Most writing classes focus on editing works in progress. This course will focus on works emerging into process and on the imaginative and writerly skills by which works are conceived and developed. We will help writers to discover a fresh subject, a seminal paragraph or phrase or notion which might inform a new piece. Participants will develop facility with new genres and styles, explore fresh ways of expressing existing skills and of cultivating new ones. We will investigate options in voice, diction, point of view, modes of narration, and so on.

Class time will be devoted to a variety of activities, some very open-ended, some quite structured. These will include formal writing exercises and free writes as well as an array of compositional hoops, mazes, games, and calisthenics. Most writing will be done in class. We will share much of what we write.

The class is suitable for writers at all levels of skill or experience and should be as fun as it is edifying. It is suitable for writers in all genres. Participants may retake the course as many times as they like.