How do you navigate being a writer on the Internet? Do you need a website? Is social media still important? How do you find your people? Join RWW Creative Director Garrett Brooks and Program Assistant Hannah Comerford as we discuss healthy Internet and social media habits, website design basics, and simple marketing tips to help promote your writing. This class is designed for those with any level of technical knowledge and internet savviness. Come ready to talk about the writing life, publishing, and community development, expanding on ideas gathered over residency.

Film started without dialogue. In its earliest forms, filmmakers and screenwriters had to develop methods of storytelling without the spoken word, instead using setting, action, and silence to convey character and propel the story forward. The genre’s roots in silent film continue to influence contemporary screenwriting, where dialogue is used with great intention and precision. In all forms of writing, it’s easy to lean too heavily on certain storytelling elements—especially those we feel most comfortable with—potentially preventing us from seeing and executing our work in a revelatory way. By applying a screenwriter’s approach to dialogue to other forms of prose, we will explore how this perspective can transform scene work, character development, and the overall narrative arc. Through examining the function—and the absence—of dialogue in screenwriting, we will work on constructing “realistic” and effective dialogue across genres.

Much of the writing I cannot put down shares a quality: it feels haunted. Not haunted by what we typically think of as a ghost, but by the specters of lives we could have lived, relationships we may have entered or left sooner, images that won’t leave our minds, or the small daily stresses we witness without giving words to. The writing I cannot put down attempts to speak to these atypical ghosts, examine them, and give texture to what we often pass over in silence. In this nonfiction class, we will examine how specters originate, the ways in which our personal ghosts return, and real deal attempts to exorcise that which haunts us. Writers we’ll look at may include Saidiya Hartman, Maggie Nelson, Carmen Maria Machado, Saeed Jones, and an excerpt or two from Hamlet.

Storytelling is one of the deepest of human urges. It is why we write, and why we have literature and art. For a reader, reading a poem is a transformative experience in two ways: the reader apprehends the what of the poem (its content, its story) and inhabits the how of the poem (its structure, its form). In this flash class, we’ll examine how storytelling happens in a number of exemplary poems—how story and structure come into gorgeous dynamic. We will pay especially close attention to structure, what it is, and how it can be flexibly deployed in poems. Additionally, we’ll look at surprise and the way it intensifies a reader’s sense of understanding and transformation.

How is the work of the poet like that of a filmmaker? In this class, we will consider how cinematic techniques can be applied to poem making. You’ll be asked to consider the types of camerawork you already employ when describing and the angles of observation that might tend to overlook. Come prepared to experiment with zooming-in, panning out, jump cuts, interior and exterior shots, etc. We’ll also discuss the power of the speaker’s gaze. We will draw inspiration from model poems by A. Van Jordan, K. Iver, Richard Siken, Tomas Morin, and Lynda Hull.

This exercise-intensive class will help participants struggling with a common problem: figuring out the scope and structure of a prose project. We’ll define those terms, discuss how and when and to what degree a writer might need to consider them, and do a series of exercises that are designed to help participants sharpen the focus of their work in progress.

In this class, we will dive into the vibrant and playful world of Frank O’Hara’s poetry. As a central figure in the New York School of poets, O’Hara was celebrated for his casual, conversational style and his ability to capture the energy of everyday life. Through close readings of his poems, we will explore O’Hara’s distinctive approach to form, language, and subject matter, and consider how his work mirrors the cultural and political climate of mid-century America. This session will incorporate various writing exercises and prompts to help you kickstart new poems. While Lunch Poems will be our main text for advance reading, the class will also focus on all of O’Hara’s life and work. Whether you’re a longtime fan or new to his poetry, join us for an engaging exploration of one of the most beloved poets of the 20th century.

Our bodies often betray us, the tone of our voice or the movement of our hands exposing emotions we’d rather keep hidden behind the surface of the words we speak. Not so much fun in our actual conversations, but something for us to celebrate as writers: by employing subtle bodily cues, we can reveal layers of emotion our characters may not even be aware of. This class will dig into the nuances of dialogue and subtext, with a particular focus on how we can use gesture and inflection to reveal the unspoken, often contradictory emotions conveyed in speech. We’ll read Francine Prose’s and Charles Baxter’s thoughts on the subject, and we’ll do a close study of Eudora Welty’s story “A Visit of Charity” and Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Third and Final Continent,” before experimenting with gesture and inflection in our own stories.

This session will dive into the heart of the lyrical essay, a subgenre of creative nonfiction that blends prose narrative with the poetic intensity of language, form, and emotional resonance. This session is designed to explore the intricacies of crafting essays that transcend conventional storytelling by incorporating the rhythmic and figurative elements typical of poetry. We’ll look at the lyrical essay’s unique ability to convey complex ideas, emotions, and experiences through a more fluid and evocative narrative structure, challenging the boundaries between fact and imagination, reality and perception.