NEW! Il Chiostro is sponsoring my “4 sessions over 8 weeks” Zoom writing workshop,
Flexing Your Writing Muscles: Images, Scenes, Time and Flash!
Assignments are provided before the meetings where we will workshop your writing and discuss the craft.
Dates: February 17, March 3, March 17, March 31.
ALSO NEW! Women on Writing offers
Writing the Hermit Crab Essay and Other Related Creative Nonfiction Forms
Online on your own time for six weeks beginning February 10th.
Writing It Real Online Classes
The Short Lyric Essay – 500 to 1500 words
Meets via Zoom 10 am – 1 pm Pacific Time
Dates Four Wednesdays TBA
There will be weekly assignments to complete before our Zoom sessions during which we will workshop those drafts and talk about shaping and editing. During the two weeks following our four weeks of Zoom meetings, each participant may post a revision of two of their pieces for response from the others in the workshop as well as the instructor. There are no refunds as the class size is limited to 6.
In-Person Via Zoom Poetry Writing Workshop
Meets via Zoom 9-12 noon Pacific Time
Dates: Fridays (4 Weeks)
9 to 12 Pacific Time Dates TBA – limit 6 participants
Following two weeks via Google Groups for revisions.
For new and continuing, experienced, and beginning poets. Four optional pre-class prompts will get you writing if you need ideas. Join Sheila and 6 classmates in writing and posting four of your poems over four weeks for workshopping during our weekly Zoom meetings. You can post revisions of those poems to the class following the four Zoom workshops through the sixth week. Whether you write from the prompts or share poems you have already been working on, our responses will help you get to the next level. Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Saturday Workshop on Techniques for Writing the Flash-Series Memoir
Meets via Zoom
Saturday, March 1
10 to 3 with a half-hour lunch break
This workshop will offer writing prompts that help create a cohesive flash memoir from discreet nonfiction flash pieces. Participants will write from prompts and after our lunch break, there will be time to put the pieces together into a flash series memoir. Then we will discuss ideas for adding in more pieces. There are no refunds as the class size is limited to 6.
More on Using the Flash Series Technique to Write Memoir
Dates: TBA
Pre-class assignments and workshopping in the class, limited to six students.
Two weeks after class to post revisions and share drafts.
No refunds as class size is limited.
In-Person Via Zoom Writing Craft Tune-Up
Craft Skills and Techniques for Writing the Essence (in all genres)
Dates: TBA
Pre-class assignments and workshopping in class.
Email if you have questions.
No refunds as class size is limited.
Your Member Price: $240
Writing Lyric Essays from Anecdotes, Observations, and Remembered Lines
Dates: TBA
Over five weeks, learn the building blocks of the lyric essay, write the blocks and then combine them into two nicely lengthy lyric essays. Sheila will provide the prompts that help you write each of the many blocks, and she will guide you in combining the blocks and then in revising and expanding what you have created so that you wind up the class with two moving lyric essays. Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
One-Day Zoom Writing Workshop
Dates: Next Section TBA
Saturday session. Limited to six people. We will meet 10 am – 3 pm Pacific Time, break for lunch at 12:30 and resume at 1:30 until 3:00. I will offer writing exercises, and participants will write and then do read-arounds; all of us will offer constructive responses to the writing. Then participants will select one of their day’s pieces to revise during the workshop for more response. We will talk about where to go next with each of the pieces you share.
Writing Healthy Starts
Dates: TBA
Over four weeks, write three starts a week of up to 500 words each from prompts especially designed to lead to finished pieces. I will respond to the writings with ideas about how the starts might grow. Participants say they have written well about new topics! New prompts each time the class is offered, so repeat as often as you like.<href=”https://writingitreal.com/about/contact”>Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
The 3 E’s: Epistolary, Ekphrastic and Epideictic.
Dates: TBA
Whether you are writing, prose or poetry, learning the strength of these three branches of rhetoric can help you gain power, insight and discovery in your writing. These three E’s translate to writing in letter form, writing in response to visual art or a scene, and writing to blame, praise or celebrate. This is a fun class for those who want to find new ways to search for insight and offer experience through their writing. Over four weeks, five students will post their writing, once per week, for response by peers and the instructor.
Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Healthy Starts
In-Class Writing and Responses – Your Writing Will Surprise You!
Dates: TBA
Join Sheila and five participants in a writing workshop. You will write from Sheila’s prompts in two ten-minute timed writing and then share what you wrote for responses and ideas of where to take that writing next. And you’ll leave class with a third prompt to use during the week and share the following week. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
A Developmental Workshop–How Response and Editing Helps You Find Your Way
Choose from Two Sections, 4 participants each Dates TBA
Join three others and learn to look into writing for development. Each week the four participants will post a piece of prose writing of up to 2500 words or 4 poems in a private Google Group for classmates and the instructor to see before our Saturday sessions. The instructor will lead a discussion of the piece and show the group how developmental editing works to help bring it to completion. This class is intended for work on pieces the writer feels are unsatisfactory. We will help the writer find the blocks in the writing and learn how to open them up. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Meets Sundays 12 PM to 2 PM (Pacific time)
Every Other Week Dates TBA
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Section Two
Meets Sundays 12 PM to 2 PM (Pacific Time)
Every Other Week Dates TBA
You: Writing in the Second Person
Dates: TBA
Join five classmates in reading model personal essays in the second person, and, with inspiration from those successful strategies, writing four of your own up to 2500 to 3000 words each over our weeks together. You’ll receive detailed response from me and from each of your classmates. Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Writing in the Epistolary Form
Dates: TBA
Join our small group of six in studying epistolary literature in poems, fiction and essays. Emulate the strategies professional writers have used in the letter form to create four fresh works of your own. Everyone receives detailed response from Sheila and four classmates for help in drafting revisions and understanding the strengths of what they have created using the letterform. Over our five weeks together, you’ll receive links to admiral examples of published epistolary writing and the opportunity to post four of your own epistolary form essays. Email Sheila if you have questions or need more information. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Sorrow’s Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief
Dates: TBA
Five Video Lessons with Sheila and Zoom Time Twice During Our Six Weeks Together
Using the book Sorrow’s Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief, available in print and ebook form, enrollees will have the opportunity to use Sheila’s writing exercises to concentrate on writing about loss. Each participant will receive her detailed response to their writing during our zoom sessions mid-class and end of class, as well as direction in what other pieces they might write. These exercises are based on the ones she used to heal her own grief as well as ones she created for many classes on writing from grief. There are six chapters in the book and you will work from them all over our six weeks together. Whether your loss happened a while ago or is recent, is about a person or an opportunity, a marriage or something health-related, the exercises will help you write and heal. To see more about how this works, you may be interested in this Writing It Real article and a member’s comment just after it in which she begins to write about the loss of her father. Email if you have questions. You may post your writing in a private class Google Group for classmates to read. There are no refunds after the first lesson is sent.
Fiction Writing Workshop – Short Stories and Novel Chapters
Dates: TBA
In this five-week class, each of five participants will post four short stories or novel chapters, one a week, for detailed response from Sheila as well as from classmates. You’ll learn the impact your stories make and where they need more development to do so strongly. In the five weeks it takes to post four stories and give and receive response, you’ll raise your writing to the next level. Sheila will share optional prompts for those wanting to begin new stories. The prompts will also work to help you deepen stories you have already written. Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Write, Write, Write!
Dates: TBA
Four inspiring Writing It Real articles will get you started on writing that is smarter than you thought you could be. Sheila will respond in detail to each of the four new essays — up to 3000 words each — with developmental and editing ideas. You’ll be joined by up to five classmates to share and receive responses to posted work. If you want to repeat the class, the articles will work again to inspire new writing. Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
Where Story Begins
Yesim Cimcoz, Instructor
Dates: TBA
Author Yesim Cimcoz believes any form of writing begins in a place within, a place where your soul cracked. It may be a small crack or a large one, you may or may not be aware of it but that is the place from which the stories you’ve gathered all your life, begin to seep out. Whether you want to write fiction, non-fiction, a poem, a novel or a short story…no matter what shape you want your stories to come out, they have to travel through you before they take shape. This workshop aims to give you the courage to dig for those stories. Lessons include articles and prompts to help you write without fear and anxiety. You’ll quiet the inner critic and enjoy writing for writing’s sake without worrying about sentence structure, punctuation, or literary value as you seek stories, which arrive from a deeper place. Over the weeks, you will receive specialized response from Yesim and up to five classmates on four of your writings.
Yesim Cimcoz holds a BA in Creative Writing from George Mason University and an MA in teaching adults. She has been teaching creative writing workshops, writing to heal workshops and writing the heroine’s journey workshops in group sessions, and online for the past 25 years. She founded and owns the Writing House, a creative writing center, and online school for creative writing workshops. She is the author of two books in Turkish on creative writing and a collection of short fiction. Her books are now being translated into English. Visit her at https://sanalyazievi.com/ Ask Google to translate!Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.
More Ongoing Online Class Opportunities with Sheila
International Associaton of Journal Writers From Journal to Memoir. Six weeks via zoom once a week. Dates TBA Learn more here.
Il Chiostro four-session Monday writing craft skills workshop via Zoom and a half-hour individual consult with Sheila.
Learn more here