Writing can be healing. But writing can also re-traumatize, making it difficult to tell the stories that shape us. In this weekend intensive, writers gain an understanding of how the physiological processes of trauma interact with a writing practice, considering how writers manage craft challenges like the fragmentation of memory, engaging dramatic material without melodrama, elevating a deeply personal story into a universal inquiry, and owning on the page our complicated, contradictory selves. Hosted by Hugo House in Seattle. 

How do we best tell our stories of illness? In this private 12-hour class in downtown Seattle, writers will consider how different revision strategies can showcase, enrich, or tighten the stories they have to tell. Writers will workshop an essay of their own, provide feedback to peers, and discuss Lauren Slater's Prozac Diary.

In this two-day intensive, we'll commit to bringing to light nuanced, thoughtful explorations of the grey space between sex and sex crimes. Letting the #MeToo movement inform our space, here we'll wrestle with sex's inherent uncertainties; here we'll examine our own complicated desires concerning power; here we'll pen the events that, with a slight twist, could have ended up so differently. 

There is a great temptation to airbrush ourselves on the page, and yet this leaves us not only less trustworthy on the page, but less interesting. In this nonfiction seminar, students will explore how the contradictions in their personalities—the gaps between dirty laundry and grace—are the most interesting space. Hosted by the University of Arizona Poetry Center in Tucson. 

 The problems of modern illness are the craft problems of illness narratives. In this 2-day workshop at Hugo House in downtown Seattle, we’ll use published illness writing as our launching pad for exploring how to successfully manage the chronology, scope, and language of modern illness experiences.

What stories does a body have to tell? In this two-day workshop, we’ll use the anthology Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays to unlock the stories folded into our limbs and organs, considering how different forms and voices allow us to make meaning from our corporeal histories. On January 14, we'll share our work at a public reading in Tucson Hop Shop's sunny beer garden: a body we have written together.

Whether you think it contributes to the breakdown of sexual morals or is just a tool for sexual release, everyone seems to have an opinion about pornography. But rarely do we see nonfiction writers engaging the subject through rich memoir or thoughtful essaying. In this weekend intensive, we’ll read some of the rare literary works on the subject, identifying the craft challenges and social barriers to writing about porn well, and generating lots of our own material.

In a sex-negative culture, it can feel unsafe to share essays about sex in workshop-- but it's never been more important to write and publish these stories. NSFW (Not Safe For Workshop) is a sex-positive space to receive ongoing feedback about your work.

CANCELLED DUE TO LOW ENROLLMENT. “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick,” writes Susan Sontag. In this six-week class, writers will craft personal nonfiction narratives that explore the experience of illness or injury. 

How do we make meaning from our sexual experiences? What do our personal stories have to offer the world, and what is the best way to share them? In this bawdy, smart, & introspective seven-week class, participants will craft a personal essay about an aspect of their sexual experience. Beyond simply telling the narrative of what happened, we will work to build strong connective tissue between individual sexual stories and the larger questions about sex with which our culture is grappling.

What is the best way to tell a given story? How can we press form to enlarge, deepen or propel the stories we tell?  In this introductory prose course, we’ll read across the creative nonfiction spectrum, exploring how the same story might be told in different ways. Through in-class writing, lively conversation, and independent revision, participants in this class will excavate, chisel, and transform their own stories, dynamically seeking the form their personal narratives want to take. THIS CLASS IS CURRENTLY FULL. Join the waitlist through the University of Arizona Poetry Center. 

Writing can be healing. But writing can also re-traumatize a person, making it difficult to tell the stories that so often make us who we are.  In this seven-week class, writers will gain an understanding of how the physiological processes of trauma interact with a writing practice, and consider how writers handle craft challenges like the fragmentation of memory, engaging dramatic material without melodrama, elevating a deeply personal story into a universal inquiry, and owning on the page our complicated, contradictory selves.