another might ask you to write a scene where your character is angry (how does one write anger?), another might ask you use summarized dialogue rather than actual dialogue (a terrific writing tool!) Each assignment helps the writer discover new aspects of her story. Many of the Guild’s published writers have incorporated these assignments into their finished novels and stories — and we’ll look at a few of those examples too.
Nonfiction
Experiments in Creative Nonfiction Writing — Maribeth Fischer (8 sessions)
When: Tuesdays, 10:30 a.m-12:30 p.m; Sep 12, 19, no class the 26th; Oct 3, 10, 17, 24, 31; and Nov 7
Where: Lutheran Church on Bay Vista Road
Cost: RBWG Members: $400; Non-Members: $450
“If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.”
— Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
You do not need to have taken Experiments I-IV to join this class, although do keep in mind that this is an advanced nonfiction class—ideally you will have taken other in-person nonfiction workshops with the Guild. This is a class for writers who want to stretch the boundaries of what they have been writing by trying new techniques to write about familiar topics. An essay about home, using Google maps; an essay about the essay you want to write—but can’t; an essay chronicling a history (of a marriage, a career, a political stance, even the death of relationship) by revisiting significant places in that relationship or career. Another essay that captures that experience so many of us know of saying one thing out loud when what we really want to say is well, something else…We’ll even try writing essays that are odes...Each week writers in this class will be given an assignment asking them to experiment with a new technique. The goal is not necessarily to complete an essay each week, but to experiment with new approaches in the hope that one or two of these will result in an essay worth polishing—and ultimately publishing.
When: Tuesdays, 10:30 a.m-12:30 p.m; Sep 12, 19, no class the 26th; Oct 3, 10, 17, 24, 31; and Nov 7
Where: Lutheran Church on Bay Vista Road
Cost: RBWG Members: $400; Non-Members: $450
“If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.”
— Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
You do not need to have taken Experiments I-IV to join this class, although do keep in mind that this is an advanced nonfiction class—ideally you will have taken other in-person nonfiction workshops with the Guild. This is a class for writers who want to stretch the boundaries of what they have been writing by trying new techniques to write about familiar topics. An essay about home, using Google maps; an essay about the essay you want to write—but can’t; an essay chronicling a history (of a marriage, a career, a political stance, even the death of relationship) by revisiting significant places in that relationship or career. Another essay that captures that experience so many of us know of saying one thing out loud when what we really want to say is well, something else…We’ll even try writing essays that are odes...Each week writers in this class will be given an assignment asking them to experiment with a new technique. The goal is not necessarily to complete an essay each week, but to experiment with new approaches in the hope that one or two of these will result in an essay worth polishing—and ultimately publishing.
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