WRITING COURSES OFFERED
Spring 2009
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
For this eight-week seminar we will work on both fiction and nonfiction.
8 Mondays at 12:45 p.m.
Cost $450 plus $10 for Xeroxing costs (Total $460)
8 Mondays, 12:45 p.m. - 3:13 p.m.
April 6
SKIP April 13
April 20
April 27
May 4
May 11
May 18
SKIP May 25
June 1
June 8
Class Readings:
The Best American Essays 2008 ed. by Adam Gopnik
The Best American Short Stories 2008 ed by Salman Rushdie
This class is full.
June 2009
Four-Session June Intensive
Held at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford
7 p.m. - 9:15 p.m.
Cost: $275 plus $10 Xeroxing costs (Total $285)
Monday June 22
Wednesday June 24
Monday June 29
Wednesday July 1
Summer 2009
Taos Summer Writers' Conference
July 12-18, 2009
In July 2009 I will once again be in Taos to teach the seminar in The Art of the Sentence, The Art of the Paragraph. The conference is a fabulous gathering held in a creatively historic location. There is yoga every morning! for more information go to (www.unm.edu/~taosconf).
COURSES PREVIOUSLY OFFERED
Winter 2009
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
An eight-week seminar,
F ICTION ONLY
8 Mondays at 12:45 p.m.
Pre-class Reading
In this class we will be using specific short stories as models. These will be assigned at the time of the class, but they will be from these books that we will be reading in the months before the class begins. Please obtain them and begin reading (the list will grow to probably five or possibly six collections). If one or more is out of print, go to Abebooks.com or Amazon where they are offered for sale.
Doris Lessing, Stories
William Trevor, The Hill Bachelors
J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories
The O'Henry Prize Stories 2008
Edith Pearlman, How to Fall: Stories
Fall 2008
Master Class, Prose
Richard Hugo House
10 Monday evenings, 7 p.m., beginning September 15, 2008
Summer 2008
TAOS SUMMER WRITERS' CONFERENCE
July 13-18, 2008. At the Taos Summer Writers' Conference I offered The Art of the Sentence, The Art of the Paragraph.
June 2008
Four-session Craft Intensive
Held at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford
7 p.m. - 9:15 p.m.
Monday June 16, 2008
Thursday June 19, 2008
Monday June 23, 2008
Wednesday June 25, 2008
In this intensive class we scrutinize the forms of several short works and choose one through which to write a new piece. We also intensively work on craft skills (such as sophisticated sentencing) and observational and language skills. The assignments are all due together, bound in a folder, the week after class ends.
Fall 2007/Winter 2008
Spring 2008
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
In this course we will resume our traditional 8-week course, working on both fiction and nonfiction. We will complete one work in progress and compose one new work. Our focus will be on collage, abecedarian, and invented forms. I will bring the models to class. The class meets on Mondays from 12:45 to 3:15.
The dates are:
March 31, 2008
April 7, 2008
April 14, 2008
Skip April 21, 2008
April 28, 2008
May 5, 2008
May 12, 2008
May 19, 2008
Skip May 26, 2008
June 2, 2008
The Art of the Sentence, The Art of the Paragraph. A Hugo House Class
Six sessions, Wednesday evenings, 7 to 9 p.m.
April 9, 2008
April 16, 2008
April 23, 2008
April 30, 2008
May 7, 2008
May 14, 2008
In this intense craft course we will scrutinize virtuoso sentences (first three weeks) and virtuoso paragraphs (second three weeks) written by first-rate writers, and we'll deepen our craft skills by writing or revising our own sentences and paragraphs using analogous moves. We'll shape our sentences to intensify their content, perhaps using a shattered sentence (a fragment) to hold a shattering experience, and a slow, lazy, flowing sentence to hold a slow, lazy, flowing experience. Our paragraphs will include leaps, turns, flourishes, and, always, transitions. The weekly assignment will be to compose particular kinds of sentences and paragraphs, working to get them as close to brilliant as we can, using all we now know. This course is suggested for writers of all levels interested in revising across several short works or across a book-in-progress. Come to class with a notebook to write in. No laptops in class please.
To register, please contact Richard Hugo House at http://www.hugohouse.org/
Advanced Short Forms Seminar: Five-Session Fiction Only
Mondays 12:45 - 3:15
December 3, 2007
December 10, 2007
January 7, 2008
January 14, 2008
January 28, 2008
In this new conception of the Advanced Short Forms Seminar we will work only on fiction during the five-session seminar. We will write one new short story. We will spend five weeks scrutinizing model stories and exploring aspects of dramaturgy (as John Barth calls it), narration, diction, historical and contemporary settings, voice, and so on. We will begin our stories in December and have the holiday period to continue working the story till we meet again in January.
Required Texts:
E. L. Doctorow, Sweet Land Stories
Joan Silber, Ideas of Heaven
Best Short Stories 2007 ed. by Stephen King
Winter 2008
Advanced Short Forms Seminar: Four-Session Nonfiction Only
Mondays 12:45 - 3:15
February 11, 2008
Skip Presidents' Day
February 25, 2008
March 3, 2008
March 10, 2008
This is the second new conception of the Advanced Short Forms Seminar. This time we will work on the lyric essay. This is a piece in which sonorous language plays a role, which may proceed by association or possibly by digression. In this class we'll work on sound, diction, sentences, and produce our one piece.
A Field's End class
Bainbridge Island
New Forms in Nonfiction: Writing Literary Collage
Four Wednesday evenings, 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.October 10, 17, 24, and 31
Class to be held in the Kallgren Room at Bainbridge Commons/Senior Center.
The collage and its first cousin, the abecedarium, are marvelous forms of creative nonfiction that suit a wide variety of subject matters. In this nonfiction class we will scrutinize models of the form and we'll each write one of our own. In the process we'll work intensely on craft skills (language as sound, sophisticated sentencing, and so on). We'll hone our observational skills to make our writing more keenly observant and we'll develop strategies to deepen the insight of our works. Bring a notebook to write in (no aptops in class please).
June 2007 Four-Session Craft Intensive
We will meet for four evenings, 7 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. Good Shepherd Center, Room 223
Monday June 18
Thursday June 21
Monday June 25
Wednesday June 27
In this intensive class we will scrutinize the forms of several short works and choose one through which to write a new piece. We will also intensively work on craft skills (such as sophisticated sentencing) and observational and language skills. The assignments are all due together, bound in a folder, the week after class ends.
Spring 2007
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
Eight sessions, Mondays, 12:45-3:15
Meets at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford
In this class we will complete two of our works-in-progress and compose one new work, which will use a theme structure, using as our model Diane Ackerman's hummingbird piece. For our masterwork this time we'll use, E. L. Doctorow's story, "Baby Wilson." We'll continue our project of exploring NEW venues to send our work to. We'll look at narrators' voice strategies, sentence strategies, and narration strategies.
Please keep in mind that in this class all the work is due and it is due on time. If this might not be feasible given your responsibilities this quarter, it's best to sit this one out, and no harm done. As always, we do the best job we can at the time, working along in good faith, and without undue anxiety, but without considering the work in any way optional.
Field's End one-day writer's conference.
Saturday, April 28, 2007.
Kiana Lodge, owned and operated by the Suquamish Tribe, overlooking Agate Passage between Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo.
At the Field's End Writer's Conference I presented "Working with Sound in Poetry and Prose."
Winter 2007 Advanced Short Forms Seminar
Mondays, 12:45-3:15
Meets at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford
January 8-March 12, 2007
In this class we will focus on the gamut of sentence forms to make sure we command and use with great fluidity each and every one. We will compose one new work, either fiction or nonfiction, and complete two of our works in progress. We will continue studying the distinctions between character, narrator, and author. We will also continue our scrutiny of the world of literary publishing to better get our works out into it.
Please obtain Sherwood Anderson's collection of short stories, Death in the Woods.
List of Works due at first class.
Masterwork for scrutiny: Mary Gordon, "My Mother's Body," The American Scholar (2006)
Four-week Craft Intensive
Four Wednesday evenings, 7:00-9:15
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Wednesday, January 17 Class 2
Wednesday, January 24 Class 3
Wednesday, January31 Class 4
The class will meet for four sessions. We will look at the deep structure of several short works and one assignment will be to complete a short work using one of the structures. We will also work on using sound in prose, sentencing, lexicon work, and other matters of craft.
Fall 2006
Art of the Sentence, Art of the Paragraph
This is a Hugo House class.
Tuesdays, 4-6 p.m.
October 10 - November 14, 2006
June 2006
Four-session Craft Intensive
This is a small private class devoted to an intense immersion in craft technique, including sophisticated sentencing, language work, deep structure, and approaches to increasing the depth and insight of your writing. Maximum ten.
Place: Good Shepherd Center, Wallingford
Time: 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Required text: Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction ed. by Judith Kitchen (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2005).
Spring 2006
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
Mondays, 12:45 - 3:15
April 3-June 5, 2006
In this class we will create a new piece based on the "turnabout" form as exemplified in "Art Work" by A. S. Byatt. We will also complete two works-in-progress. We will continue our study of metaphor in the form of the adverbial clause of manner, and add a practice of metaphor in the form of "in the manner of... ." We will return to observation and gesture work. Finally, we will continue our study of narration: the separation of author/narrator/character voices.
Masterwork for scrutiny: Lauren Slater, "Black Swans."
Becoming a More Effective Creator: From Reality to Dream with Strategy Inbetween
This is a Hugo House Inquiry Through Writing class.
Three Saturday mornings:
10 a.m. to 12 a.m.
Saturday April 15, 2006
Saturday April 22, 2006
Saturday April 29, 2006
This is a three-session class designed to mentor you on how to better reach your goal of realizing work that is accomplished, brilliant, and relevant to your values, and how to then put it out into the world, whether you write poems, essays, articles, novels, creative nonfictions, or stories. Open to all writers from beginner to well-published as well as to creators in other genres. The principles and strategies put forward here are based on the instructor's years-long study of the choices and practices of world-class visual artists. Bring a notebook to write in (no laptops in class please) and be prepared to do some homework after each of the three sessions.
Winter 2006
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
Mondays, 12:45 - 3:13
January 9-March 13, 2006
In this class we will compose one new piece based on the A/B, A/B template (see Goldbarth's "Farder to Reach"). We will complete two of our works in progress. We will continue our work in metaphor, focusing on the adverbial clause of manner (the "as if," or "as though" clause, which is often metaphorical). We will continue our work on separation of author, narrator, and character, and we will continue to think about epiphany endings v. non-epiphany endings.
Masterwork for scrutiny: Russell Scott Sanders, "Under the Influence."
Required text:
Charles Baxter, Through the Safety Net
Please bring to the first class:
- Your Xeroxed Book of Forms
- A three-ring binder for your new version of the Handbook (I will bring)
- Your current List of Works (Published, Completed and Circulating, and In Progress)
The Art of the Paragraph
(Held at Field's End on Bainbridge Island)
Four-session class, Tuesday evenings, January 2006
In this intense craft course we will scrutinize virtuoso paragraphs by first-rate writers and deepen our craft skills by writing or revising our own paragraphs using analogous moves. These paragraphs will include leaps, turns, flourishes, and, always, transitions. We will read the entire short works from which we take our model paragraphs in order to see them in context. The weekly assignment will be to compose two (or sometimes three) paragraphs -- working to get them as close to brilliant as we can, using all we now know. This course is suggested for writers of all levels interested in revising across several short works or across a book-in-progress.
For further particulars please contact Field's End at
http://www.fieldsend.org/
Fall 2005 November 7, 8, 14, 15
Four-session Craft Intensive
A small private class devoted to an intense immersion in craft technique, including sophisticated sentencing, language work, deep structure, and approaches to increasing the depth and insight of your writing. Maximum nine.
Summer 2005
Writing to See Art
Saturday, July 30, 2005, 1-5 p.m.
Richard Hugo House (This is a Hugo House Inquiry Through Writing class.)
Writing in response to a work of visual art may lead you to a poem, a rhapsody, a review, a personal essay, or a short fiction. For two hours we will look at two different works of art and respond in a series of exercises that will enable us to see them more intensely and respond to them more deeply. Afterwards we'll look at master pieces of art writing in several genres. We'll discuss their delicacies and try writing using their techniques. Finally we'll write toward a piece of our own. Bring a notebook to write in.
September 2005
Weekend Retreat with Priscilla Long and Nick O'Connell on September 9, 10, and 11, 2005.
Where: Discovery Park Visitor Center, Seattle
In this intense and enjoyable retreat, we complete one essay, creative nonfiction, or story from start to finish.
We utilize writing practice techniques to generate an entire rough draft of your piece in two hours. By the end of the weekend you'll have your piece typed and you'll have the polishing process well in hand.
You will learn craft techniques -- from sophisticated sentencing to captivating leads -- that would otherwise require weeks of coursework from both teachers to assimilate.You will learn secrets of how to prepare the piece for the market and how and where to send it.
The Friday evening (September 9) session meets from 7 to 9 at the Discovery Park Visitor Center. The Saturday (10 to 5) and Sunday (10 to 4) sessions meet there as well. The Visitor Center is a peaceful, beautiful place designed to enhance our creative work together. We will break for lunch, available nearby, on each day.For more information or to register contact Priscilla Long or Nick O'Connell.
Four-session Craft Intensive: June 2005
Monday June 20
Tuesday June 21
Wednesday June 22
Thursday June 23
6:00-8:30 p.m. (food permitted)
Place: Richard Hugo House (Note that this is an independent class, not part of the Hugo House Inquiry Through Writing series of classes).
This is a small class planned specifically for writers who have been trying to get into one or another of my full craft classes. This is an intense immersion in craft technique including sophisticated sentencing, language work, deep structure, and approaches to increasing the depth and insight of your writing. Maximum eight.
Advanced Short Forms Seminar Spring 2005
8 weeks, Mondays, 12:45-3:15.
Where: The Good Shepherd Center in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood
Who may join the class? Both fiction and nonfiction writers are welcome. An important consideration is whether you have cleared enough time to carry out this work, since writers are expected to turn in all work on time. Another consideration is whether your current writing goals are in sync with our work this spring. Writers of varying levels are welcome here or in the spring Personal Essay class. Please email me and we will talk over your situation as a writer and which class would benefit you the most.
Personal Essay
Taught Spring 1998-Spring 2005
UW Extension, 10 weeks
UW campus
Texts:
Notes and Exercises for Practicing Writers by Priscilla Long, supplied by Instructor
Best American Essays (current year)
Some years, a second anthology such as:
Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones, eds., In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction. Norton 1996.
The personal essay has become increasingly visible as an art form along with creative nonfiction and memoir, labels often used interchangeably. In this seminar, we work intensively with three approaches -- writing practice, sophisticated craft exercises, and the close inspection of models -- to write two essays. Writers incorporate the techniques of master writers, while deepening their own visions and voices. We also workshop for two sessions, and develop strategies for publishing.
Advanced Short Forms Seminar Winter 2005
8 weeks, Mondays, 12:45-3:15.
Where: The Good Shepherd Center in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood
Craft Focus: Sentences that enact their meaning.
We will write one new piece based on template.
We will complete two pieces that are on our work-in-progress pile.
Please come to class with your book of "12 templates" in perfect order.
Fall 2004
From Imitation to Imagination: A Course for Beginning and Experienced Writers
A four-week course: Tuesday evenings October 26-November 23 (skip November 16), 2004
6:45 – 9:15 p.m. at Pegasus Coffee House, Bainbridge Island
Where: This course is offered at Field's End, the Literary Arts center located on Bainbridge Island.
Text: In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction, Judith Kitchen & Mary Paumier Jones, eds. (Norton, 1996)
In this course, we will use imitation as a doorway to the house of our
own imagination. We will imitate structures and forms while writing our
own works in our own words. In the first week, we will look at the deep
structure of a short story and two short essays, and we will base new
work of our own on one of these structures. Subsequently, we will look
at, and imitate, amazing sentences, gorgeous transitions, entrancing digressions,
and brilliant paragraphs. The aim of the course is to improve our own
writing by imitating the techniques and strategies of published writers.
Whereas our instincts may tell us to think of imitating as cheating, the
truth is that imitation (done as we will do) is a time-honored, ethical,
and proven method of vastly improving one’s written work.
Weekend Retreat with Priscilla Long and Nick O'Connell on September 10, 11, 12, 2004.
Held at Discovery Park Visitor Center.
Personal Essay: Spring 2004,
UW Extension, see above.
Advanced Short Forms Seminar
Spring 2004
8 weeks, Mondays, 12:45-3:15. Class begins on Monday April 5, 2004.
It runs for eight weeks with a break on Memorial Day.
Where: The Good Shepherd Center in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood
In this course we will compose one new piece, a fiction, and work on completing and polishing two pieces from our backlog of work in progress. Our craft work will be metaphor, and a systematic investigation of deep structure.
Becoming a Writer: Approaches and Practices
Where: Field's End on Bainbridge Island
Four Tuesday evenings. Begins Tuesday February 10, 2004.
This four-week course is designed for absolute beginners and experienced writers alike. In it we will explore approaches to developing or continuing to develop into the writer you've always wanted to be.We concern ourselves with 1) steady productivity through writing practice; 2) using models to learn deep structure and other moves; 3) advancing our craft skills, particularly focussing on sophisticated sentencing; 4) working with language to make music and meaning; 5) using writing to deepen observation and insight; 6) adopting a few of the strategies high-achieving creators employ to work more effectively. As part of our work together we will create a short piece from start to finish. Bring to class a smallish blank book for use as a lexicon, and a notebook (preferably bound, such as a composition book) to write in. The instructor will supply the text at the first class. No laptops in class, please. Limit 12.
Advanced Short Forms Seminar Winter 2004
8 weeks, Mondays, 12:45-3:15
Craft focus: Metaphor.
In this class we will work intensively on story structure and on sentence structure. We will compose two new works (a three-part piece based on the structure of Michael Dorris's "Three Yards," and a profile) and we will complete one work drawn from our backlog of works not-finished.
Becoming a Writer: Approaches and Practices
Where: Field's End on Bainbridge Island
When: Tuesday evenings, 6:45-9:15, October 14, 21, and
28, and November, 2003.
Weekend Retreat with Priscilla Long and Nick O'Connell on July 11-13, 2003
Advanced Short Forms Seminar Spring 2003
8 weeks, Mondays, 12:45-3:15
Where: The Good Shepherd Center in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood
April 14-June 9, 2003
Required Reading (Please obtain and read before the class begins.)
Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones, eds., In Short: A Collection
of Brief Creative Nonfiction. Norton 1996.
A book of additional readings will be distributed at the first class.
In this class we will work intensively on story structure and
on sentence structure. We will compose two new stories and complete
one piece that remains incomplete from our respective backlogs.
The first piece will be a biographical essay or a biographical story. The second will be a piece based on the structure of any model essay in In Short, the model to be chosen by you. (We will each present
our chosen model to the class.)
Personal Essay: Spring 2003,
UW Extension, see above.
Winter 2003
The Art of the Sentence: Moving your Writing from Competent to Brilliant Through More Sophisticated Sentencing.
This course is offered at Field's End, the new Literary Arts center
located on Bainbridge Island.
When: Four Tuesday afternoons, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., January 14-February
4, 2003.
Instructor: Priscilla Long
Requirements: A two-page writing sample.
In this four week course, we will upgrade our sentencing skills. We will
break out of our habitual if competent sentencing into a more fluid practice
in which our sentence-forms carry (and thus intensify) the content of
our fiction, memoir, or creative nonfiction. For example, we might use
shattered sentences (fragments) to write a shattering experience. We scrutinize
models (asking why the Lord tends to speak in compound sentences, looking
at the Very Long sentences of Hemingway and Violette Le Duc). We use writing
practice and craft exercises to become wizards of the sentence -- and
that much closer to realizing the potential of our created works. No need
to remember your third grade lessons in diagramming sentences! Come to
class with a notebook to write in, and a smaller blank book for use as
a lexicon.
Advanced Short Forms Seminar Winter 2003
8 weeks, Mondays, 12:45-3:15
January 6-March 8, 2003
We will write three works in creative nonfiction or fiction. We will scrutinize
models closely, and work on craft.
The three works:
1. An essay or fiction which combines an aspect of autobiography with
knowledge from the realm of science, medicine, the arts, or some other
field of knowledge;
2. A fiction based on point of view work and other work resulting from
the study of James Baldwin's "Out the Wilderness";
3. A piece (fiction or nonfiction) deeply based on place. The place can
be an old familiar one or a new place.
Two books are required:
James Baldwin, Going to Meet the Man (New York: Vintage, Random
House [1948] 1993);
Alistair MacLeod, Island: the Complete Stories (New York: Vintage,
Random House, 2000);
A reader with model stories, and Notes and Exercises for Practicing Writers by Priscilla Long will be distributed at the first class.
Creating a Work of Short Fiction or Creative Nonfiction Winter
2003
Where: Field's End
Three two-hour classes, Tuesday evenings, 7:15-9:15, February 25; March
4; and March 11.
Text: Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones, eds., In Short: A Collection
of Brief Creative Nonfiction. Norton 1996. (Note: Students should
read the book before class starts.)
Come to this three-session class with an idea for a work of short fiction or creative nonfiction. In the first session we'll use writing practice to generate a draft of the work. We will then begin working craft. Between classes, we'll do short daily assignments. We arrive at the second session with our new work still rough, but typed. Using writing practice and craft exercises, we'll work on structure including beginnings, sentencing, setting, portrait, dialogue, diction, and deepening insight. To all three classes, bring a notebook in which to write by hand. No laptops, please.
Weekend Intensive taught by Nick O'Connell and Priscilla Long, July 26-28, 2002
Spring 2002
Personal Essay, UW Extension, see above.
Spring 2002
Marathon Class in writing the Short-Short (fiction and nonfiction)
8-week class, Mondays, 12:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Begins April 22.
Held at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.
Required Text:
Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories ed. by Robert Shapard
and James Thomas (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1986).
Winter 2002:
Advanced Short Forms Seminar: Short Fiction, Essay, and/or Creative
Nonfiction
10 week class
Mondays, 12:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.
January 7- April 1, 2002
Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.
Texts: Best Short Stories of 2001 ed. by E. L. Doctorow
Xeroxed book of essays and stories supplied by Priscilla
Notes and Exercises for Practicing Writers by Priscilla Long, supplied
by Priscilla
In this ten-week seminar, we will begin, complete, and polish three short works: 1) a fiction deeply anchored in autobiography; 2) a literary work that engages extensively with a nonliterary art form; 3) An essay or short story which uses an Interior Monologue point of view. (This begins our systematic exploration of point of view.) We will also compose a one page artist statement. Each week we will do a craft exercise (such as the gesture-observation exercise or the Here and Now exercise), compose a paragraph using it, and have it ready to turn in by the next class. Our approaches will be writing practice, craft exercises to deepen observation and language skills, and the scrutiny of models.
Work Sample: Creative Nonfiction
Contact Me:PriscillaLong@comcast.net