Spring & Summer Classes, Seminars + Work 1-1 with Me
Everything in one place
As some of you might recall, I decided to pull back on adjunct teaching earlier this year. The shift has been (mostly financially) stressful, but I am also really grateful to be teaching more of what I want to be teaching, to be writing more, and to be connecting with so many incredible writers and readers every day. I am also very excited to share some new classes I’ve been designing!
Below is a list of my offerings through August 2024, all in one place—including monthly 3-hour, one-day seminars on topics that frequently come up in my classes or talks. Something I’ve always wanted to do is more closely integrate this newsletter with my teaching, so this spring and summer, I will be trying a thing wherein I tie the work we are doing in the Mad Woman writing group into these one-day seminars on airing our dirty laundry and writing against traditional narratives.
If you are a member of our writing group—aka a founding subscriber of Mad Woman—you’ll have full access to a monthly essay on whatever subject we are discussing in the monthly seminar, as well as a mini syllabus and writing prompt, released the week before the seminar. In these 1-day seminars, we won’t just go over these materials—we will go deeper, look at texts and examples, engage with more writing prompts, and chat about how everything applies to your current writing projects and processes.
If you want to skip the breakdown of seminars and classes below and just see all the monthly seminars I have slated through summer, you can do that here:
Founding subscribers get $25 off all one-day seminars. I will send discount codes directly to founding subscribers each month, starting this Monday.
Regular paid subscribers get $10 off seminars and 1-1 work with me. Discount code is at the bottom of this post, under the paywall.
In the class list below, you will also see courses I am teaching for other organizations this spring and summer. All classes are virtual on Zoom unless otherwise noted.
And if you want to work with me one-on-one, details about that are also at the bottom of this post.
Okay, here’s the monthly breakdown!
APRIL
The first seminar in the new series: Memoir & Consent will cover all your questions about including other people (and yourself) in your writing. Sunday, April 7.
We will cover questions about the ethics and social ramifications of writing real people, as well as craft questions about how others inform our stories. Sign up here.
I’m also teaching another session of my popular and very fun workshop Exploring Sexuality & Motherhood in Writing at Write or Die on Sunday, April 28. Register here. Sexuality and maternity are subjects most of us have been taught to keep separate. In this class, we acknowledge that mothers have sex and sexual lives, and we dig into how to write about this shocking truth!
MAY
In this month’s seminar, we’ll consider the stakes of writing against traditional figures of heroism and resisting the urge to write ourselves aspirational characters, as well as methods for doing so in your own work. Sunday, May 5. Sign up here. Writers in all genres welcome.
May 6-11 will be our virtual writing group retreat (available to all founding subscribers), so mark your calendars, more details soon. If you want to join us, upgrade to the writing group:
I am also teaching two other classes in May:
A class on braiding the personal and the cultural in the essay for University of Iowa’s spring writing festival, April 29-May 20 (sold out but you can get on the waitlist here)
A class on embracing interruption in your writing practice (taught by me, someone who HATES to be interrupted when writing) at Scribente Maternum on Tuesday, May 14—sign up here
And you can catch me for a one-hour author chat on the essay at the Write or Die virtual nonfiction retreat on May 18. Register here.
JUNE
In the June seminar, we’ll pick up where we leave off in May, as we explore writing about and towards recovery, once again outside and beyond traditional recovery arcs. New date: Monday, June 3. This one is special to me—I will be celebrating three years of sobriety. This seminar is not only for those recovering from addiction, but also those healing from postpartum, divorce, trauma, creative loss, or grief. Sign up here.
If you want to join me for one full week, in person, on the University of Iowa campus this summer, sign up here. I’m teaching a class on “home-building,” or building setting and scene in domestic spaces, June 23-June 28.
JULY
In the next seminar, we’ll discuss how to write about the labor we do at home and outside the home, digging into some of what we’ve been discussing in the writing group, and drawing on exercises and craft concepts from my class at University of Iowa on “home-building.” Sign up here.
**this class has been rescheduled for September 3.
I will be taking July off from the writing group (kids are off school and it’s my birthday month, will be pool mom). No seminar in August. You can drop your ideas for fall seminars below. And let me know what other days/times might work for folks if you can’t make any of the above classes or seminars?
ONE-ON-ONE OPTIONS
Oh! And if you’d rather/also want to work with me one-on-one I am reopening my mentoring program, Care for Writers, to a small number of writers in April and May only. Details below.
This program is best suited for writers looking for general mentoring or creative recovery, or help with a book proposal in progress, early stages of a book, query letter, single essay, essay pitches, or other help with shorter projects.
To sign up for one month of Care for Writers, follow this link.
If you are looking for a manuscript consultation (full or partial), click here to fill out this form. I have a limited number of open spots for developmental editing this spring and summer.
Phew! I’m tired already. But also very very excited. See you out there.
Questions— drop them in the comments.
Please share with your friends.
Founding members in the writing group will get their discount code for the upcoming seminar on Monday. Regular paid subscribers, your code is below!