Author: Sharla Yates

Great memoirs begin with a single, unforgettable moment. In this session, we’ll explore how to write an opening that pulses through your story—anchoring tone, tension, and truth from the first lines.

For Memorists

In this 90-minute webinar, you will dive headfirst into the art of crafting an unforgettable memoir opening. Learn skills that allow you to deploy metaphor with precision in order to create depth for your story, and study how the use of ordinary moments and crystal clear images set up patterns that will linger in the reader’s mind. Examine how sentences can be crafted to establish your singular voice and raise the stakes from the very first line. And gain experience in cueing the thrum of backstory—the invisible pulse of what has already happened, which creates a powerful undertow that pulls your reader through the story.  

By the end of the session, you will have a set of shiny new tools, along with some insights and inspiration to create an opening that will hook your readers, launching your memoir on a wave that will carry them from the first word to the last.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXAMINE the key elements of a strong memoir opening 
• LEARN to use those elements in your own work
• DISCOVER opening pitfalls—common reasons agents/publishers/readers don’t read on
• BALANCE backstory with the story that launches on page one

This webinar is ideal for writers who:

• Are uncertain how to start writing their memoir.
• Have a memoir in progress, but are stuck.
• Are embarking on a revision of a current project.
• Want to capture the attention of readers—and hold them.
• Are receiving rejections without feedback.

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

One of CRAFT TALKS’ most popular presenters, for her insightful and inspiring webinars, HEATHER SELLERS is the author of 11 books, including four books on craft, a memoir, a children’s book, a collection of short stories, and four volumes of poetry.  She teaches in the MFA program at the University of South Florida, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, The Sun, and The Best American Essays.

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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When what used to work no longer works, rather than turn away from your creative practice, turn inward with compassion. 

For All Writers

The physical, emotional, and psychological effects of perimenopause and menopause touch every aspect of the life of the person living through it. For many, this period feels like an unraveling, a time when change is demanded in many different ways, and our writing is not exempt. 

We may have changes in lifestyles, schedules, health, or personal responsibilities that have required us to shift the ways we used to write. We may discover that we want something different than what we’ve been pursuing or that our current values are no longer aligned with our earlier years. Even the ways we use language may change. This can feel at best destabilizing, at worst, terrifying. Who am I becoming? What do I need to say? What do I no longer need to say? What if I have nothing left to say?

In an environment where artists are encouraged to “stay in their lane,” creating similar content (especially if they’re achieving external success), we may be afraid to try something new or lose hope and connection to one thing that has always kept us tethered to ourselves: our writing.

In the natural pause and unspooling that comes with menopause and aging, we can let the changes teach us their secrets and grow in unexpected ways—both with our craft and our content. Our writing voices, interests, and routines will change. Learn to move into those changes with ease and compassion for yourself and for your writing. Using gentle questions and generative prompts, we’ll honor where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going next.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXAMINE how peri/post-menopausal changes impact your writing
• EXPLORE ways in which you’ve changed as a writer during this season of life
• LEARN ways to be at ease with the natural pauses and changes in a writing life
• IDENTIFY a key shift in your own life story
• CONNECT that shift to your creative work
• REFLECT on questions to imagine new work and new ways of creating

This webinar is ideal for writers…

• feeling the impact of (peri)menopause on the way they relate to writing
• curious about how (peri)menopause can be an invitation to new ways of storytelling
• who feel disconnected from the writer they used to be
• who are moving into a new stage in their work or life
• who feel boxed in to being a certain kind of writer or working in a certain genre

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Laraine Herring’s memoir, A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens, was released in 2021 from Regal House. She’s the editor of the anthology Becoming Real: Women Reclaim the Power of the Imagined through Speculative Nonfiction (Pact Press, 2024), and a trilogy of writing books from Shambhala, including Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice. She’s a retired professor of creative writing and psychology, and has worked with writers for thirty years. She’s also an illustrator and a grief counselor, and creator of The Grief Forest: a book about what we don’t talk about. She founded the online ‘zine Hags on Fire, a place for women to share stories about menopause, and co-designed The Imaginal Memoir Cave immersion program with Gayle Brandeis. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Tiferet, The Rumpus, The Manifest-Station, and many more places. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Counseling Psychology, and lives in the mountains of northern Arizona with many cats.

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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For Memorists

Great memoirs don’t just stop—they land. Learn how to craft conclusions that feel earned, emotionally true, and satisfying.

Endings are where memoirs earn their meaning. They show us not only what happened, but also what it all added up to—how the writer has changed, what they’ve learned, and where the story leaves them (and us). 

Yet endings are also one of the hardest parts to get right. How do we bring emotional closure without tying things up too neatly? How do we signal growth and understanding without drifting into cliché or sentimentality?.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE how endings satisfy readers, with examples from published memoirs.
• EXAMINE three powerful approaches to endings.
• FIND the ending form that best fits your story’s emotional truth.
• LEARN HOW to create resolution, even in the absence of recovery.
• IDENTIFY common pitfalls in memoir endings 
• LEARN THE CRAFT of conclusions that feel resonant, true, and earned.

This webinar is ideal for writers with complete or near-complete memoir drafts…

• Whose endings feel flat, rushed, or too neatly tied up
• Who want to craft endings that echo emotionally without turning sentimental
• Ready to move beyond “summary endings” to endings that feel inevitable, earned, and alive
  

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

KATIE BANNON is a writer, editor, and educator whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Rumpus, ELLE Magazine, Narratively, and more. Her memoir manuscript, which charts her journey as a compulsive hair puller, was a finalist for the Permafrost Nonfiction Book Prize. A graduate of GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator, she holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Emerson College. She loves helping memoirists and essayists tell their most vulnerable, taboo stories. She lives in Central Massachusetts with her partner and two cats.
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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For All Writers

There is no darkness without light. Find the light, and write it.

We can forget, when the world presses hard upon us, that one of our responsibilities is to locate joy. To feel it. And, if we are writers, to make room for it on our pages. In this craft workshop we’ll rediscover the joy in writers like Brian Doyle, Ross Gay, and Mary Oliver, explore how language works to connect ourselves and our readers with joy, and bring our voices to the page with complexity and surprise.

We’ll think of joy in all its manifestations—as happiness, as light, as entertainment, as awareness, as epiphany. We’ll pause to consider simple prompts. We’ll think about the pairing of joyful verbs and the avoidance of cliché. We’ll find joy, together. A workshop for all ages, all genres, and all frames of mind.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• REDISCOVER the writers who have mastered joy
• BECOME PROFICIENT in surprising turns of phrase
• LEARN HOW to modulate your voice—soft to loud, loud to exultant

This webinar is ideal for writers who are…

• Seeking to build complexity into their work
• Wishing to sidestep cliche as they write toward joy
• Hoping to more completely access and write their emotional life
  

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Beth Kephart is the award-winning writer of three dozen books in multiple genres, an award-winning teacher of memoir, and a paper artist. She is the author, most recently, of Wife|Daughter|Self: A Memoir in Essays, My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera, and Tomorrow Will Bring Sunday’s News: A Philadelphia Story, as well as a series of craft books. Find her art and her musings on language and life at her Substack, The Hush and the Howl.

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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The questions, voices, places, and ideas that haunt you are a roadmap into the deepest layers of your writing. 

For All Writers

As writers, we have themes and questions that we return to over and over again in our work. Sometimes this can feel limiting, but what if what you can’t shake off is meant to stick?  Our “hauntings” are threads we’re holding that haven’t found their pattern. Writing is one of many ways we weave their patterns so they can rest.

What may feel common or repetitive is really the foundation of everything that is ours. These recurring themes contain the portals to our strongest stories.  Let’s look at what we can learn from the things that haunt us and populate our unique writer’s point of view.

In this generative writing workshop, we will engage with exercises that help you meet and get to know the things that haunt you and your work. Not only will you name and dialogue with a haunting or two, but you’ll also learn ways to turn your hauntings into generative writing portals, create three fresh approaches to an old question, and take a short detour through the work of Georgia O’Keeffe’s skull paintings.

Come prepared to explore the other worlds that live inside of you!

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE questions and themes that haunt you
• IDENTIFY a common thread among your obsessions
• REFLECT on the use of a single subject in the skull paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe
• LEARN HOW to re-energize what feels familiar and stale
• CREATE three different writing approaches to one of your hauntings 

This webinar is ideal for writers who…

• Are curious about the secrets hidden in their hauntings 
• Feel their work has become repetitive
• Are seeking new approaches to their writing themes
• Want to learn how to re-energize a familiar topic
• Are feeling stuck inside a single story
  

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Laraine Herring’s memoir, A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens, was released in 2021 from Regal House. She’s the editor of the anthology Becoming Real: Women Reclaim the Power of the Imagined through Speculative Nonfiction (Pact Press, 2024), and a trilogy of writing books from Shambhala, including Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice. She’s a retired professor of creative writing and psychology, and has worked with writers for thirty years. She’s also an illustrator and a grief counselor, and creator of The Grief Forest: a book about what we don’t talk about. She founded the online ‘zine Hags on Fire, a place for women to share stories about menopause, and co-designed The Imaginal Memoir Cave immersion program with Gayle Brandeis. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Tiferet, The Rumpus, The Manifest-Station, and many more places. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Counseling Psychology, and lives in the mountains of northern Arizona with many cats.

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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Feeling overwhelmed by the landscape of literary magazines? Join us in this fun and lively session for answers to your lit mag questions.

For All Writers

The landscape of literary magazines can be overwhelming. With over 6,000 journals currently on the market, writers often struggle with finding the best and most appropriate magazines for their projects. In this lively and informative talk, we will look at the tools available to writers to narrow down the market and discuss ways to find journals specifically suited to their interests. 

Are contests good to enter? How do you determine a credible writing contest? 

What are things to look for in deciding whether to submit to a newer lit mag? 

Should writers pay submission fees? 

What do rejection letters really mean? 

And so much more! 

Gain empowerment to find exciting journals and submit your work for publication. Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN best practices for success in lit mag publishing and writing contests
• DISCOVER ways to narrow the market and target those journals most suitable for your work
• FIND new resources to help you with lit mag publishing
• GET inspired and empowered to send your writing into the world
• ASK any questions you have about lit mag publishing 

This webinar is ideal for writers of all genres who are seeking successful strategies for submitting their work for publication.

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Becky Tuch is a fiction and nonfiction writer based in Pennsylvania. Her short stories have been honored with awards from Moment Magazine, Briar Cliff Review, Glimmer Train as well as fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and elsewhere. Additional work has appeared in Atticus Review, Gulf Coast, Post Road, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and other publications. She is the creator of Lit Mag News, a Substack dedicated to demystifying the world of literary magazines.

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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Learn to write and revise a Hermit Crab essay from the teacher who coined the term, and have fun generating new and surprising work!

For Creative Nonfiction, Personal Essay and Memoir

The “Hermit Crab” essay, Brenda Miller writes in Tell It Slant, borrows a form that already exists in the world to tell a personal story. Like the hermit crab creatures themselves, these essays need a found shell to contain their vulnerable underbellies. 

In this webinar, Brenda Miller will show how you can find your own shells and use them to coax out material that otherwise might not have found its way. She will provide powerful examples and guide you in a fun and inspiring writing practice to generate new and unexpected material. She will also describe revision approaches and submission strategies for these innovative essays.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN how to identify and use the Hermit Crab essay form in your own work. 
• DISCOVER how to select compelling “shells” for Hermit Crab essays.
• STUDY the relationship between form and content. 
• PRACTICE writing techniques that coax out new material by working within borrowed forms.
• LEARN specific revision strategies for refining Hermit Crab essays. 

This webinar is ideal for writers who…

• Need a little “spark” in their writing practice
• Want to explore and experiment with new forms
• Find themselves challenged in writing difficult material.

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Brenda Miller is the author of six essay collections, most recently A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form (University of Michigan Press, 2021). Her book of collaborative essays with Julie Marie Wade, Telephone: Essays in Two Voices, won the Cleveland State Poetry Center Award for an essay collection and was published in 2021. She co-authored Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction  (Third Edition 2019) and The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World. Her poetry chapbook, The Daughters of Elderly Women, received the 2020 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her work has received seven Pushcart Prizes. She is a Professor Emerita at Western Washington University, where she taught creative writing for 25 years.

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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Can you write a powerful, true story in less than 300 words? Learn how to write emotionally resonant, attention-grabbing micro memoirs. 

For Creative Nonfiction, Personal Essay and Memoir

Micro memoirs (a sub-genre of flash creative nonfiction) are true stories from one’s life written with power and brevity. Generally defined as 300 words or less, these tiny essays pack a powerful punch! With a limited word count, every word matters. Through writing micros, you’ll learn to distill what’s most important, focus on a single experience, and rely on images and sensory details to make your work pop on the page—work that can help your scenes, essays, and manuscripts, too.

During this online generative webinar, participants will look at examples of evocative micro memoirs and explore what makes them effective. They’ll learn how to create a lasting emotional impact on readers with just a few words by using precise sensory details, poetic devices, and metaphor. At the end, Bethany will provide three writing prompts as optional homework to jumpstart your writing!

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE the six key elements of a successful micro memoir.
• DISCOVER how to create emotional resonance so readers keep thinking about your piece long after they read it.
• GET TIPS for writing engaging and powerful micro memoirs that editors and readers will love.
• EXPLORE how compression, sensory details, and lyricism increase the impact of your writing.

This webinar is ideal for writers who want to…

• Explore the possibilities of tiny prose
• Immediately capture the attention of editors and readers
• Increase the impact and emotional resonance within all their writing
• Learn how to use compression and sensory details to make their work come alive
• Explore a form that can be written in liminal moments, in the midst of life’s busyness

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer, poet, writing coach, and 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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Pitching and writing short personal essays for commercial media means answering Why you? and Why now? right up front! 

for Creative Nonfiction and Personal Essay

Learn the nuts and bolts of the 750- to 1,500-word personal experience essays commonly found in popular, mainstream publications, ranging from the Boston Globe Magazine “Connections,” The New York Times “Modern Love,” HuffPost Personal, and special-topics publications like travel (Yankee, Afar), food (Bon Appétit), parenting (Motherwell), and other niche interests, lifestyles, and hobbies. 

Learn how to craft essays that are straightforward, direct, and to the point; that focus on a poignant personal transformation; that have a strong “I” voice narrator from the start; and that provide the reader with some universal takeaway or lesson. We’ll also make sure your essays answer the “why now? ” question by showing how to make your essays timely, topical, and responsive to newsworthy events, anniversaries, and seasons—which editors love. 

This webinar will NOT focus on experimental, lyrical, or literary essays.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• UNDERSTAND the form, structure, and marketplace for mainstream essays.
• AVOID the top mistakes that writers of these essays make.
• DISCOVER how to craft personal experiences into short essays.

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:

• want to publish in mainstream outlets
• struggle finding a clear focus and takeaway for their essays
• want to turn their personal experiences into marketable narratives

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

ETHAN GILSDORF is a writer, teacher, performer, and the author of the Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Esquire, Wired, Salon, O the Oprah Magazine, Brevity, Electric Literature, Poetry, The Southern Review, among other publications, and named “Notable” by The Best American Essays. He 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.

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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