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 WINTER 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 Winter Writing Classes...
Ongoing Weekly Classes
Unlatching Narrative: an Advanced Fiction Seminar with Janis Cooke Newman (Monday evenings beginning 1/25)
It's (Not) All About Me: The Art of the Personal Essay with Laura Fraser (Monday evenings beginning 1/4)
Memoir Intensive: Fact Is Not Truth - Memoir and the Art of Honesty with Rachel Howard (Monday evenings beginning 1/25)
Poetry Workshop with Matthew Zapruder (Monday evenings beginning 2/22)
Short Story Intensive Workshop with Elizabeth Bernstein (Tuesday evenings beginning 1/26)
Memoir II: Intermediate/Advanced Workshop with Rachel Howard (Tuesday evenings beginning 1/26)
Fiction Focus: Six Weeks to Writing Stronger Fiction with Natalie Baszile and Kathryn Ma (Wednesday evenings beginning 2/3)
Creative Writing Jumpstart with Janis Cooke Newman (Wednesday evenings beginning 2/17)
One-Day Workshops
Grotto Cafe - A shot of espresso for the writer's brain with Janis Cooke Newman (2/6, Daily writing begins 2/1)
One-Day Short Story Bootcamp with Elizabeth Bernstein (Saturday, March 20, 10 am to 4 pm)
Weekend Workshops
Travel-Writing: From Pitching Editors to Deciding What to Pack with Laura Fraser and Janis Cooke Newman & Special Guests (March 13 & 14)
Unlatching Narrative: an Advanced Fiction Workshop
Instructor: Janis Cooke Newman
Contact: j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Monday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm, January 25 - March 15
Course fee: $455.00
Description:
"I am interested in helping students improve their writing, but I am equally interested in helping them to discover in what ways their writing may be emerging." Charles Baxter
This graduate-level course is designed for experienced writers who are looking to deepen their knowledge of craft, as well as expand their critical thinking skills when responding to and revising their own work.
In this class, which will combine seminar-style discussion and workshop, we will use both published work and selected texts on craft to explore the art and possibilities of narrative fiction. We will also look closely at each individual student's writing, focusing on what haunts, delights, surprises, and intrigues us, with an eye toward making both the writer's, as well as our own writing stronger.
This class is limited to 10 students.
Because this is an advanced seminar, it is open only to writers who demonstrate that they have successfully mastered the fundamentals of fiction writing.
How to apply for Unlatching Narrative: Please email the instructor first to ensure that there is space in the seminar. In order to be admitted, you will be required to submit a writing sample of approximately 2500 words, along with a cover letter that includes a brief description of what you're working on, as well as a listing of any previous fiction classes you have taken.
There is no reading fee. However, writing samples will not be read until the instructor has received a good faith deposit of $200. The deposit should be mailed to The Grotto, 490 Second Street, SF, CA 94107, attention: Janis Cooke Newman. The check should be made out to the instructor. In the event that the applicant is not admitted to the class, the check will be destroyed.
Please note: The point of the writing sample is to ensure that all of the students in the course have a clear understanding of the fundamentals of fiction writing. This will ensure that our discussion can go beyond these basic craft topics. It is suggested that those who are relatively new to fiction enroll in Fiction Focus, offered on Wednesday nights.
Janis Cooke Newman has taught creative writing in the Bay Area for the past 10 years. She 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,' which was published in four countries. She runs an online daily writing writing group at creativecaffeine.blogspot.com/. www.janiscookenewman.com
It's (Not) All About Me: The Art of the Personal Essay
Instructor: Laura Fraser
Contact:laura@laurafraser.com
Number of sessions: 6
Meeting times: Monday evenings, 7 pm - 9:30 pm, January 4 - February 8
Course fee: $350 ($295 for students who took the all-day Personal Essay workshop in December)
Description: It's (Not) All About Me: a Personal Essay Workshop is a workshop for writers who want to work on first-person essays or pieces of memoir. We will work on scenes, structure, dialogue, description, voice, and other techniques of transforming experience into essay. Students should come to class prepared to workshop an essay they are working on; email the instructor for more information. Enrollment limited to 12. Please send a check to Laura Fraser at the Grotto to hold your space.
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.
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,January 25 - Feb. 8. Optional
critique session 6:30 - 9:30, Monday, February 22.
Course fee:$195. Optional critique session $75
Description: You want to tell your story and you want to tell the truth. But how does truth differ from mere fact in memoir? And how do we find and give form to 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 Susan J. Miller, 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. Each student receives private feedback on his or her writing between classes, and individualized writing assignments. Plenty of time reserved for practical Q and A. Ethical quandaries--"What will my family think if they read this?"--welcome.
In the optional fourth session, participants submit up to 20 pages of their memoirs-in-progress for in-depth group discussion and a detailed letter of personal critique.
This class is for students already at work on a memoir, as well as those just starting out. It serves as an introductory class for students who would like to continue on to the Intermediate/Advanced Memoir Workshop.
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.
Memoir II: Intermediate/Advanced Workshop
Instructor: Rachel Howard
Contact: rachel.howard@gmail.com
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Tuesday evenings, 6:30 - 9:30,January 26 - March 23 (no class February 16)
Course fee:$455.
Class limited to 10 students
Description: This weekly workshop provides ongoing craft discussion and critique for committed memoir writers. During the opening portion of each class we'll talk about a variety of published readings, including Sven Birkert's "Time and the Art of Memoir." Then we'll turn to your work, aiming to reflect back to the writer what has been communicated, and then to describe the further opportunities we see. We'll point to strengths, and offer ideas for revision in a supportive, thoughtful environment. Every writer in the class will have the opportunity to submit to workshop twice during our eight weeks together. Ultimately this class will help you gain greater perspective on your work by listening to others. But my deeper goal is to help you build a strong personal writing sensibility by encouraging you--amidst the flurry of feedback--to listen foremost to yourself.
Note: This class is geared to intermediate and advanced memoir writers. Admission requires submission of a short writing excerpt to assure correct placement, or completion of an earlier Memoir Intensive.
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: Matthew Zapruder
Contact: matthew@matthewzapruder.com
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Monday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm; February 22 - April 12
Course fee: $455
Description: "A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words" -- William Carlos Williams
This poetry workshop will have three main purposes: to help you understand your own poetry better; to give you strategies for writing more new work (as well as revising); and to illuminate practices, techniques, and mechanisms of poetry in general. We will do this by reading aloud the poems you have written and brought into class, and then discussing, carefully, systematically and in detail, our various experiences as readers and listeners. Our class discussions will focus primarily on exploration of the choices the writer has made: how the small (or large) machine of the poem is working, what it is doing, what the poem seems to be trying to accomplish, and what further possibilities for writing and understanding it opens, for the writer as well as for us, its readers. As one of the goals of this class is to keep you regularly writing, each week I will give you an optional writing prompt. This course is suitable for beginning as well as advanced students: if you have questions about your participation in the course, please contact the instructor.
Instructor bio: Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry: his latest, Come On All You Ghosts, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon in 2010. His poems, essays and translations have appeared in many publications, including Open City, Bomb, Harvard Review, Paris Review, The New Republic, The Boston Review, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, The Believer and The Los Angeles Times. He has received a William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, a May Sarton Award from the Academy of American Arts and Sciences, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. In Fall 2010 he will be the Holloway Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. An editor for Wave Books and a member of the permanent faculty in the low residency MFA program at UC Riverside-Palm Desert, he lives in San Francisco. More information is available at matthewzapruder.wordpress.com
Short Story Intensive Workshop
Instructor: Elizabeth Bernstein
Contact:eb@elizabethbernstein.com
Number of sessions: 8
Meeting times: Tuesday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm; January 26 - March 16
Course fee: $455.00
Spots reserved with $100 deposit. 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.
Fiction Focus: Six Weeks to Writing Stronger Fiction
Instructors: Natalie Baszile and Kathryn Ma
Contacts:Natalie Baszile (nbaszile@gmail.com) and Kathryn Ma (kathryn@kathrynma.com)
Number of sessions: 6
Meeting times: Wednesday evenings, 6:30 - 9:00, February 3 - March 10
Course fee: $400.
Please contact both instructors to register.
Two experienced writers team-teach this seminar/workshop on how to write fiction. In six weeks, we'll help you develop your manuscript and reinvigorate your writing. Each class begins with a discussion on the nuts and bolts of fiction, using readings from texts as models. We'll follow that with workshop, in which we'll guide the group through a thoughtful, productive discussion of individual manuscripts. Our goals are to sharpen reading skills, unearth your material, and spark ideas for how to make the work stronger. Every manuscript will get the benefit of two teacher perspectives as we explore the strengths and soft spots in the student's work. The goal here isn't to teach you a set of RULES for writing, but rather, to provide you with the TOOLS to discover and explore your writing voice.
Instructor Bios:
Instructor: Janis Cooke Newman
Contact: j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 4
Meeting times: Wednesday evenings, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm, February 17 - March 10
Course fee: $250.00
Description: This class is guaranteed to get you writing! Using a combination of daily writing prompts, trigger exercises meant to unlock creativity, and good old fashioned deadlines, this workshop is designed to help writers generate new work, and build a regular writing practice. Students will receive daily writing prompts from the instructor, and will be paired with writing partners. In class, we'll talk about strategies for developing a consistent writing practice, as well as try out writing exercises that will trigger new work, as well as open up existing pieces. We'll even do a little workshopping.
This class is equally appropriate for writers of both fiction and non-fiction.
Students who sign up for both Grotto Cafe (see below) and Creative Writing Jumpstart will receive a $50 discount on the combined cost.
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/
One-Day Workshops:
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, February 6, 10 am to 1 pm, Daily writing prompts begin Monday, February 1
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, February 1), 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/
One-Day Short Story Bootcamp
Instructor: Elizabeth Bernstein
Contact:eb@elizabethbernstein.com
Number of sessions: 1
Meeting times: Saturday, March 20, 10 am to 4 pm.
Course fee: $155.00
Spots reserved with $50 deposit. Contact: eb@elizabethbernstein.com
Description: In one information-filled Saturday, learn everything you need to know about writing, revising and publishing your short stories. This hands-on workshop will cover every aspect of the craft, using fun in-class exercises and discussion. You’ll learn about all about character, voice, story arc, and point of view, plus how to get started, write convincing dialogue, and create believable heroes and villains. You’ll discover how to use setting to underscore your story, how to fictionalize real people and events, and how to write powerful endings. We’ll talk about the revision process and editing and sharing your work, as well as overcoming procrastination and living the writer’s life. Finally, we’ll talk about publishing and selling your work, including contests and the growing market for flash fiction.
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.
Week-end Workshops:
Travel Writing: From Pitching Editors to deciding What to Pack
Instructors: Laura Fraser & Janis Cooke Newman, plus special guest
Contacts:laura@laurafraser.com, j-newman@comcast.net
Number of sessions: 2 day-long sessions,
Meeting times: This class will be offered Saturday & Sunday, March 13 & 14, 10 am - 4 pm
Course fee: $275
Description: In this weekend-long workshop, we'll cover everything you need to know to become a travel writer - from how to decide where to go, to coming up with an irresistible angle, to knowing where & how to pitch your story. We'll also do some in-class exercise to help you hone your travel writing skills. And we'll throw in a lesson on travel photography (from a nationally-known photojournalist). Whether you're interested in writing destination pieces for newspapers and magazine, travel essays, or even a full-length travel memoir, this class will give you the tools you need to become a travel writer.
Between them, Laura Fraser and Janis Cooke Newman have published in practically every travel newspaper and magazine in the country.
