Grotto Classes
The Grotto is pleased to offer workshops for writers. Led by professionals devoted to teaching practical aspects of craft, these classes are comparable to those taught in MFA programs and graduate-level journalism schools, and have been selected "Best of the Bay Area" by San Francisco Magazine.
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN FOR FALL CLASSES!
It is recommended that students sign up early, as most classes fill. To register, email the instructor at the address that appears in each class listing. The instructor will contact you and ask for a deposit to reserve your space.
Click on the links below to get more information on (and register for) the Grotto's Fall Writing Classes...
Ongoing Weekly Classes
Non-Fiction Writing with Ethan Watters (Thursday evenings beginning 9/17)
The Art & Craft of Fiction with Janis Cooke Newman (Wednesday evenings beginning 9/16)
Advanced Fiction Workshop with Janis Cooke Newman (Monday evenings beginning 9/14)
Memoir Intensive: Fact Is Not Truth - Memoir and the Art of Honesty with Rachel Howard (Monday evenings beginning 10/26)
Finding the Story with Gerard Jones (Thursday evenings beginning September 17)
Short Story Intensive with Elizabeth Bernstein (Tuesday evenings beginning October 27)
Note: Writers Sampler Menu has been cancelled for this session. If you have registered and require a refund, please contact Laura Fraser at laura@laurafraser.com
One-Day Workshops
How To Get Your Non-Fiction Writing Published with Ethan Watters (9/12)
Writing Historical Fiction with Janis Cooke Newman (10/24)
Grotto Cafe - A shot of espresso for the writer's brain with Janis Cooke Newman (11/21, Daily writing begins 11/16)
It's (Not) All About Me: The Art of the Personal Essay with Laura Fraser (12/5)
On Creating the Adderall Diaries with Stephen Elliott (12/13)
Weekly Classes:
Instructor: Ethan Watters
Contact:ethanw1@mindspring.com, 415-515-5506
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Thursday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm; Sept. 17 - Nov. 5
Course fee: $495.00
Spots reserved with $200 deposit. Full fee due by second class. Contact: ethanw1@mindspring.com, 415-515-5506
Description:
This class will put beginning and intermediate writers on a path to
publishing non-fiction magazine articles, essays and books. An emphasis will be placed on getting students to begin
pitching ideas to magazine editors and agents. Students will learn how
to:
-Find and develop ideas for non-fiction writing
-Write effective query letters for magazine
-How to craft book proposals and magazine features
-Understand the magazine market place
-Develop relationships with editors and agents
-Critiquing and re-writing first drafts
Students will be expected to draft two magazine projects during the
class or one book proposal. These will be workshopped during class.
There will be a reader and short weekly writing assignments both in
and out of class. Class size limited to 13 people.
Instructor bio: Ethan Watters has been a freelance writer for 20 years. He has taught
non-fiction writing at Berkeley, Stanford and is currently an adjunct
professor in the masters writing program at California College of the
Arts. He's written for The New York Times Magazine, Men's Journal,
Outside, Esquire, Discover, Spin, Mother Jones, GQ, Details, HG, and
San Francisco Magazine, among other national and regional
publications. He has also created pieces for Public Radio
International's This American Life. He has written three books: Making
Monsters, Therapy's Delusions and Urban Tribes. Ira Glass has
purchased the movie rights to Urban Tribes and is writing a feature film
based on the book. In 1994 he co-founded the San Francisco Writers'
Grotto. He is currently on a book, Crazy Like Us, about America's influence on
mental illness around the world. For more about Ethan visit:
http://web.mac.com/ethanwatters/Writing_coaching_1/Writing_Coach.html
Instructor: Janis Cooke Newman
Contact: j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Wednesday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm, Sept. 16 - Nov. 4,
Course fee: $455.00
Description:
"Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum." -- Graycie Harmon
This combination seminar/workshop is designed to help fiction writers write more, and get better at evaluating their own work.
In the lecture portion of the class, we’ll cover all the elements of craft – plot, character, dialogue, drama & tension - everything you need to know to write a compelling story. We’ll also talk about strategies to get and keep you writing. During our workshops, we’ll look at individual student’s work, with an eye to becoming a better editor of our own. Toward the end of the session, we will also touch on the business of getting published.
As one of the goals of this class is to keep you writing, you will be assigned a weekly writing partner and sent daily writing prompts meant to give your creativity a jolt.
Note: This course is appropriate for anyone interested in writing fiction. It fulfills the prerequisite for the Advanced Fiction Workshop, which will be offered again in winter 2010.
Instructor bio: Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the novel, 'Mary,' which was a Bay Area Bestseller, a BookSense Pick of the Year, and was named by USA Today as the Best Historical Novel of 2006. 'Mary' was also a Finalist for an LA Times Book Award. She is also the author of a memoir, 'The Russian Word for Snow,' and has taught writing in the Bay Area for the past 9 years. www.janiscookenewman.com
Instructor: Janis Cooke Newman
Contact: j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Monday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm, Sept. 14 - Nov. 2,
Course fee: $425.00
Description:
This weekly ongoing workshop is designed to provide fiction (and memoir) writers with consistent feedback on their work. Each week, half of the class will present writing to the group. The following week, the second half will present. During the critiquing sessions, the instructor will touch on elements of craft raised by the writing.
Note: This workshop is limited to 10 students, and is only open to writers who have taken a previous fiction class with this instructor. (See The Art & Craft of Fiction listed above.)
Instructor bio:
Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the novel, 'Mary,' which was a Bay Area Bestseller, a BookSense Pick of the Year, and was named by USA Today as the Best Historical Novel of 2006. 'Mary' was also a Finalist for an LA Times Book Award. She is also the author of a memoir, 'The Russian Word for Snow,' and has taught writing in the Bay Area for the past 9 years. www.janiscookenewman.com
Memoir Intensive: Fact Is Not Truth - Memoir and the Art of Honesty
Instructor: Rachel Howard
Contact: rachel.howard@gmail.com
Number of sessions: 3, with optional 4th session for personal critique
Meeting times: Monday evenings, 6:30 - 9:30, October 26-November 9. Optional
critique session 6:30 - 9:30, Monday, November 16.
Course fee:$195. Optional critique session $75
Description: You want to tell your story and you want to tell the truth. But
what does ‘truth’ in a memoir really mean? And how do we find and
communicate the deeper truths that compel readers to compulsively turn
pages?
Memoir poses a contract with the reader—“this really happened.” Whether your
story is outrageous or ordinary, compelling memoir need not depart from
facts. But it must dig beneath them to unearth a deeper emotional honesty.
In this class, we’ll use Vivian Gornick’s craft book The Situation and the
Story to help examine the personal story you’re trying to tell, and how you
can best tell it. We’ll look at excerpts from memoirs by such writers as Jo
Ann Beard, Alexandra Fuller, and Tobias Wolff, and do lots of in-class
writing of our own which we will share and discuss. We’ll explore how
memoirists use fictional techniques to transport the reader beyond surface
factuality, and we’ll find the truth that can drive your personal story.
Plenty of time reserved for practical Q and A. Ethical quandaries—“What will
my family think if they read this?”—welcome.
An optional fourth session will be reserved for critique of excerpts from
students’ memoirs-in-progress. Each participant in this session (limited to
six students) will receive a written personal critique from the instructor.
This class is for students already at work on a memoir, as well as those
just starting out.
Instructor Bio: Rachel Howard is the author of the memoir The Lost Night: A
Daughter’s Search for the Truth of Her Father’s Murder, one of the San
Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of 2005. Her personal essays have appeared
in the San Francisco Chronicle and O, the Oprah Magazine. Her advice is
quoted extensively in The Autobiographer’s Handbook: The 826 National Guide
to Writing Your Memoir. She received her MFA from Warren Wilson College.
Instructor: Gerard Jones
Contact: Contact: gerardjones@earthlink.net, 415-310-9510
Number of sessions: 8 (can be taken in 4 week sections)
Meeting times: Thursday evenings, 6:30 - 9:00, September 17 - November 5
8 weeks $450
Either 4-week section $250
Spots reserved with $100 deposit. Full fee due by second class. Ask about discounts for early confirmation.
Description: Whether you’re writing fiction, memoir, narrative nonfiction or a screenplay, you’re most essential job is knowing just what story you’re telling and how to shape the entire work to tell it as clearly and powerfully as you can. In the course of writing and selling five books of nonfiction, four screenplays, dozens of graphic novels and assorted works of long and short fiction, Gerard Jones has developed techniques for finding and developing the “heart of the story”—and has been able to help students transform their own works through the creative, individualized workshops.
The first four weeks of this eight-week course focus on helping you cut through the clutter and vagueness of your ideas to find your most compelling central story. The second set of four weeks will show you how to build outward from that story to structure your work and keep every sentence on track. It’s workshop structure, however, so we can adapt each class and each week’s assignment to where you are in your work. Some students come in with books largely written except for frustrating plot problems, others have only a vague—but everyone who’s taken the class had made impressive progress.
Instructor: Elizabeth Bernstein
Contact:eb@elizabethbernstein.com
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Tuesday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm; Beginning October. 27
Course fee: $425.00
Spots reserved with $100 deposit. Full fee due by second class. Contact: eb@elizabethbernstein.com
Description: A short story can knock you flat, it can break your heart, it can make you believe in the world. But how? How can you achieve all that in just a few thousand words? Through workshop and discussion, this class will cover all the key elements that make a great short story: plot, character, structure, tone, voice, pacing, tension, dialogue, believability, and more. Handouts, exercises and readings will be provided. Tips on marketing and selling your stories will also be discussed.
Be prepared to bring 2-3 stories to class to be workshopped. Class size limited to 12 students.
Instructor Bio: Elizabeth Bernstein is a writer, editor, and writing coach. She's the founder and editor of The Big Ugly Review (www.biguglyreview.com), an online literary magazine that showcases fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, music and short films (called “a great literary magazine” by Utne Magazine and “the fantastic Big Ugly Review” by zyzzyva editor Howard Junker). Her short stories have been published in the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, the North Atlantic Review and other US and international literary journals. Her short story, “Alice,” won first prize in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Fiction Contest and was optioned by Sneaky Little Sister Films. www.elizabethbernstein.com, www.ebc-books.com.
One-Day Workshops:
How To Get Your Non-Fiction Writing Published
Instructor: Ethan Watters
Contact:ethanw1@mindspring.com, 415-515-5506
Number of sessions: 1
Meeting times: This course will be offered Saturday, September 12th, 2009 10 am to 4 pm.
Course fee: $165
Full payment in advance is required for a reserved seminar seat. Contact: ethanw1@mindspring.com, 415-515-5506
Class will be limited to 12 People.
Description:
This class will put beginning and intermediate writers on a path to
getting published. We will focus on how to sell magazine pieces and
non-fiction book projects. Topics will include
-Writing effective query letters for magazine
-Crafting book proposals
-Understanding the magazine/book market place
-Establishing and developing relationships with editors and agent
-The five most common mistakes of beginning writers
Instructor bio: Ethan Watters has been a freelance writer for 20 years. He has taught
non-fiction writing at Berkeley, Stanford and is currently an adjunct
professor in the masters writing program at California College of the
Arts. He's written for The New York Times Magazine, Men's Journal,
Outside, Esquire, Discover, Spin, Mother Jones, GQ, Details, HG, and
San Francisco Magazine, among other national and regional
publications. He has also created pieces for Public Radio
International's This American Life. He has written three books: Making
Monsters, Therapy's Delusions and Urban Tribes. Ira Glass has
purchased the movie rights to Urban Tribes and is writing a feature film
based on the book. In 1994 he co-founded the San Francisco Writers'
Grotto. He is currently on a book, Crazy Like Us, about America's influence on
mental illness around the world. For more about Ethan visit:
http://web.mac.com/ethanwatters/Writing_coaching_1/Writing_Coach.html
Instructor: Janis Cooke Newman
Contact: j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 1
Meeting times: This class will be offered Saturday, October 24, 10 am to 4 pm
Course fee: $155.00
Description:
Writing a story set in a time other than the present comes with its own set of challenges. In this one-day workshop, we'll cover every aspect of writing the historical novel. How to create a historically accurate world without overloading the reader with facts. How to turn real historical figures into interesting characters. How to avoid becoming a victim of ‘research rapture.’ In addition, we’ll also discuss all the usual difficulties that plague novelists – narrative structure, dialogue, how to use (and not use) flashback.
Instructor bio:
Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the novel, 'Mary,' which was a Bay Area Bestseller, a BookSense Pick of the Year, and was named by USA Today as the Best Historical Novel of 2006. 'Mary' was also a Finalist for an LA Times Book Award. She is also the author of a memoir, 'The Russian Word for Snow,' and has taught writing in the Bay Area for the past 9 years. www.janiscookenewman.com
Grotto Cafe - A shot of espresso for the writers' brain
Instructor: Janis Cooke Newman
Contact: j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 1 half-day, plus a week of daily writing prompts
Meeting times: This class will be offered Saturday, November 21, 10 am to 1 pm, Daily writing prompts begin Monday, November 16.
Course fee: $75
Description: Writing is equal parts hard work, technical craft, and voodoo. This class is about the voodoo part. It’s about learning how to access that unconscious part of your writing brain, that place where your stories live.
Here’s how it’ll work. For the week before the class (beginning on Monday, November 16), you will receive a daily writing prompt from the instructor. This prompt will arrive by email first thing in the morning, so you’ll be ready to do a 10 minute free write before you feed the kids and the dog, before you get caught up in all that business email, and before your internal editor wakes up. The idea is to write from as close to an unconscious place as you can.
Once you’ve finished your free write, you will email it to your writing partner (another member of the workshop) as well as to the instructor.
When we gather on Saturday morning, the Grotto conference room will be transformed into a café. There will be coffee, tea, and something sweet to nosh on. You’ll bring your laptop or favorite notebook, and your five free writes. The instructor will have a series of writing exercises and prompts designed to help you write into the most creative part of your brain – and around that internal editor who keeps wanting you to go back and make it all perfect.
We’ll do a lot of writing, share our work, and talk about ways to carve out writing time for ourselves. Because this is process class rather than a craft class, it's equally useful to writers of fiction as well as non-fiction.
Instructor bio:
Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the novel, 'Mary,' which was a Bay Area Bestseller, a BookSense Pick of the Year, and was named by USA Today as the Best Historical Novel of 2006. 'Mary' was also a Finalist for an LA Times Book Award. She is also the author of a memoir, 'The Russian Word for Snow,' and has taught writing in the Bay Area for the past 9 years. www.janiscookenewman.com She currently runs an online daily writing workshop called Creative Caffeine, creativecaffeine.blogspot.com/
It's (Not) All About Me: The Art of the Personal Essay
Instructor: Laura Fraser
Contact:laura@laurafraser.com
Number of sessions: 1
Meeting times: This class will be offered Saturday, December 5, 10 am to 4 pm, with a 1 hour break
Course fee: $155
Description: How do you take your personal writing from your journal and blog to publication? This one-day workshop will explore how to write a personal essay—and how to get it published. We’ll talk about which of your experiences have universal appeal, and when your personal writing is just too personal. We’ll also look at how to structure a personal essay, grabbing the reader’s attention and tugging them along to a satisfying ending. Come with some essay ideas.
Instructor bio: Laura Fraser has published personal essays in O the Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, More, the San Francisco Chronicle, Health, Women's Health, Glamour, Vogue, Self, Eating Well, and numerous anthologies.
On Creating the Adderall Diaries
Instructor: Stephen Ellliott
Contact:stephen@stephenelliott.com
Number of sessions: 1
Meeting times: This class will be offered Sunday, December 13, 2 pm to 3:30 pm
Course fee: Admission is the price of the book ($25) and includes a copy. Additional signed copies of the book will be offered at a discount for gift-givers.
Register via Brown Paper Tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/89641
Description: This talk will focus on the generation of memoir, using the authors recent book, The Adderall Diaries for discussing the process of figuring out your story and editing it into something someone would want to read.
This is Stephen Elliott's first memoir but his seventh book, all of them written from personal experience. We'll use this book as a jumping off point for more general ideas on writing memoir and some of the problems the memoir writer may encounter. In the talk we'll discuss dealing with family members and friends who may not want to be written about and we'll also go through some writing tips for accessing memories and experiences.
