Author: Sharla Yates

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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The most powerful characters on the page are complex and multi-layered, and they both surprise and convince readers with (and within!) their reality.

for Fiction and Memoir

Novelists create characters from nothing, who must feel as real as anyone we’ve met. Memoirists must pack a lifetime of knowledge into selected details to show readers the people they engaged with, as those people truly are. But too often, writers default to physical description—characters pausing in front of conveniently reflective surfaces—or narrating our own judgements of the people we know, rather than allowing readers to make those discoveries themselves. As an actor, playwright, and director, Allison K Williams has explored character creation inside and out.

In this special 2-hour (Saturday) webinar, you’ll learn how to use tools from theatre to analyze your own text and create stronger characters on the page. With examples from fiction and memoir, we’ll examine how objectives, passions, and foibles drive characters and deepen their dramatic impact; how qualities of movement are expressed in verbs and adverbs; the difference between high-context dialogue and “stuff I needed the reader to know so I made a character say it”; and even dive into how punctuation can shape a character’s emotion in a scene.

You’ll raise your craft level and gain a tool kit to help you present all your characters, real or fictional, as fully rounded beings, regardless of their word count, and make each one memorable and worthy of their time on the page.

In-class writing time and live editing will give you a chance to apply this to your writing right away.

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

• 45 minutes – Learn the tools of character analysis, and key writing techniques to show character on the page
• 10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.
• 20 minutes – Revise a scene that introduces one of your key characters to heighten the character’s impact on the page and more skillfully show who they are, what they want and why they matter. Allison will continue taking questions in the chat. 
• OPTIONAL: volunteer for live-editing and upload your scene as a Word doc or docx to a Google Drive (link will be provided in class, no pages will be accepted before they are called for).
• 40 minutes – Allison will live-edit pages shared on screen, noting where the writer is succeeding and what revisions could make the prose even more effective. During live edits, she’ll call out specific techniques and tips for everyone to apply to their own work, right away. 
• 10 minutes – Q&A and planning your writing from here.

This webinar will cover

• HOW the interplay of passion and foible creates conflict and tension within and between characters
• The “CHARACTER ZERO” of Commedia Dell’ Arte and how it relates to modern prose
• SHOWING villainous, abusive, narcissistic and harmful behavior in ways that allow the reader to judge—and why moments of “good” give evil more impact
• WORLDBUILDING through character action and dialogue
• WHEN, HOW, and WHY to use adverbs (hint: “in a _____ tone” is needlessly verbose! Bring on the adverbs!)
• The ACTOR’S TECHNIQUE for bringing to life the most minor of characters—and how to use it in writing.
• OBJECTIVES and OBSTACLES, and how they make characters active in every scene.

This webinar is ideal for

• Novelists with a large cast of characters who need distinction; or only a few characters who must hold the reader’s attention throughout the book
• Memoirists who want to write vivid characters without getting lost in their own emotional past experience
• 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 characterization in prose and better communicate that knowledge to their author clients.
• “Plotters” struggling with bringing a character dossier to life on the page 
• “Pantsers” who need to fill in background and personality without info-dumping
• Writers hearing feedback that their characters blend together, or are too “black-and-white” and need more depth

All registrants receive the recording. ✔

Closed captioning is available. ✔

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.

Before turning to writing and editing fulltime, Allison was a classically-trained actor. With a BA in Theatre and an MFA in Playwriting, she has acted and directed with American Stage, The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Eckerd College, Western Michigan University, and many more. Her plays for young actors have been noted by Dramatics Magazine as top-ten most produced worldwide, and her multi-character solo show TRUE STORY won Best of Fringe at the London Fringe Festival and toured the USA and Canada.

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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Sometimes the beginning is the first thing you write. Sometimes it’s the last. How do you know if your beginning is doing its best work for you? 

for Fiction and Nonfiction

A beginning plants seeds. A beginning announces voice and tone and mood. A beginning establishes the writer’s authority to tell the story or to offer the opinion that is coming. The way you start your essay, your book, or your Substack newsletter will determine just how many readers (and agents! and editors!) read on. 

Join us to explore the best among beginnings and to discover the very best in you. 

In this webinar, we’ll take a good look at exquisite beginnings, as well as a few that … might have been improved. We’ll spend some time learning from Janet Malcolm’s famous essay “Forty-one False Starts.” We’ll respond to prompts and writerly cascades that will both set new stories into motion and help redirect or reshape beginnings that already exist.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• CONSIDER the power of false starts in your writing process
• DISCOVER the key to best beginnings
• WRITE some brand new beginnings in response to given prompts
• LEARN to revise old beginnings in ways that will make your work feel brand new

This webinar is ideal for new and intermediate writers …

• CONTEMPLATING the start of a new work in progress
• UNDERTAKING their final revisions of a work in progress
• Who WISH to gain the attention of editors and agents

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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If all the productivity tricks still leave you stuck, it’s time to stop hacking and start honoring what truly works for you.

For all Writers

Writers often pride themselves on working hard—but what if that hard work is actually self-sabotage in disguise? In this 90-minute live webinar, we’ll uncover the subtle, energy-draining ways self-sabotage shows up in the writing life. From perfectionism pretending to be productivity to rigid routines that keep you stuck, you’ll learn how to spot the behaviors and beliefs that are quietly derailing your progress. We’ll also explore how to recognize when you’re working against your creative nature instead of flowing with it.

This isn’t just another list of writing hacks—it’s an opportunity to challenge the story you’ve been telling yourself about what it means to be a writer. If you’re ready to enter creative flow with more ease, reconnect with your true motivations, and create from a place of grounded confidence and joy, this session is for you. Join us to stop spinning your wheels—and start writing the stories your heart was meant to tell.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• FIND OUT how self-sabotage masquerades as discipline or diligence
• DISCOVER the unconscious beliefs keeping you stuck in cycles of frustration
• IDENTIFY the inner patterns blocking your flow, and how to break free from them
• LEARN practical, soul-nourishing tools to rewire your mindset, reclaim your creative energy, and work with your unique creative operating system.

This webinar is appropriate for all skill levels, but especially helpful for writers who feel burned out, stuck, or like they’re working hard but not making progress or finishing their projects. It’s ideal for writers who…

• SEEK to build a sustainable, long-term creative practice
• STRUGGLE to make progress despite hard work and dedication 
• FEEL BURNED OUT or stuck 
• MISS DEADLINES and don’t complete their projects 
• HAVE TRIED all the productivity hacks but find nothing works
• FEAR that their greatest skill is procrastination   
• DISLIKE rigid structures and practices

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Lisa Cooper Ellison is an author, speaker, trauma-informed writing coach, and the host of the Writing Your Resilience podcast. She works and writes at the intersection of storytelling and healing, combining her clinical training and writing expertise to help writers transform difficult experiences into art. Her essays and stories have been featured on Risk! and in The New York Times, HuffPost, Kenyon Review Online, and The Loss of a Lifetime: Grieving Siblings Share Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope, among others.

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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Stop worrying if your work falls into a particular category and just write your story.

for Memoir, Essay, Literary Journalism, Hybrid

Memoir, essay, lyric or informational? Just write! Learn how combining various nonfiction modes helps tell your story as best you can, using the most advantageous tools. 

With examples ranging from Claudia Rankine to Joan Didion to Robin Wall Kimmerer, we’ll explore how long and short, familiar and uncommon forms might combine to create memorable work, surprising work, lively work, and work that is eminently publishable. 

With prompts and friendly nudges, this webinar will spark fresh ideas for memoirists starting something new and those stuck on a current project. 

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

In this webinar, you will:

• DISCOVER how memoirists break genre rules all the time, and how doing so invigorates the work.
• EXPLORE the role of curiosity and improvisation in creating lively nonfiction. 
• LEARN how unexpected approaches and points of view—what Emily Dickinson calls “telling it slant” —deepen your storytelling.
• FREE UP your style. 

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:

• Worry that their writing is predictable and unremarkable
• Feel stuck
• Are adventurous
• Are willing to branch out into new approaches
• Would like their work to immediately capture the attention of editors, agents, and readers

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

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 numerous other books. He has published essays and stories in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He is founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction, and has taught nonfiction writing for more than 30 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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Creativity calls for intention and connection. Let’s show up together.

for All Writers and Creative Types

You’ve probably heard of The Artist’s Way—maybe it’s on your shelf, maybe you’ve cracked it open once or twice, maybe you’ve promised yourself you’ll return to it “someday.” Well, here’s your chance! We’re gathering for a chill, no-cost, weekly meetup to work through the first four chapters. That’s it. No grand declarations. Just four weeks of showing up for one hour on Zoom to be writers in community.

We’ll talk about morning pages (whether you’re doing them or just dodging them), artist dates (how to make them happen and where you might take yourself), and the strange, wonderful ways creativity starts to wake up when we give it a little room.

We’ll ask questions. Share ideas. Probably write a little. 

It’s not a class, not a critique group, not therapy—just people committing (again or for the first time) to bringing writing and creativity back into their routine. You don’t even need to consider yourself “a writer.” If you’re drawn to the creative practice, you’re welcome to join.

We recommend borrowing The Artist’s Way from your local library and reading the first chapter, “Recovering a Sense of Safety,” before our first meetup. If you’d prefer your own copy, we suggest this edition: The Artist’s Way: 25th Anniversary Edition by Julia Cameron. There’s also a companion workbook—but it’s completely optional. One note: Julia Cameron talks a lot about spirituality and the idea of a creative force greater than ourselves. You don’t have to subscribe to that, but if it’s a turnoff, this might not be your jam. That said, it’s free and friendly, and you’re welcome to pop in and see how it feels.

Can’t make every session? No worries—join us the following week.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE the first four chapters of The Artist’s Way
• BUILD momentum with weekly creative check-ins
• FIND support and CONNECTION with other writers and creative types
• DISCOVER practical ideas for tackling resistance
• WRITE together in a low-stakes space
• REFLECT on the link between creativity and habit
• BE INSPIRED to keep going—even after the four weeks are up

This webinar is ideal for those who:

• Are feeling stuck, stalled, or disconnected from their work
• Want to rebuild (or build) a sustainable creative habit
• Are curious about the practices of The Artist’s Way
• Need a gentle nudge to reengage with morning pages or artist dates
• Crave creative conversation
• Are seeking inspiration, not necessarily instruction
• Want to explore their ideas without the pressure or need for perfection

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

SHARLA YATES is the program director of CRAFT TALKS, a webinar series for writers on writing, and the former director of education at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, where she led a robust weekly webinar series and online writing program. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and is a multi-genre writer and experienced instructor.

Sharla is the author of the poetry chapbook What I Would Say if We Were to Drown Tonight (Stranded Oak Press, 2017). Her nonfiction essay “Address” was a finalist for the 2015 Columbia Journal Writing Contest and the 2016 Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award and was published by Short Reads. She also co-hosts The Writers Bridge, a free monthly platform-building series for writers, alongside Allison K Williams.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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Incorporating research can enliven our narratives, add resonance to the stories we tell, and make the personal universal.

for Creative Nonfiction, Narrative Nonfiction

Amy Shea’s powerful essay in the Massachusetts Review, “Deaths of Disparity,” weaves personal experience, narrative, and research into addiction and treatment to explore questions of human dignity. What makes this essay so effective, and how can you figure out when, how, and how much research to include in your creative writing? 

Join Amy Shea as she pulls back the curtain on her process and deconstructs her long-form essay. We will explore why to include research, how hard facts and cultural context can improve an essay, considerations on how to format and present those facts, the balance of critical and creative elements, and how to enhance braided research and narrative through literary elements such as voice, tone, and register. 

Class will include time for close reading of other examples and writing practice.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN to identify when research can serve your story—and when it might distract
• EXPLORE ways to weave facts seamlessly into a narrative without losing emotional impact
• EXAMINE well-integrated research in creative nonfiction 
• GAIN INSIGHT through a behind-the-scenes look at the presenter’s process and essay
• PRACTICE incorporating research into your own writing through guided exercises

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:

• Want to move beyond purely personal narratives
• Are interested in weaving research into essays without losing their creative voice
• Are ready to transition from short pieces to longer-form work
• Want to explore braiding multiple elements in a non-chronological structure
• Enjoy studying other writers’ processes to deepen and inspire their own practice

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

AMY SHEA is an essayist and is the author of Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Pangyrus, Portland Review, The Massachusetts Review, Spry Literary Journal, Fat City Review, From Glasgow to Saturn, and the Journal of Sociology of Health & Illness. She works as the Writing Program Director for Mount Tamalpais College, a free community college for the incarcerated people of San Quentin.

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 nothing feels at risk, readers stop caring. Learn how to build compelling stakes that keep readers turning pages.

for Personal Essay and Memoir

Low stakes are the #1 reason personal narratives get rejected. As writers, we’re faced with a dreaded question: So what? How do we get a stranger to care about our lives—and why should they? How do we encourage readers with short attention spans to keep turning pages?

Learn 5 key tools for building tension and emotional stakes in personal narratives. Using works by writers like Natasha Trethewey, Kristen Iversen, and Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, we’ll crack the code on how nonfiction writers build high stakes and sustain them throughout their narratives. Then we’ll apply these techniques to your own manuscript through hands-on exercises: defining internal and external stakes, creating obstacles that keep readers engaged, using strategic time shifts to build suspense, and more.

You’ll leave with a complete toolkit for building and sustaining stakes that keep readers engaged from start to finish.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN 5 tools for ramping up the stakes in your memoir or personal essay, making readers feel instantly invested 
• EXPLORE how nonfiction writers use stakes & suspense to keep readers turning pages 
• APPLY new stakes-building techniques to your own narratives
• BUILD a toolkit of strategies for defining stakes, seeding conflicts, and building suspense, to make your pages stand out to agents, editors, and readers

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:

• Want to ramp up the emotional stakes & tension in their story 
• Are getting rejections and need tools for making their work more compelling and high-stakes
• Are struggling to identify the larger “so what?” of their personal story

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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