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Have you been sitting at home, writing on your own? Are you itching to get some feedback and hone your style?

This creative writing workshop will introduce key writing skills, exercises and supportive critical feedback to help new writers gain confidence in their style and voice while fine-tuning and editing their work-in-progress. You will also develop your abilities to edit the work of others and provide thoughtful constructive feedback. Class time will include discussions, exercises and critiquing. We aim to cultivate a supportive atmosphere where participation is encouraged and easy.

Whether you write poetry or short fiction or creative non-fiction, this course will provide grounding in the basics as well as an opportunity to develop refined and engaging work. We will also explore the process and publishing to move you forward with your writing.

Prerequisite : None

Duration :30 hours

Methodology :

Class time will be divided into discussions, writing exercises and the critiquing and editing of participants’ work, so active participation is essential. Selected readings will form some of our discussion time (short stories, poetry, formal essays on writing). All participants will be required to write at least one piece of fiction or two to three poems, and have them critiqued by their peers, by the end of the course.

Content:

Discussion topics will include:

• The creative process
• Developing ideas and discussing what works for other writers
• Writing habits and how to become aware of them
• Some aspects of short fiction (ex. setting, time, character, point of view, plot, voice, etc.)
• Some aspects of poetry (ex. formal poetry, free verse, line and line break, breath, etc.)
• Writing opportunities (how to get work published, query letters, etc.)

Note: the class will be encouraged to attend a public reading/book launch.