Sponsored by Il Chiostro

Writing It Real In Tuscany

June 1 – June 8, 2024


Craft Skills & Techniques for Writing the Essence (in all genres)

Click here to enroll.

 

Writing It Real Online Classes

Flash Fiction and Non-fiction One-Day Zoom Workshop
Date: March 9

Back by popular demand, the class meets via Zoom from 10:00am to 3:00pm with a half-hour break for lunch. Join us in writing from prompts guaranteed to trigger interesting writing and valuable response to what you have written. Class size is limited to 8 participants. Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.


Date: Saturday, March 9, 2024


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


New! In-Person Via Zoom Take Your Drafts to Completion

Dates: Thursdays
11:00 am to 1:30 pm Pacific time
Following two weeks via Google Groups for revisions.
Next section TBA

Share drafts of four essays for response from peers and Sheila. Then revise two of them over the following two weeks for more response from the teacher and peers online. Via Zoom Thursdays January 25, and February 1, 8, and 15 from 11 AM to 1:30 PM Pacific Time. The last two weeks are accomplished via Google Groups onlline. Class size is limited to six participants.
Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.

In-Person Via Zoom Poetry Writing Workshop

Dates: Fridays
11:00 am to 1:30 pm Pacific time.
Following two weeks via Google Groups for revisions.
Next Section TBA

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. 

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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. 


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


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.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


Writing Smooth Transitions 
Dates: TBA

Writers often have trouble leading readers from scene to scene smoothly when it requires a change in time or space, large and small. This class will concentrate on learning how to make those transitions in ways that do not jar readers but keep them engaged and well-grounded in essays, poems or stories. It will help writers find various strategies for avoiding excess exposition and bumpy transitions which slow their readers down. Over four weeks, five students will post their writing, once per week, for response by peers and the instructor. Each participant may also post one revision per post by the end of our five weeks together.
Email if you have questions. There are no refunds as class size is limited.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


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.

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


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.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.

*   *   *   *   *

Section Two
Meets Sundays 12 PM to 2 PM (Pacific Time)
Every Other Week Dates TBA


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


Personal Essay Workshop
Dates: TBA

Write and share four essays or chapters from your memoir-in-progress, of up to 2500 to 3000 words. Use optional prompts or send in essays and chapters that you’ve been already working on. Receive detailed response from Sheila and your classmates as well as provide your responses to classmates’ drafts. We use a three-step response method guaranteed to help you get to a successful revision post-class with enthusiasm. Email if you have questions. Perso

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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.

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


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.


Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this service for an additional $45.00.


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.

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.


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.

Not a member? A Membership To Writing It Real is included with this workshop for an additional $45.00.

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