Author: Sharla Yates

Learn to use your writerly “lens” to focus on the solitary details that open a narrative universe of fluid, truthful, and seamless prose.

For Creative Nonfiction and Fiction Writers
Included in the upcoming Season Pass

Writers of fiction and nonfiction alike understand: we can’t use ostentatious or flowery language, nor vague or abstract moments, if we want to truly grab our readers and immerse them in the world of our story. Learn how to focus your scenes with concrete details, vivid imagery, original language, and apt metaphor that is scaled to the task at hand.

In this webinar, we’ll use the metaphor of photography and cinema to focus our writing lenses on the art of the close-up—the particular, singular, and sustained. Looking at writers from Cheryl Strayed to Virginia Woolf, J.R.R. Tolkien to Zadie Smith, we’ll examine how to describe physical things and people, places, as well as discreet moments in time, states of high emotion, and interiority with rigor and specificity. From “close-ups” like a dying moth on a windowsill; the way a drunken father stumbles around the house; the moment you tossed your second hiking boot off the mountaintop; a feeling of foreboding partway through a quest; you’ll discover how to use language beautifully and truthfully to create what John Gardner called a “vivid and continuous” dream in the reader’s imagination.  

You’ll leave having written some new passages that you can use in any writing project.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE the craft of sustained, vivid description
• DISCOVER how to manipulate your writerly lens of focus with intention
• LEARN the difference between the particular and specific vs. the vague and abstract
• PRACTICE writing new passages using close-up techniques you can immediately apply to your own work

This webinar is ideal for writers who:

• feel their work is flat or lacking depth, focus or specificity
• are finding their writing voice
• struggle with writing description
• want to move beyond generic imagery and find the singular, unexpected detail that brings a scene to life

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

A sharp, funny presenter, Ethan Gilsdorf is a writer, teacher, performer, and a huge nerd. The author of the award-winning memoir Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, his work appears in the New York Times, Washington Post, Esquire, Wired, Salon, O the Oprah Magazine, Huffington Post, Brevity, Electric Literature, Poetry, and The Southern Review, among other publications, and has been named “Notable” by The Best American Essays. 

Ethan teaches workshops in essay, creative nonfiction, and memoir at GrubStreet in Boston, where he leads the Essay Incubator program, and at LitArts RI. He is also on the faculty of the Solstice MFA Program at Lasell University. At Hampshire College, he studied filmmaking and creative writing and received an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Louisiana State University. He presented the TEDx talk “Why Dungeons & Dragons is Good for You (In Real Life)” and offers workshops teaching adults, children, and organizations how to play Dungeons & Dragons.

REFUNDS (less a $10 processing fee) ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

There are no refunds after the replay is sent.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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Inspiration is tied to innovation, and innovation is a deliberate act.

For Nonfiction, Memoir, and Fiction Writers
Included in the upcoming Season Pass

This webinar will be entirely interactive, with varied suggestions, nudges, and obstructions carefully designed to uncover fertile new directions for your work, whether you are looking to start something new or trying to regain momentum in your current work-in-progress.

Well-meaning folks often ask about our “inspiration,” as if some external force—an angel, a bluebird, the Muse—mysteriously slips a brilliant idea into our brain as we sleep, and all we need do is wake up and write it down. Easy peasy!

But it doesn’t work like that. Inspiration is tied to innovation, and innovation is a deliberate act. We achieve success by being the ones who jump up from the rut of normal and predictable, by walking bravely into an unexplored forest of fresh ideas and raw emotions, and trusting we will find something worth writing about there.

And how do we find these forests of artistic innovation? One of the surest ways is prompts and nudges, as odd and varied as we can find.

This approach can work wonders. And by the way, it’s also fun! Bring a pencil or two, some paper, your brain, and a willingness to go in unexpected directions. Shake it up and let’s write!

Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

In this webinar, you will:

• DISCOVER how to shake loose new ideas, new angles and fresh perspectives
• LEARN the power of odd associations, mixed signals, curveballs, and stretching the muscles of the imagination
• EXPERIENCE prompts and nudges that work to open up neural pathways, and lubricate the imagination (and memory)
• UNCOVER fertile new directions for your work
• SURPRISE YOURSELF with new writing in new directions

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who…

• worry that they keep writing the same thing or feel stuck in an established comfort zone
• are concerned that they have “run through” all of their good ideas
• feel stuck on a current project (large or small)
• have just finished a draft and desperately need a palate-cleanser
• are looking for fresh places to take future projects
• want to have fun, surprise themselves, and take some chances

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

One of our most popular and beloved presenters, DINTY W. MOORE, is the author of the memoirs Between Panic & Desire and To Hell With It and the writing guides Crafting the Personal Essay and The Mindful Writer, among other books. He has published essays and stories in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Short Reads, and elsewhere. He is founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Before the replay is sent, you may request a refund less a $10.00 processing fee. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Learn the secrets to writing gorgeous, lyrical work that makes editors and readers say, “Wow!” 

For Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry
Included in the upcoming Season Pass

Do you want your writing to be beautiful and imaginative while staying true to the emotional moment? Would you like to improve the sound and musicality of your sentences? During this generative session, we’ll dive deep into techniques and tools you can use to increase the lyricism of your writing, regardless of genre. 

First, learn the difference between lyrical and narrative writing and when you may want to use one or the other. Then explore the five key elements of lyrical writing, with examples from virtuoso writers, and what makes each one powerful for readers. Finally, practice applying lyrical techniques to your own writing with a prompt and writing time. You’ll leave with the start of a new draft and additional exercises to explore and develop your writing on your own.

Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN the five key elements of lyrical writing
• EXPLORE the differences between lyrical and narrative writing, and how (and why!) to use both
• PRACTICE suspending or manipulating time in your essays, stories, or poems, along with other lyrical techniques
• DISCOVER strategies to increase the emotional and musical resonance of your writing at the sentence level
• USE imaginative tools to add layers to your work

This webinar is ideal for intermediate writers who want to…

• explore lyrical writing 
• deepen and develop their writing voice
• increase the musicality and beauty of their prose or poetry 
• tap into higher levels of imagination and emotion in their writing

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer, poet, writing coach, and enthusiastic, engaging, and inspiring workshop instructor. She’s the author of a poetry collection, Lightning Is a Mother, and a memoir, Take Me Home. Her work has been published in more than 100 literary magazines, including Rattle, Brevity, and Chestnut Review. Her writing was selected for Best Spiritual Literature and Best Small Fictions and nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Struggling with writing scenes or recreating lost memories? Thinking like a photographer can help.

REPLAY INCLUDES: VIDEO, CHAT, PROMPTS, HANDOUT, AND TRANSCRIPT

Not included in the Season Pass

Images can be a remarkable tool for creative nonfiction writers. Photographers use vivid prose to describe their work, and the techniques they use to create inspired, memorable photos can have the same effect on your writing.

As memoirists, we choose what events and moments belong in our work. Photographers make similar decisions when composing images, and the elements that make a picture memorable and meaningful are often the result of choices that the casual observer doesn’t even realize the person behind the camera is making. Whether you’re writing a memoir or creative nonfiction, photographs can be a powerful tool to help you not only tap into what is happening but also show the reader why these scenes are taking place.

In this webinar, we will examine samples of memoir and essay that draw upon photographs to deepen scenes and characters, and you will learn how to use these practical techniques in your own storytelling.

Registrants will receive a handout with prompts and actionable tips.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN to read photographs in order to better understand composition of scenes
• DRAW inspiration from two-dimensional images to “frame” your own scenes
• LEARN how to create compelling prose that draws your reader into your story 

This webinar is for creative nonfiction writers who are struggling to make old memories or family tales come to life.

The live event happened in November 2023.

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Grace Hwang Lynch is a storyteller in journalism, essays, and photography. Her work can be found on outlets including Tin House, Catapult, and NPR. Her food memoir How to Cook Rice: On the Care and Feeding of an Immigrant Family will be published in early 2027 by Regalo Press. Website: www.gracehwanglynch.com

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Because the replay is delivered instantly upon purchase, all sales are final.

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Crossing genres can be an obstacle—or a selling point. Explore the craft of writing and the art of pitching a memoir that wants both poetry and prose.

For Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, and Hybrid

Sometimes a moment demands the compression of a poem. Sometimes it needs room to breathe in prose. But what happens when your memoir wants both? In this webinar, we’ll explore the craft of hybrid memoir—how to recognize when a piece is calling for verse versus essay, how to let both forms coexist without flattening or repeating yourself, and how each genre can do work the other can’t.

We’ll also tackle the practical challenges of bringing hybrid and multi-genre work to publication: how to structure the manuscript, how to describe it in a query, how to find receptive publishers, and how to talk about your book when it defies easy categorization.

Drawing from Brenda’s experience writing and placing Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems (Skinner House Books, April 2026), she’ll share both the creative and publishing lessons learned along the way.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN to recognize when a moment, image, or memory wants to be a poem or an essay
• GAIN permission to try different forms and genres for the same material
• DISCOVER strategies for letting poetry and prose speak to each other without redundancy
• EXPLORE organizing principles for a hybrid manuscript
• PRACTICE language for describing multi-genre work to agents, editors, and readers
• IDENTIFY which presses are most open to unconventional memoir forms

This webinar is for…

• writers who enjoy the freedom to explore more than one genre at once (and want to feel better about it!)
• anyone who has wondered: “Is this a poem or is this an essay?”—and suspected the answer might be “yes”
•  writers working on a book that feels like “essays” and “memoir” and “maybe poetry” all at once
• anyone who has been told their manuscript is “hard to categorize” or “difficult to shelve”
• those preparing to query or submit a multi-genre project and unsure how to describe it

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Brenda Miller is noted for making form “feel like a gift, not a constraint” and teaches as “a wise friend who’s read everything and still gets excited about a well-placed line break.” Warm, practical, and full of “what ifs,” Brenda’s sessions are full of the mutual joy of discovery. 

Brenda Miller’s new hybrid collection, Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems, is just out from Skinner House Books (April 2026). She is the author of six additional essay collections, including A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form, andAn Earlier Life, winner of the Washington State Book Award for Memoir. Her work has received seven Pushcart Prizes. She co-authored, with Holly J. Hughes, The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and, with Suzanne Paola, Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, now in its third edition. She coined the term “Hermit Crab Essay.” Her website is www.brendamillerwriter.com.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Before the replay is sent, you may request a refund less a $10.00 processing fee. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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In all the hype and paranoia around AI, it’s still our flawed, funny, and felt humanity that brings art into the world.

For Creative Nonfiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry

Artificial Intelligence can’t do what you can do because it doesn’t feel what you feel. Learn to harness those feelings to make original and unforgettable human art. 

We’ll explore AI via literature and writing, with an overview of how chatbots produce “original” works, trends in publishing and marketing related to the rise of AI, and what artificial writing can teach us about our own, human craft. 

As part of our investigation, we’ll study technical aspects of AI to learn how it works and how to detect its usage. And we’ll examine how our own response to the emergence of AI can help us contend with the social, moral, and aesthetic challenges posed by advancements in technology. 

This webinar will allay your fears over AI taking over the world—or at least taking over the writing world—and putting all of us creative writers out of business. No prior technical knowledge is required—only a passion for reading, exploring how technology shapes storytelling, and uncovering how human stories shape technology.

In this webinar, you will:

• UNDERSTAND how so-called Artificial Intelligence actually writes
• EXPLORE what AI reveals about writing formulas and clichés to avoid in our own work
• LEARN how to write, publish, and stand out in a world beset by emerging technologies

This webinar is for beginning and intermediate writers who …

• worry about AI and its impacts on their own writing and prospects for publication
• seek to make their own work more original and attention-grabbing
• want to recognize AI “in the wild” and understand its use as a tool

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Jaswinder Bolina’s superpower is translating complicated ideas into conversational, humorous sessions that students find transformational for their work. Noted for being analytical yet highly approachable, Jaswinder’s most recent book English as a Second Language and Other Poems (2023) was awarded the 2025 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University. He is author of three previous poetry collections, The 44th of July (2019), Phantom Camera (2013), and Carrier Wave (2007), and of the essay collection Of Color (2020). 

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Before the replay is sent, you may request a refund less a $10.00 processing fee. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Dropping our readers into a particular time, a particular place, populated by particular people, is essential to making readers care about our stories. Learn to create vibrant, convincing reality on the page.

For Memoirist and Essay Writers

Memoir is a juggling act. As writers, our job is to bring the potent emotional stakes of our story to the page right from the beginning, introducing conflicts and launching the book’s dynamic journey. But equally important is establishing the story’s reality and dropping our readers into a particular time, a particular place, populated by particular people. This is how readers begin to care deeply and invest their hearts in our work.

This interactive webinar will closely examine the techniques of setting and characterization—often taught in fiction workshops—and how important they are to memoir. We will study the difference between mere “description” and active, dynamic detail and movement. Prompts will be provided for new work and for work-in-progress.

Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

In this webinar, you will:

• DISCOVER how to transplant readers directly into the world of your memoir through vivid, specific detail
• LEARN the craft of characterization techniques borrowed from fiction and applied to true stories
• IDENTIFY the difference between static description and dynamic, active detail that propels your narrative forward
• PRACTICE writing prompts designed to deepen both new work and works-in-progress
• EXPLORE how to establish emotional stakes early while simultaneously grounding readers in time, place, and character

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who…

• would  like their work to immediately capture attention, to engage agents, editors and—most of all—readers
• struggle with “Why would anyone care about my story?”
• worry their prose is moving too slowly, that they may be “explaining too much” and showing too little
• are insecure about their storytelling skills (that’s all of us)!

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

One of our most popular and beloved presenters, DINTY W. MOORE, is the author of the memoirs Between Panic & Desire and To Hell With It and the writing guides Crafting the Personal Essay and The Mindful Writer, among other books. He has published essays and stories in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Short Reads, and elsewhere. He is founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Before the replay is sent, you may request a refund less a $10.00 processing fee. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Unlock your storytelling potential and share your words with captivating brevity.

REPLAY INCLUDES : VIDEO, CHAT SCRIPT, AUDIO FILE, SLIDES, HANDOUT, AND TRANSCRIPT & MORE

Micro prose—stories told in 300 words or less—provides an opportunity for more, not less. Learn how this short but versatile form can amplify your creative nonfiction work (memoir and personal essay) and even poetry and fiction. 

We’ll look at examples of micro in the world, how you can begin writing micro right away, and submission opportunities as you ready your work for the world. Darien will share her methods for drafting and crafting micro prose, and lead an in-class exercise so you can try it for yourself. 

If you’ve ever been curious about micro, now’s a great time to add this powerful form to your writer’s toolbox.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN about micro prose and its storytelling superpowers
• EXPLORE micro prose possibilities for creative nonfiction, fiction or poetry projects
• CONSIDER submission and publication options for your own micro prose work 

This webinar is ideal for writers who …

• want to explore new ways to generate material
• are interested in learning more about short-form writing
• are ready to experiment with different ways of telling a story
• want to publish short work as they write toward longer projects
• want to deepen their literary craft

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Darien Hsu Gee is an international bestselling author published by Penguin Random House and the third Mark Twain Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Connecticut, following Alexander Chee and Justin Torres. Her work spans genres, from novels translated into eleven languages to award-winning micro prose and poetry collections. She is the executive editor of Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World (IPPY Silver Award) and the author of Allegiance (IPPY Bronze Award), Other Small Histories (Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship), and Writing the Hawaiʻi Memoir (Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award of Excellence).

A recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant and a Vermont Studio Center fellowship, Darien teaches creative nonfiction at UCLA Extension and Hugo House. She also leads specialized micro prose workshops through her platform, Writer-ish, and publishes two Substacks: Writer-ish, focused on the art of micro prose, and Drafts, Deals & Detours, a real-time look at the working writer’s life.

Her service to the literary community includes board work with Short Reads and Flash Fiction Institute.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Because the replay is delivered instantly upon purchase, all sales are final.

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Beyond show-don’t-tell, create powerful scenes through details, images, and juxtaposition.

For Fiction Writers, Memoirists, and Essayists

Our strongest writing makes the reader feel with our characters/our narrator selves. But too often, we over-write—spelling out emotions, explaining through dialogue, interrupting memoir scenes with reflection or novel scenes with backstory—so that readers are watching someone else have an experience. By paring down our prose to singular details and powerful images, we give room for the reader to “lean in” to the story, actively assemble information, and share the discoveries, realizations, tears, and laughter on the page.

In this interactive webinar (let’s call it a workshop!) we’ll prune text, remove summaries to let details stand, and use gestures and images to create meaning and feeling. We’ll examine how to “score” text by arranging it on the page, making the visual processing of words and white space part of the reader’s experience. In published examples from fiction and memoir, we’ll learn how juxtaposition, high-context dialogue, and purposeful repetition give emotional punch. And we’ll challenge ourselves to create endings without explanations that resonate in the reader’s mind long after they’ve closed the book.

Raise your craft level and gain a tool kit. In-class writing time and live editing will give you a chance to apply this to your writing right away.

Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

This is a TWO-HOUR class, with 20 minutes of writing time in the middle. 

• 45 minutes – Learn a new tool kit of writing techniques to give fewer words more power.
• 5 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the techniques.
• 20 minutes – Revise a scene from your novel, memoir, short story, or essay using your new tools. Allison will continue taking questions in the chat. 
• OPTIONAL: Volunteer for live editing and upload your revised scene as a Word doc or docx to a Google Drive (link will be provided IN CLASS; no pages accepted early).
• 40 minutes – Allison will live-edit volunteer pages on screen, noting where the writer is succeeding and what revisions could make the prose even more effective. She’ll call out specific techniques and tips for everyone to apply to their own work. 
• 10 minutes – additional Q&A and more on applying this work to your writing.

In this workshop you will:

• HEAR how the interplay of said and unsaid makes dialogue more powerful
• SEE how scoring text on the page establishes distance and attitude, smooths transitions, and increases dramatic tension
• DISCOVER ways to increase emotional power on the page through specific details
• APPLY the tools and techniques to your own scene, essay or story
• CREATE powerful emotional connection with deliberate craft choices

This Course is ideal for writers who are …

• Novelists who want readers to feel what the characters are feeling
• Memoirists and essayists who want to write powerful emotions without over-explaining their own feelings or over-using reflection.
• Creative writing students and graduates of MFA programs who want to expand their writing craft with conscious practice.
• Developmental editors who want to grow their knowledge of white space, details, and juxtaposition in prose and better communicate that knowledge to their author clients.
• Writers hearing feedback that they are “telling” or info-dumping on the page
• Writers struggling with realistic dialogue, whether recreating a remembered scene or writing fiction.

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She has edited and coached writers to Big Five and literary/university publishing deals and the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists. She’s guided essayists and humorists to publication in media including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Refinery29, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with weekly blogs on craft and the writing life.As a memoirist, essayist, and travel journalist, Allison has written craft, culture and comedy for National Public Radio, CBC-Canada, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Creative Nonfiction,McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Kenyon Review Online,Travelers’ Tales and Flash Nonfiction Funny.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

Before the replay is sent, you may request a refund less a $10.00 processing fee. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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