BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Craft Talks - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Craft Talks X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://writingcraft.com X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Craft Talks REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20240310T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20241103T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20250309T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20251102T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20260308T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20261101T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251022T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251022T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250915T195237Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251103T193955Z UID:10000059-1761145200-1761150600@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Writing the Hermit Crab Essay: Telling Your Story in Borrowed Forms  DESCRIPTION:Learn to write and revise a Hermit Crab essay from the teacher who coined the term\, and have fun generating new and surprising work!\n\n\n\nFor Creative Nonfiction\, Personal Essay and Memoir \n\n\n\nThe “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.  \n\n\n\nIn 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. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nLEARN how to identify and use the Hermit Crab essay form in your own work. \n\n\n\nDISCOVER how to select compelling “shells” for Hermit Crab essays.\n\n\n\nSTUDY the relationship between form and content. \n\n\n\nPRACTICE writing techniques that coax out new material by working within borrowed forms.\n\n\n\nLEARN specific revision strategies for refining Hermit Crab essays. \n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers who…\n\n\n\n\nNeed a little “spark” in their writing practice\n\n\n\nWant to explore and experiment with new forms\n\n\n\nFind themselves challenged in writing difficult material.\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBrenda 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/writing-the-hermit-crab-essay/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/4.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251015T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251015T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250915T185718Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251009T153008Z UID:10000058-1760540400-1760545800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Micro Memoirs: Writing Tiny True Stories DESCRIPTION:Can you write a powerful\, true story in less than 300 words? Learn how to write emotionally resonant\, attention-grabbing micro memoirs. \n\n\n\nFor Creative Nonfiction\, Personal Essay and Memoir \n\n\n\nMicro 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. \n\n\n\nDuring 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! \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE the six key elements of a successful micro memoir.\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how to create emotional resonance so readers keep thinking about your piece long after they read it.\n\n\n\nGET TIPS for writing engaging and powerful micro memoirs that editors and readers will love.\n\n\n\nEXPLORE how compression\, sensory details\, and lyricism increase the impact of your writing.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers who want to…\n\n\n\n\nExplore the possibilities of tiny prose\n\n\n\nImmediately capture the attention of editors and readers\n\n\n\nIncrease the impact and emotional resonance within all their writing\n\n\n\nLearn how to use compression and sensory details to make their work come alive\n\n\n\nExplore a form that can be written in liminal moments\, in the midst of life’s busyness\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBethany 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.  \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/micro-memoirs/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/MASTER-Event-Templates-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251008T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251008T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250910T003113Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251002T114808Z UID:10000057-1759935600-1759939200@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Personal Essays for Mainstream Media: the Form\, the Market & What Editors Want DESCRIPTION:Pitching and writing short personal essays for commercial media means answering Why you? and Why now? right up front! \n\n\n\nfor Creative Nonfiction and Personal Essay \n\n\n\nLearn 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.  \n\n\n\nLearn 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.  \n\n\n\nThis webinar will NOT focus on experimental\, lyrical\, or literary essays. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nUNDERSTAND the form\, structure\, and marketplace for mainstream essays.\n\n\n\nAVOID the top mistakes that writers of these essays make.\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how to craft personal experiences into short essays.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:\n\n\n\n\nwant to publish in mainstream outlets\n\n\n\nstruggle finding a clear focus and takeaway for their essays\n\n\n\nwant to turn their personal experiences into marketable narratives\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nETHAN 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/personal-essays-for-mainstream/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Event-Templates-copy.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251004T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251004T150000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250825T195635Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250925T192724Z UID:10000055-1759582800-1759590000@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Beyond Description: Creating Powerful\, Realistic Characters in Fiction and Memoir DESCRIPTION:The most powerful characters on the page are complex and multi-layered\, and they both surprise and convince readers with (and within!) their reality.\n\n\n\nfor Fiction and Memoir \n\n\n\nNovelists 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. \n\n\n\nIn 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. \n\n\n\nYou’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. \n\n\n\nIn-class writing time and live editing will give you a chance to apply this to your writing right away. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis is a TWO-HOUR class\, with 20 minutes of writing time in the middle.\n\n\n\n\n45 minutes – Learn the tools of character analysis\, and key writing techniques to show character on the page\n\n\n\n10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.\n\n\n\n20 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. \n\n\n\nOPTIONAL: 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).\n\n\n\n40 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. \n\n\n\n10 minutes – Q&A and planning your writing from here.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar will cover\n\n\n\n\nHOW the interplay of passion and foible creates conflict and tension within and between characters\n\n\n\nThe “CHARACTER ZERO” of Commedia Dell’ Arte and how it relates to modern prose\n\n\n\nSHOWING villainous\, abusive\, narcissistic and harmful behavior in ways that allow the reader to judge—and why moments of “good” give evil more impact\n\n\n\nWORLDBUILDING through character action and dialogue\n\n\n\nWHEN\, HOW\, and WHY to use adverbs (hint: “in a _____ tone” is needlessly verbose! Bring on the adverbs!)\n\n\n\nThe ACTOR’S TECHNIQUE for bringing to life the most minor of characters—and how to use it in writing.\n\n\n\nOBJECTIVES and OBSTACLES\, and how they make characters active in every scene.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for\n\n\n\n\nNovelists with a large cast of characters who need distinction; or only a few characters who must hold the reader’s attention throughout the book\n\n\n\nMemoirists who want to write vivid characters without getting lost in their own emotional past experience\n\n\n\nCreative writing students and graduates of MFA programs who want to expand their writing craft with conscious practice.\n\n\n\nDevelopmental editors who want to grow their knowledge of characterization in prose and better communicate that knowledge to their author clients.\n\n\n\n“Plotters” struggling with bringing a character dossier to life on the page \n\n\n\n“Pantsers” who need to fill in background and personality without info-dumping\n\n\n\nWriters hearing feedback that their characters blend together\, or are too “black-and-white” and need more depth\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAll registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔ \n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAllison 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. \n\n\n\nBefore 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/beyond-description/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Event-Template-1-6.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250924T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250924T161500 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250820T200311Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250918T171501Z UID:10000053-1758726000-1758730500@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Best Beginnings: Announcing Yourself At The Start DESCRIPTION: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? \n\n\n\nfor Fiction and Nonfiction \n\n\n\nA 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.  \n\n\n\nJoin us to explore the best among beginnings and to discover the very best in you.  \n\n\n\nIn 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. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nCONSIDER the power of false starts in your writing process\n\n\n\nDISCOVER the key to best beginnings\n\n\n\nWRITE some brand new beginnings in response to given prompts\n\n\n\nLEARN to revise old beginnings in ways that will make your work feel brand new\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for new and intermediate writers …\n\n\n\n\nCONTEMPLATING the start of a new work in progress\n\n\n\nUNDERTAKING their final revisions of a work in progress\n\n\n\nWho WISH to gain the attention of editors and agents\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBeth 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/best-beginnings/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/MASTER-Event-Templates-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250917T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250917T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250818T205944Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250911T140818Z UID:10000051-1758121200-1758126600@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Stop Getting in Your Own Way: End Writing Self-Sabotage and Unlock Creative Flow DESCRIPTION:If all the productivity tricks still leave you stuck\, it’s time to stop hacking and start honoring what truly works for you.\n\n\n\nFor all Writers \n\n\n\nWriters 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. \n\n\n\nThis 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. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nFIND OUT how self-sabotage masquerades as discipline or diligence\n\n\n\nDISCOVER the unconscious beliefs keeping you stuck in cycles of frustration\n\n\n\nIDENTIFY the inner patterns blocking your flow\, and how to break free from them\n\n\n\nLEARN practical\, soul-nourishing tools to rewire your mindset\, reclaim your creative energy\, and work with your unique creative operating system.\n\n\n\n\nThis 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…\n\n\n\n\nSEEK to build a sustainable\, long-term creative practice\n\n\n\nSTRUGGLE to make progress despite hard work and dedication \n\n\n\nFEEL BURNED OUT or stuck \n\n\n\nMISS DEADLINES and don’t complete their projects \n\n\n\nHAVE TRIED all the productivity hacks but find nothing works\n\n\n\nFEAR that their greatest skill is procrastination   \n\n\n\nDISLIKE rigid structures and practices\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLisa 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/stop-getting-in-your-own-way/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/MASTER-Event-Templates-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250910T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250910T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250809T204401Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250904T135516Z UID:10000050-1757516400-1757521800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Hybrid Memoir: The Fine Art of Flexible Storytelling DESCRIPTION:Stop worrying if your work falls into a particular category and just write your story.\n\n\n\nfor Memoir\, Essay\, Literary Journalism\, Hybrid \n\n\n\nMemoir\, 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.  \n\n\n\nWith 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.  \n\n\n\nWith prompts and friendly nudges\, this webinar will spark fresh ideas for memoirists starting something new and those stuck on a current project.  \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how memoirists break genre rules all the time\, and how doing so invigorates the work.\n\n\n\nEXPLORE the role of curiosity and improvisation in creating lively nonfiction. \n\n\n\nLEARN how unexpected approaches and points of view—what Emily Dickinson calls “telling it slant” —deepen your storytelling.\n\n\n\nFREE UP your style. \n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:\n\n\n\n\nWorry that their writing is predictable and unremarkable\n\n\n\nFeel stuck\n\n\n\nAre adventurous\n\n\n\nAre willing to branch out into new approaches\n\n\n\nWould like their work to immediately capture the attention of editors\, agents\, and readers\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDinty 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-hybrid-memoir/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Moore.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250903T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250903T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250804T191918Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250828T145217Z UID:10000047-1756911600-1756917000@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Making the Personal Universal: Transform Your Essays with Research  DESCRIPTION:Incorporating research can enliven our narratives\, add resonance to the stories we tell\, and make the personal universal.\n\n\n\nfor Creative Nonfiction\, Narrative Nonfiction \n\n\n\nAmy 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?  \n\n\n\nJoin 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.  \n\n\n\nClass will include time for close reading of other examples and writing practice. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nLEARN to identify when research can serve your story—and when it might distract\n\n\n\nEXPLORE ways to weave facts seamlessly into a narrative without losing emotional impact\n\n\n\nEXAMINE well-integrated research in creative nonfiction \n\n\n\nGAIN INSIGHT through a behind-the-scenes look at the presenter’s process and essay\n\n\n\nPRACTICE incorporating research into your own writing through guided exercises\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:\n\n\n\n\nWant to move beyond purely personal narratives\n\n\n\nAre interested in weaving research into essays without losing their creative voice\n\n\n\nAre ready to transition from short pieces to longer-form work\n\n\n\nWant to explore braiding multiple elements in a non-chronological structure\n\n\n\nEnjoy studying other writers’ processes to deepen and inspire their own practice\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAMY 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/making-the-personal-universal/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Shea-Event-Templates.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250828T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250918T120000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250805T203513Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250819T232947Z UID:10000049-1756378800-1758196800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:FREE WEBINAR | Weekly Meetup: Working Through The Artist's Way  DESCRIPTION:Creativity calls for intention and connection. Let’s show up together.\n\n\n\nfor All Writers and Creative Types \n\n\n\nYou’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. \n\n\n\nWe’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. \n\n\n\nWe’ll ask questions. Share ideas. Probably write a little.  \n\n\n\nIt’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. \n\n\n\nWe 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. \n\n\n\nCan’t make every session? No worries—join us the following week. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE the first four chapters of The Artist’s Way\n\n\n\nBUILD momentum with weekly creative check-ins\n\n\n\nFIND support and CONNECTION with other writers and creative types\n\n\n\nDISCOVER practical ideas for tackling resistance\n\n\n\nWRITE together in a low-stakes space\n\n\n\nREFLECT on the link between creativity and habit\n\n\n\nBE INSPIRED to keep going—even after the four weeks are up\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for those who:\n\n\n\n\nAre feeling stuck\, stalled\, or disconnected from their work\n\n\n\nWant to rebuild (or build) a sustainable creative habit\n\n\n\nAre curious about the practices of The Artist’s Way\n\n\n\nNeed a gentle nudge to reengage with morning pages or artist dates\n\n\n\nCrave creative conversation\n\n\n\nAre seeking inspiration\, not necessarily instruction\n\n\n\nWant to explore their ideas without the pressure or need for perfection\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSHARLA 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. \n\n\n\nSharla 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/free-weekly-meetup/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/MASTER-Event-Templates.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250827T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250827T161500 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250728T145347Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250821T141707Z UID:10000046-1756306800-1756311300@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | The Dreaded 'So What?’: How to Build Stakes That Make Readers Care DESCRIPTION:When nothing feels at risk\, readers stop caring. Learn how to build compelling stakes that keep readers turning pages.\n\n\n\nfor Personal Essay and Memoir \n\n\n\nLow 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? \n\n\n\nLearn 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. \n\n\n\nYou’ll leave with a complete toolkit for building and sustaining stakes that keep readers engaged from start to finish. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nLEARN 5 tools for ramping up the stakes in your memoir or personal essay\, making readers feel instantly invested \n\n\n\nEXPLORE how nonfiction writers use stakes & suspense to keep readers turning pages \n\n\n\nAPPLY new stakes-building techniques to your own narratives\n\n\n\nBUILD a toolkit of strategies for defining stakes\, seeding conflicts\, and building suspense\, to make your pages stand out to agents\, editors\, and readers\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:\n\n\n\n\nWant to ramp up the emotional stakes & tension in their story \n\n\n\nAre getting rejections and need tools for making their work more compelling and high-stakes\n\n\n\nAre struggling to identify the larger “so what?” of their personal story\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKATIE 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/the-dreaded-so-what/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250820T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250820T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250710T163323Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250819T233015Z UID:10000042-1755702000-1755707400@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Memoir-Plus: The Key to Writing a Memoir That Sells DESCRIPTION:You have a story to tell. But how do you convince the publishing industry that people want to read it?\n\n\n\nIn a world where an estimated two to three million books are published every year\, your memoir needs to stand out\, not just with compelling storytelling\, but with a marketable hook that expands its audience. Enter memoir-plus\, a powerful approach that blends memoir with something more\, making it bigger\, bolder\, and more irresistible to readers and publishers alike. \n\n\n\nThis idea-packed webinar will help you explore new ways to frame your memoir\, whether you’re still brainstorming or deep into drafting. You’ll leave with fresh inspiration\, actionable insights\, and a clearer path toward a memoir that stands out in a very crowded field. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nLEARN the distinction between traditional memoir and memoir-plus\, and why it matters\n\n\n\nENCOUNTER standout memoirs\, discovering how their marketing copy positions them as “pluses”\n\n\n\nGET INSPIRED with over 20 different “pluses” you can add to your memoir\n\n\n\nFIND OUT where to highlight your memoir-plus elements in a book proposal\, to attract agents and publishers\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for you if You’re …\n\n\n\n\nJust getting started and want to build a memoir concept with marketability in mind from the beginning\n\n\n\nIn the muddy middle and feel called to reframe or reimagine your project to make it bigger\, bolder\, and more marketable\n\n\n\nReady to pitch your memoir-plus and need strategies to make it stand out\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJennifer Leigh Selig is an LBGTQ+ teacher\, international speaker\, book publisher\, and author whose writing and teaching career spans four decades. She’s the author of dozens of newspaper articles\, book reviews\, essays\, journal articles\, short stories\, screenplays\, and books\, including the Nautilus Gold award-winning book\, Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit\, The Writer’s Block Workbook: A Psychologist’s Guide to Working With and Through Writer’s Block\, and Deep Memoir: An Archetypal Approach to Deepen Your Story and Broaden Its Appeal. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/memoir-plus/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Event-Templates-copy-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250813T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250813T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250709T141538Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250807T133440Z UID:10000041-1755097200-1755100800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Everyone's on Substack: Should you be? DESCRIPTION:Thousands of writers are jumping on the Substack bandwagon every month. Learn how to break in with your newsletter.\n\n\n\nRegular email newsletters allow writers to build an organic audience based on direct connection with readers\, and this kind of platform can be attractive to literary agents. Substack has more than 20 million active subscribers\, and over 17\,000 writers are being paid for their writing on the platform. But with thousands of writers joining every month—many of them famous—how can a new writer break in? \n\n\n\nAfter nearly four years writing her Substack Between Two Things\, Lindsey DeLoach Jones has learned lots of lessons the hard way. In this presentation\, she’ll give tips for writing essays that will succeed in the email format\, building an audience (using Notes and other features)\, and connecting with other like-minded writers. She’ll also help you think through your newsletter goals (from earning money to practicing your skills to building an email list that supports your writing and publishing). \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE various ways to interact on Substack\n\n\n\nLEARN how to write a newsletter people want to read \n\n\n\nSET goals for your newsletter.\n\n\n\n\nYou should take this webinar if you\n\n\n\n\nAre new to building a platform\n\n\n\nHave considered moving to Substack\n\n\n\nWant to better reach your audience\n\n\n\nAre unsure how to tackle the Substack essay format\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLindsey DeLoach Jones is a writer living in Greenville\, South Carolina. She often finds herself inside the tension between seemingly opposed forces—the spiritual and the practical\, the mysterious and the mundane\, the Mother and the Artist. In this spirit\, she has been writing a Substack called Between Two Things since 2021. \n\n\n\nLindsey holds a BA and MA in English and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She has served as the Writer-in-Residence at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and has taught literature and writing at Clemson University. Lindsey currently teaches writing online and in person at Writeshare\, the writers’ network she co-founded in Upstate SC\, and for organizations such as CRAFT TALKS. She previously served as Editor of Emrys Journal and Edible Upcountry. \n\n\n\nLindsey’s essays have appeared in HuffPost\, HuffPost Parenting\, Split Lip\, Under the Gum Tree\, and Motherwell. She is a recipient of the Vandermey Nonfiction Prize\, and an essay nominated by Pigeon Pages was recently a finalist for Best of the Web. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/everyones-on-substack/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Jones.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250806T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250806T150000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083811 CREATED:20250714T173910Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250802T152400Z UID:10000044-1754485200-1754492400@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Writing the Synopsis: Solve Your Plot and Sell Your Book DESCRIPTION:You need a synopsis to sell your book to agents and publishers. Writing it now can solve plot and structure problems\, determine which characters belong\, and create a map to finish your book.\n\n\n\nfor Creative Nonfiction\, Nonfiction and Fiction \n\n\n\nWriters often dread distilling their beautiful story into a dry synopsis—and they’re right! It’s not creative and fun. But the synopsis is not only a requirement for querying and publishing\, it’s also a valuable tool to shape your story and get closer to “The End.” A good synopsis gives an overview of your whole book\, in an easy-to-process form. By examining turning-point scenes\, character objectives\, and the underlying dramatic question that propels your book\, you’ll know where you’re going and how to get there.  \n\n\n\nYou’ll be able to send a draft of your working synopsis in advance. Allison will use volunteer examples to show what makes a synopsis work (and what doesn’t!). Then she’ll live-edit participant synopses to show how to reverse-engineer your manuscript from your synopsis to create more tension\, power\, and literary might. (Please note\, she won’t get to everyone: examples will be chosen to benefit the whole group!) \n\n\n\nSuitable for writers with a manuscript in any stage from messy early draft to ready-to-query. \n\n\n\nThis is a TWO HOUR class\, with 20 minutes of writing time in the middle. \n\n\n\n\n40 minutes – Learn how to write a synopsis\, using images\, turning points\, and character objectives. Allison will use submitted examples and synopses of already-published books to show what works and what doesn’t.\n\n\n\n10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.\n\n\n\n20 minutes – Revise your synopsis with new tools and knowledge. Allison will continue taking questions in the chat. OPTIONAL: volunteer for live-editing and upload your scene as a Word doc or docx.\n\n\n\n40 minutes – Allison will live-edit some of the shared synopses\, showing where the writer is succeeding\, and what revisions she suggests. During live edits\, she’ll call out specific techniques and tips for everyone to apply to their own work\, right away. \n\n\n\n10 minutes – more Q&A and planning your writing from here.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nUNDERSTAND why agents and publishers need a synopsis—and how they use it to assess your manuscript\n\n\n\nLEARN how opening and closing images anchor your synopsis and your book\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how “Chekhov’s Gun” makes your synopsis actually interesting!\n\n\n\nUSE “but\, because\, therefore” to write a rough synopsis\n\n\n\nDEVELOP a working synopsis to guide your writing process\n\n\n\nREFINE your synopsis for querying your book\n\n\n\n\nThis workshop suits …\n\n\n\n\nWriters of fiction and nonfiction who intend to traditionally publish\n\n\n\nNovelists stuck in the “messy middle”\n\n\n\nMemoirists whose draft has “gotten away from them” and needs shape and focus\n\n\n\nWriters working on a second book… who’d like the process to move faster this time!\n\n\n\nWriters hearing feedback that their book lacks tension\, needs a stronger hook\, or the story is “hard to follow” or “didn’t grab the reader”\n\n\n\nDevelopmental editors who want to understand synopses and better communicate that knowledge to their author clients.\n\n\n\n\nYou’ll receive the slides and prompts to take this work into your manuscript \n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAllison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She’s helped writers sell to Big Five and literary publishers\, hit the NYT Bestseller list\, and sign multi-book deals. 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. \n\n\n\nAllison works with literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction\, and is familiar with the conventions of most genres. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and spent 20 years as a circus aerialist and acrobat before writing and editing full-time. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/writing-the-synopsis/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Event-Template-1-6.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250723T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250723T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250617T174842Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250722T185653Z UID:10000037-1753282800-1753288200@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | The Art of the Scene: Craft Riveting Narrative Moments in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction DESCRIPTION:Learn to make scenes sizzle with specifics\, stakes\, characterization\, and drama—while staying grounded in your story’s truth.\n\n\n\nfor Creative Nonfiction and Fiction \n\n\n\nFilmmaker Howard Hawks said\, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.” Substitute “movie” with “short story\,” “novel\,” “essay\,” or “memoir\,” and we have a prescription for how to inject your story with dramatic\, cinematic flair. In this seminar\, we’ll look at great examples of scenes—or “live moments”—where things are happening\, characters are interacting\, stuff is being said\, action is going on\, and big things change\, with clear dramatic beats and an arc. \n\n\n\nWhether you’re working on novels and short stories or narrative nonfiction and memoir\, we will look at tools that fiction writers use to create gripping moments on the page. Scenes include dramatic beats and an arc\, and both fiction and creative nonfiction writers need the same tools screenwriters use to create gripping moments on the page. \n\n\n\nLearning from master writers like Jaquira Diaz\, Michelle Kuo\, Stephen King\, Steve Brusatte\, Bill Bryson\, Cheryl Strayed\, and others\, you’ll discover powerful tools to craft your own scenes. You’ll learn to gradually build tension; create structures for your scenes with a beginning\, middle\, and end; build in clear conflict\, stakes\, and interiority; and make the world of the scene real via description. \n\n\n\nIn-class exercises will allow you to practice your new scene-writing techniques and begin to write a new\, scintillating scene you can apply to a current writing project. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE the key elements of scene writing via examples from masters in the craft\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how to tap into your perhaps-unrealized scene writing skills\n\n\n\nENHANCE your narratives with new scene-writing tools\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:\n\n\n\n\nWorry their scenes lack drama\n\n\n\nWant to harness the craft of fiction for their personal narratives—and find powerful truth in their fiction \n\n\n\nStruggle with punchy dialogue and concrete setting\n\n\n\nAren’t sure how to write a scene they can’t fully remember\n\n\n\nWant to understand how a scene contains dramatic beats and an arc\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nETHAN 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. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/art-of-the-scene/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Event-Templates-copy.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250716T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250716T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250616T160624Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250710T131049Z UID:10000038-1752678000-1752683400@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Your Body\, Your Stories: Diving into Your Exclusive Archive DESCRIPTION:Deepen your writing and discover stories your body knew all along.\n\n\n\nfor Creative Nonfiction \n\n\n\nOur body is the most reliable record-keeper of life experiences\, much more so than our brain and what we like to call “memory.” For writers\, our embodied experience is a vast and often-overlooked treasure chest of powerful stories. \n\n\n\nLearn the importance of tapping into the treasure chest that is your body and how useful it can be to mine your body parts to re-member\, or make whole\, past experiences that have brought you to this point in your life. Together\, we will consider excerpts from authors whose bodies feed remembering\, and whose beautiful\, memorable writing inspires us by its sheer physicality. \n\n\n\nBecome energized to dig into your own exclusive story archive with body-focused writing prompt ideas to explore in your own writing practice after the webinar. Gain a new set of tools for accessing your stories by collaborating with your eyes\, belly\, hips\, or feet\, etc.\, and discover the wonder of your body’s evocative abilities to turn forgotten incidents into vividly remembered scenes for richer\, more visceral essays and memoir. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nLEARN the body’s ability to “keep the score” of our experiences\n\n\n\nACQUIRE tools to collaborate with your body in finding stories\n\n\n\nDISCOVER the generative wealth of materials for your story\n\n\n\nBECOME empowered to start your own body-writing journey\n\n\n\nHEAR inspirational examples of embodied writing\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for…\n\n\n\n\nWant to explore new ways to access memory and story\n\n\n\nSeek to deepen their stories\n\n\n\nAre curious about what “writing the body” or “embodied writing” is about\n\n\n\nHave been reluctant to consider their bodies a valuable collaborator\n\n\n\nWant to get out of their head!\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNina B. Lichtenstein (PhD. MFA) is a recovering academic and the founder and director of Maine Writers Studio\, offering workshops\, retreats\, and book doula services. A native of Oslo\, Norway\, she is an award-winning teacher who has taught literature\, languages\, and writing on three continents. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies\, and her memoir\, Body: My Life in Parts is a memoir-in-essays published by Vine Leaves Press in May 2025.  \n\n\n\nNina also runs a monthly literary salon and open mic in Brunswick\, Maine\, and enjoys connecting folks in a warm and welcoming literary community. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-your-body/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/MASTER-Event-Templates.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250709T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250709T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250611T181412Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250703T134603Z UID:10000035-1752073200-1752076800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | It’s Complicated: Finding Your Way Back to Writing DESCRIPTION:Maintain and nurture your relationship with your writing to strengthen your stories and ease your creative process.\n\n\n\nThis webinar is part of the season pass. Interested in joining the subscription? Read more here. \n\n\n\nFor all writers \n\n\n\nEvery relationship has its ups and downs\, and your relationship with your writing is no exception. We sometimes grow apart through life’s changes\, schedule shifts\, or that nagging feeling that there must be something more out there.  \n\n\n\nIt’s normal to find that what worked in our creative process ten years ago no longer feels right and to experience cycles of connection and disconnection. It’s what we do next that makes all the difference. It’s time to check in and honestly assess what’s working in our creative relationship and what’s not. To clarify what helps us write—and why—and establish a healthy and rewarding relationship with our creation.  \n\n\n\nWriters know that we need our writing to be at its best\, but what we often don’t acknowledge is that our writing also needs us. Explore what it means to be in the right relationship with our writing\, why it matters\, and how to chart a flexible path forward together with communication\, clarity and commitment. This experiential\, process-based workshop includes generative writing exercises to help you reconnect with your writing\, honoring the changes both of you have gone through over the course of your life together. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\nWe will be writing during this webinar! Come with an open mind\, an active imagination\, and writing tools. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE your relationship with writing\n\n\n\nDISCOVER key techniques to maintain a flexible\, committed writing practice\n\n\n\nINQUIRE into your changing writing relationship through generative prompts and invitations\n\n\n\nRECOMMIT to yourself and your writing\n\n\n\n\nYou should take this webinar if:\n\n\n\n\nYou feel disconnected from your writing or unmotivated\n\n\n\nYou used to have a writing process that worked\, but now you’re struggling to connect with your words\n\n\n\nYou value writing as a means of self-inquiry and discovery.\n\n\n\nYou’re looking for ways to invigorate a lackluster writing practice\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLaraine Herring’s memoir\, A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens\, was released in 2021 from Regal House. Her work has appeared in The New York Times\, Tiferet\, The Rumpus\, The Manifest-Station\, and many more. 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. A retired professor of creative writing and psychology\, Laraine 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. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Counseling Psychology\, and lives in the mountains of northern Arizona with many cats. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/its-complicated/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Event-Templates-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250702T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250702T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250604T175542Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T154641Z UID:10000034-1751468400-1751472000@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Essential Questions: Unlock Your Writing’s Power DESCRIPTION:Enhance your writing and engage your audience with the power of essential questions that captivate and connect with readers. \n\n\n\nThis webinar is part of the season pass. Interested in joining the subscription? Read more here. \n\n\n\nMemoir\, Fiction and Screenplays \n\n\n\nElizabeth Gilbert credits the runaway success of “Eat\, Pray\, Love” to her essential question—“What if my life belonged to me?” It worked for her—let’s make it work for you. To capture the attention of a broader audience and make your writing resonate more deeply with readers\, discover the transformative power of essential questions to elevate your storytelling and expand your readership.  \n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, we’ll examine essential questions in bestselling works\, primarily focusing on memoir\, with a sprinkling of fiction and film. We’ll discuss the difference between implicit and explicit questions and explore techniques for placing these questions in your scenes and narrative.  \n\n\n\nYou’ll finish this webinar equipped with an expansive list of essential questions and the motivation and inspiration to use them to elevate your writing today! \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nDISCOVER why essential questions lead to increased engagement for readers (and appeal to publishers)\n\n\n\nLEARN the difference between implicit and explicit questions\n\n\n\nANALYZE how bestselling books effectively use essential questions\n\n\n\nRECEIVE an expansive list of essential questions to apply to any and all writing projects\n\n\n\nGET INSPIRED to harness the power of essential questions\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is a great fit for writers of fiction & nonfiction including screenwriters who are…\n\n\n\n\nLooking to enhance their storytelling skills and engage readers more deeply.\n\n\n\nSeeking new strategies to broaden their audience and increase their work’s appeal.\n\n\n\nWanting to stand out in a competitive market by using essential questions to convince agents\, editors\, and publishers that there’s a readership for their work.\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJennifer Leigh Selig is an LBGTQ+ teacher\, international speaker\, book publisher\, and author whose writing and teaching career spans four decades. She’s the author of dozens of newspaper articles\, book reviews\, essays\, journal articles\, short stories\, screenplays\, and books\, including the Nautilus Gold award-winning book\, Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit\, The Writer’s Block Workbook: A Psychologist’s Guide to Working With and Through Writer’s Block\, and Deep Memoir: An Archetypal Approach to Deepen Your Story and Broaden Its Appeal. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-essential-questions/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Event-Templates-copy-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250625T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250625T143000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250525T133632Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T154549Z UID:10000029-1750856400-1750861800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Looking Back\, Moving Forward: Writing About Grief\, Loss & Trauma DESCRIPTION:Unsure how to start writing about grief\, loss\, or trauma? Stuck midstream? Wondering how honest to be?\n\n\n\nCreative Nonfiction \n\n\n\nWriting about grief\, loss\, or trauma can feel overwhelming. Where do you begin? How much should you reveal? And how do you shape painful experience into something meaningful—for both you and your reader? \n\n\n\nRobert Frost famously said\, “No tears for the writer\, no tears for the reader.” But turning raw emotion into compelling narrative requires more than catharsis. It demands reflection\, structure\, and the willingness to uncover what’s at the heart of the story. \n\n\n\nIn this 90-minute live webinar\, we’ll explore how acclaimed memoirists and essayists approach emotionally charged material—and how you can apply their techniques to your own work. We’ll look closely at the roles of conflict\, joy\, and meaning-making in shaping personal narrative and discuss strategies for writing that is honest without becoming unmoored. \n\n\n\nYou’ll leave with practical tools to deepen your creative nonfiction and move your work forward—with insight\, clarity\, and connection. We’ll also revisit Frost’s lesser-known companion quote: “No surprise for the writer\, no surprise for the reader.” \n\n\n\nThere will be writing in this webinar! \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXAMINE the nuts and bolts of craft in notable examples of memoir and essay about loss\, grief\, and trauma \n\n\n\nEXPLORE narrative balance of research\, memory\, and imagination\n\n\n\nDEVELOP confidence in your right to write your version of events\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is a great fit for creative nonfiction writers of all levels who are…\n\n\n\n\nSeeking to create a compelling story from the experience of grief\, loss\, or trauma\n\n\n\nInterested in crafting scenic writing\n\n\n\nCreating narrative from researched fact and individual memory\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJESSICA HANDLER is the author of the novel The Magnetic Girl\, winner of the 2020 Southern Book Prize\, a 2019 “Books All Georgians Should Read\,” an Indie Next pick\, Wall Street Journal Spring 2019 pick\, Bitter Southerner Summer 2019 pick\, and a SIBA Okra Pick. Her other books include Invisible Sisters: A Memoir and Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss. Her nonfiction has appeared on NPR\, in Tin House\, Drunken Boat\, The Bitter Southerner\, Brevity\, Creative Nonfiction\, Newsweek\, The Washington Post\, and More Magazine. She lives in Atlanta. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\n 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/looking-back-moving-forward/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Event-Templates-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250618T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250618T143000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250516T201115Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T155840Z UID:10000030-1750251600-1750257000@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Mindfulness for Writers: Simple Steps To Create a More Fruitful Writing Life DESCRIPTION:Mindfulness allows us to see with fresh eyes\, to uncover what hasn’t yet been explored\, and offers a powerful counterbalance to the disappointments that accompany rejection and ambition. Learn to reclaim the joy in your writing life.\n\n\n\nAll Genres \n\n\n\nToo often\, as writers\, we find ourselves drawn to common\, customary\, and comfortable realizations–but the practice of mindfulness can open us to see with fresh eyes\, to search our memories\, and reveal what hasn’t yet been explored. Mindfulness teaches us to listen to others\, but also to ourselves\, even those thoughts that make us uncomfortable. (Perhaps especially those thoughts!) \n\n\n\nPracticing mindfulness offers a powerful counterbalance to the disappointment and dissatisfaction that too often accompany the world of publishing\, rejection\, and ambition. To live a more fruitful writing life\, we can make both the practice of writing and the work itself less about ourselves\, becoming mindful of our motives and our attachment to desired outcomes. \n\n\n\nCan’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how mindfulness can free up our creativity and enhance our enjoyment of writing\n\n\n\nEXPLORE how to move beyond “safe and customary” realizations in our writing \n\n\n\nLEARN ways to lessen the disappointment and dissatisfaction that accompany the business side of submission\, rejection\, and ambition.\n\n\n\nNURTURE compassion for our characters\, our family members\, and ourselves.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is a great fit for writers of all levels who…\n\n\n\n\nFeel stuck\, discouraged\, or dissatisfied with their writing life\, and wish instead to be energized and optimistic\n\n\n\nWant to see with fresh eyes\, moving beyond common and comfortable realizations\n\n\n\nWant to reconnect with the joy and surprise they once felt as writers\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne 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\, The Georgia Review\, The Kenyon Review\, The Southern Review\, Short Reads\, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Brevity\, the journal of flash nonfiction. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/mindfulness-for-writers/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Moore.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250611T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250611T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250508T200602Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T155647Z UID:10000026-1749654000-1749657600@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Fresh Words\, New Patterns\, Bold Essays: Breaking Free from Cliché DESCRIPTION:Writing is an art of disruption. Our best writing resists and overturns familiar patterns of thought and language\, inventing new forms of expression.\n\n\n\nNonfiction \n\n\n\n“I have yet to meet a writer who set out to say nothing interesting. Yet\, when our essays fail to interest editors\, agents\, and readers\, we are often at a loss for how and where we went wrong\,” says our presenter\, Jaswinder Bolina.  \n\n\n\nJaswinder is a thoughtful\, thorough teacher. For writers ready to explore their voice and reach the next level in their sentence craft\, join him in this intermediate/advanced webinar to study how our choices of diction\, syntax\, and sentence construction often underlie greater missteps in our work. Cliché means so much more than the overuse of familiar phrases. It can also mean our tendency to use familiar sentence structure in our writing–and worse\, in our thinking.  \n\n\n\nWe’ll discuss what constitutes a cliché\, why we’re so inclined to use clichés\, and how avoiding dead language brings power to our ideas. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXAMINE how cliché comes from stating the obvious\, but also from stating something remarkable and interesting in an obvious and uninteresting way.\n\n\n\nCONSIDER the differences between original and clichéd writing to write more artful and impactful nonfiction.\n\n\n\nCHALLENGE our language and our thinking in order to write original\, thought-provoking essays that attract the attention of editors\, agents\, and readers.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for …\n\n\n\n\nExperienced writers\n\n\n\nWriters hoping to publish in major media outlets\n\n\n\nWriters looking for techniques to enhance their prose\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJaswinder Bolina’s fourth poetry collection English as a Second Language and Other Poems is published by Copper Canyon Press in 2023. His debut collection of essays Of Color was published by McSweeney’s in June 2020. His nonfiction has appeared at The Washington Post\, The Paris Review\, Shenandoah\, The Poetry Foundation\, and other outlets. His essays have also been featured in anthologies including the 14th edition of The Norton Reader (W.W. Norton & Company 2016)\, Language: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press 2013)\, and Poets on Teaching (University of Iowa Press 2011). He teaches on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Miami. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/fresh-words-new-patterns/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Event-Templates-copy.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250531T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250531T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250426T200547Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250520T191206Z UID:10000022-1748703600-1748707200@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:FREE WEBINAR| From Here to There: Simple Marketing Strategies for Writers Who Feel Stuck DESCRIPTION:You don’t need a personal brand. You need a personalized path. Even if you’re the most marketing-skeptical writer\, this webinar can help you get unstuck\, find your people\, and build a platform in a way that feels like a natural extension of your work—and yourself. \n\n\n\nAll Genres \n\n\n\nMarketing is often framed as a hustle: build your list\, grow your audience\, get on every platform\, sell your work. But for many writers\, this can feel overwhelming\, confusing\, and a little gross. Let’s be honest: writing is hard enough. What if finding and connecting with readers was the fun part? Or at the very least\, what if your marketing efforts didn’t all feel like agony\, obligation & ick? \n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, we’ll walk through the six most common roadblocks writers face in building a platform—-and the spots where most writers get stuck\, spin their wheels\, or want to give up.  \n\n\n\nOver our time together\, you’ll learn simple\, sustainable strategies to build momentum\, and start showing up with less anxiety and more intention. Whether you’re launching a newsletter\, trying to grow your readership\, or just want to be less allergic to the idea of “putting yourself out there\,” this webinar will give you a map—and a little motivation—to move forward. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nIDENTIFY six key roadblocks that prevent creative momentum\n\n\n\nLEARN how to define a personal “North Star” to guide and focus all your marketing decisions\n\n\n\nUNCOVER simple\, human strategies for building confidence and finding your audience\n\n\n\nSHIFT away from “content creation” to “creating connections”\n\n\n\nEXPLORE sustainable\, low-tech ways to stay consistent without burning out\n\n\n\nRECEIVE a list of practical tools\, prompts\, and resources to keep making progress long after the webinar ends\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for Writers who…\n\n\n\n\nwant to grow their audience without compromising their voice or values\n\n\n\nare overwhelmed by marketing advice and/or unsure where to start\n\n\n\nare “doing all the things” and still feel like nothing’s working\n\n\n\ncame to writing later in life and feel behind when it comes to platform-building\n\n\n\nare building toward publication but feel paralyzed by self-promotion\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nStephen Knezovich is the co-founder of Short Reads and Ascender Book Services. He is also the marketing strategist for Off Assignment\, a collage artist\, and the curator of two newsletters: Read This and Gluu. Previously\, he spent 16 years as the director of marketing for the literary nonprofit and publisher Creative Nonfiction. And before that he was a fledgling graphic designer\, an occasional DJ\, an inept book reviewer\, an undisciplined fiction writer\, the interim GM of a (now successful) restaurant\, a film school dropout\, the founder of a fake fraternity\, a passionate (but decidedly not professional) skateboarder\, and an aspiring comic book illustrator. He lives in Pittsburgh\, Pennsylvania\, with his wife\, two kids\, and their giant dog. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/from-here-to-there/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Event-Template-1-5.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250528T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250528T150000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250427T161516Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T155434Z UID:10000023-1748437200-1748444400@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Writing the Unknown: Imagination\, Invention\, and the Ethics of Filling in the Blanks DESCRIPTION:How to responsibly craft scenes you or your protagonist didn’t witness\, don’t fully remember\, or can only speculate about—with clarity\, honesty\, and emotional truth.\n\n\n\nFiction & Nonfiction \n\n\n\nFirst-person POV in both memoir and fiction demands emotional truth\, but what happens when the main character simply doesn’t—or can’t—know what happened\, but the story still demands that certain information come through? In this craft-centered session\, we’ll explore techniques for threading in offstage action\, family history\, hidden truths\, and essential context—without breaking the voice or cheating the form.  \n\n\n\nMemoirists may need old family stories\, information from people they’re estranged from or are deceased\, or cultural context from before their birth. \n\n\n\nNovelists know that first-person fiction is intimate and immediate—but your narrator can’t be everywhere\, can’t know everything\, and might be naive\, biased\, or flat-out wrong.  \n\n\n\nWhether due to absence\, memory gaps\, or lost connections\, writers often face the challenge of telling stories that hinge on scenes the main character never witnessed or the memoirist can no longer verify.  \n\n\n\nThis special 2-hour webinar explores how to use informed imagination and clearly signaled speculation to bring in offstage information and uncover hidden truths without misleading your reader or losing consistency in POV. We’ll explore writing the unknown using speculation\, research\, deduction\, mysticism & faith. Through discussion\, examples from published work\, and a guided writing exercise\, we’ll learn how to responsibly fill in the blanks—and consider when doing so serves the memoir or novel and when it doesn’t. \n\n\n\nThis is a TWO-HOUR class\, with 20 minutes of writing time in the middle.  \n\n\n\n\n40 minutes – Learn five types of perhapsing\, see them in published work\, and understand why and how to create scenes and montages outside the protagonist’s direct experience.\n\n\n\n10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.\n\n\n\n20 minutes – Revise a scene to include perhapsing\, or write a few speculative paragraphs from scratch. 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.\n\n\n\n40 minutes – Allison will live-edit pages shared on screen\, noting where the writer is succeeding in the purpose of the scene\, and what revisions she suggests to 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. \n\n\n\n10 minutes – Q&A and planning your writing from here.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE the challenges of uncertain or secondhand scenes\, backstory\, subtext and offstage action in first-person prose.\n\n\n\nDEFINE emotional truth in fiction and the ethics of invention in nonfiction.\n\n\n\nDEEPEN your narrative authority by signaling speculation on the page with language and structure.\n\n\n\nWRITE a speculative or secondhand scene using clear signals to the reader.\n\n\n\nDISCOVER what’s working with live-editing of volunteer pages and tips for everyone.\n\n\n\n\nThis workshop suits memoirists and novelists at all levels who want to use ethical imagination as a craft skill\, not a shortcut.\n\n\n\nYou’ll receive the slides and prompts to take this work into your manuscript \n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAllison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She’s helped writers sell to Big Five and literary publishers\, hit the NYT Bestseller list\, and sign multi-book deals. 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. \n\n\n\nAllison works with literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction\, and is familiar with the conventions of most genres. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and spent 20 years as a circus aerialist and acrobat before writing and editing full-time. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/writing-the-unknown/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Event-Template-1-6.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250521T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250521T161500 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250427T163311Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T154924Z UID:10000024-1747839600-1747844100@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | The Ideal Sentence: Your Voice\, Your Tone\, Your Pace DESCRIPTION:Every beginning sets a tone\, establishes a voice\, and signals the quality of the language that is to come. Your beginning is one of your most important writing choices–learn to make it powerful.\n\n\n\nAll Genres \n\n\n\nWill that language be complex and tangled? Plain-spoken? Vanilla? Lavender? Will it zing like jazz or sing like a lullabye? Will it feel lethargic\, or will it clop\, or will it swashbuckle? \n\n\n\nIt’s always time to think about sentences—to explore the ways they work (and sometimes don’t)\, the ways we bend them to get closer to the truth\, and the ways we work on patterns and rhythms so that the pages remain alive.  \n\n\n\nProse from Hilton Als\, Michael Ondaatje\, Jean-Dominique Bauby\, Jia Tolentino\, Annie Dillard\, Olivia Laing\, Carmen Machado\, Terry Tempest Williams\, and Mark Richard will inspire us and lead our way. \n\n\n\nExercises presented will be focused on voice\, tone\, mood\, and pace. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nREFINE your writing voices\n\n\n\nEXPERIMENT with mood\, tone\, and pace\n\n\n\nDEVELOP powerful new beginnings\n\n\n\nCREATE a better understanding of your writerly strengths\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers who:\n\n\n\n\nare intent on capturing the attention of agents\, editors\, and readers.  \n\n\n\nare keen on perfecting their work.\n\n\n\nwish to build more dimension into their writing.\n\n\n\nWant to learn more about sentence craft and explore their writing voice.\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne of our favorite presenters\, BETH KEPHART\, is the award-winning writer of memoir\, children’s books\, young adult novels\, and craft books. She is also a paper artist. Her new book\, her first novel for adults\, is Tomorrow Will Bring Sunday’s News: A Philadelphia Story. Please join her Substack journey at The Hush and the Howl. More at bethkephartbooks.com \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/the-ideal-sentence/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Event-Template-1-copy-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250514T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250514T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250411T191358Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250701T154802Z UID:10000017-1747234800-1747240200@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Structure Your Story: How to Keep Readers Hooked From Start to Finish DESCRIPTION:Storytelling skill is the most challenging aspect of the craft of writing. Learn how to design a structure that will hold your readers and keep them turning the page.\n\n\n\nFiction\, Nonfiction\, Memoir\, Novel\, & Short Story \n\n\n\nStorytelling skill is the most challenging aspect of craft: the way the plot unfolds and how events create new energy and excitement for readers to keep going. For many of us\, these skills do not come naturally.  We have to train and practice. \n\n\n\nStructuring a successful project requires knowing where to start\, what to include\, and how to deliver a powerful\, memorable\, and compelling story with a meaningful resolution. In this webinar\, we’ll explore the basic principles of story design and present proven templates to help you re-think your approach to story design\, restart your project\, and save revision time. \n\n\n\nThis webinar is for novelists\, short story writers\, memoirists and nonfiction writers who are working on individual pieces or a book-length project. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE ready-made\, easily customized templates that jump-start your story \n\n\n\nTROUBLESHOOT pitfalls that hold great stories back\n\n\n\nLEARN the six key scenes that make a story rivet your reader\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for Writers:\n\n\n\n\nStuck in a novel or memoir (especially if you’ve reached the murky middle!)\n\n\n\nStruggling with a large amount of material\n\n\n\nWho feel they have not yet mastered essential plot skills\n\n\n\nWho worry their work isn’t capturing attention\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOne 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\nFULL 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-structure-your-story/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Event-Template-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250507T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250507T143000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250401T163123Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250506T154026Z UID:10000016-1746622800-1746628200@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | The Meaning in the Moment: Using Place\, Time\, and Detail to Power Your Scenes DESCRIPTION:Learn to bring more immediacy and urgency to your prose by replicating how life feels in the moment\, crafting scenes that capture the texture of actual living. \n\n\n\nFiction & Nonfiction \n\n\n\nOur lives—and our characters’ lives—unfold in distinct moments – specific times\, particular places\, intimate details – rather than through explanatory passages and abstract interpretation. In this webinar\, we will practice bringing more immediacy and urgency to our prose by replicating how life feels in the moment\, and crafting scenes that capture the texture of actual living. \n\n\n\nWhether working with our own remembered lives in memoir\, or our characters’ constructed lives in fiction\, rather than “naming” a character’s emotional reactions\, let the reader experience the discrete moments that bring the significant feeling forward. We will look at examples from both memoir and fiction and discuss how to use the techniques in your work. Allison and Dinty will also “improvise” scenes\, writing in the moment to illustrate how details accumulate to create a whole. \n\n\n\nYou’ll leave with a better understanding of your craft\, clear ideas to enhance your scenes\, and prompts and nudges to get you started on new work or revision. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE how scenes can resonate more powerfully by replicating “real” life events\n\n\n\nDISCOVER ways to increase the immediacy and urgency of your story\n\n\n\nLEARN HOW deliberate craft choices create a powerful emotional connection\n\n\n\nWATCH Allison and Dinty improvise scene writing and editing live on Zoom\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for:\n\n\n\n\nWriters sick to death of hearing “show don’t tell” and unsure how to act on that feedback\n\n\n\nWriters who have been told they “Explain too much.”\n\n\n\nWriters who’d like their work to immediately capture attention and engage agents\, editors and readers.\n\n\n\nWriters with a piece that’s been widely submitted and rejected\n\n\n\nMemoirists needing new ways to recreate intensity of feeling on the page\n\n\n\nNovelists struggling with their genre\, who need to embrace tropes while keeping them fresh.\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDINTY W. MOORE  is 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. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nALLISON K WILLIAMS is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She’s helped writers sell to Big Five and literary publishers\, hit the NYT Bestseller list\, and sign multi-book deals. 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. Allison works with literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction\, as well as essays\, short fiction\, and and social platform. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and spent 20 years as a circus aerialist and acrobat before writing and editing full-time. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-the-meaning-in-the-moment/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Event-Template-4.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250430T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250430T143000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250321T203419Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250416T200805Z UID:10000010-1746018000-1746023400@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Smarter Than You Think: Trusting Readers with Subtlety\, Nuance\, and the Pleasures of Uncertainty DESCRIPTION:Readers love putting two and two together for themselves\, but too often—out of insecurity—writers forget to provide readers the space to discern and discover. \n\n\n\nFiction & Nonfiction \n\n\n\nReaders are curious people with active\, agile minds. Too often\, though—out of insecurity about how well our story is coming across—we provide too much information\, robbing our readers of one of the key pleasures of reading: putting two and two together for themselves. \n\n\n\nThis webinar will use examples from successful memoirs and literary essays to examine how we can write as if telling our story to the smartest friend we have. Where is the line between leaving a reader in the dark and allowing for some delicious suspense? When are nuance and suggestion more effective than perfect clarity? When is contradictory character information a strength rather than a blunder? \n\n\n\nWe’ll examine how we can enter the reader’s thought processes to discern the difference between confusing our readers and leaving them intrigued. And we’ll examine our own insecurity patterns\, rooting out our tendencies to tell\, then show\, then tell again. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE the line between confusing our readers and leaving them happily intrigued\n\n\n\nLEARN to write as if telling our story to “the smartest friend we have.”\n\n\n\nEXAMINE our own insecurity patterns\, rooting out our tendencies to tell\, then show\, then tell again.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:\n\n\n\n\nWould like their work to immediately capture attention\, to engage agents\, editors and—of course—readers\n\n\n\nStruggle with “how much to tell\,” “how much to show\,” and how much to “hold back”\n\n\n\nWant to revise work that’s been widely submitted and rejected\n\n\n\nAre insecure about their storytelling skills (that’s all of us)!\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDINTY W. MOORE  is 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. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@craft-talks.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-smarter-than-you/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/3.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250423T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250423T163000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250321T204659Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250417T161054Z UID:10000011-1745420400-1745425800@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | The Fine Art of Containment: Finding New Ways to Hold Your Story DESCRIPTION:Structure can seem like such a mundane word\, but in this webinar\, we’ll find exciting new ways for you to bring your story to life on the page.\n\n\n\nNonfiction \n\n\n\nYou’ve mined your memories\, written your scenes\, and come to some insights—yet your personal essay or memoir still doesn’t seem to fully engage your reader. Radically revising your structure might be the answer. \n\n\n\nWe’ll be thinking of structure in the sense of “containers\,” the way you might choose the perfect vase for a bouquet. Containers in this context could be thought of as through-lines that both hold and propel the narratives. These container scenes create both boundaries and forward movement for material that might otherwise have a hard time finding its focus. \n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, we will explore the various “container scenes” writers have used to structure their essays\, and how you can identify container scenes that might already exist in your own work. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE how to structure a personal essay to fully engage a reader\n\n\n\nPLAY with Beginnings and Endings\n\n\n\nDISCOVER how to identify a container scene in the works you read\n\n\n\nIDENTIFY and employ container scenes in your personal narratives\n\n\n\nBE EQUIPPED with suggestions for future reading and practice\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers:\n\n\n\n\nEager for fresh insights into revision practices\n\n\n\nInterested in how published authors structure their personal essays\n\n\n\nLooking for inspiration to draft new work and revise existing pieces\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBRENDA MILLER’s most recent book is A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing on Form. She is the author of five more essay collections\, including An Earlier Life\, which received the Washington State Book Award for Memoir\, and she is the recipient of seven Pushcart Prizes. Her book of collaborative essays with Julie Marie Wade\, Telephone: Essays in Two Voices\, received the Cleveland Poetry Center Award for Creative Nonfiction and was published by Cleveland State University Press in 2021. She co-authored\, with Suzanne Paola\, the textbook Tell it Slant: Creating\, Refining\, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction\, now in its third edition from McGraw-Hill Higher Education. She is a Professor Emerita of Creative Writing at Western Washington University. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@craft-talks.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-the-fine-art-of-containment/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/4.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250409T161500 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250321T202214Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250403T030714Z UID:10000008-1744210800-1744215300@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | The Dreaded Comp Titles: A Necessary Evil That Can Launch Your Career DESCRIPTION:Learn why the industry relies on comps\, where to find the best ones\, and how to use them to strengthen your pitch.\n\n\n\nComp titles are one of the most powerful tools for helping agents and publishers quickly understand where your book fits in the market. These comparable books—similar to yours in key ways—can make or break your pitch. In a logline or query\, comp titles serve as “shorthand” for your book’s tone\, theme and story\, making it easier for editors and agents to determine if a manuscript is a good fit. In a proposal\, strong comp titles also prove that books like yours are selling now. \n\n\n\nYet\, finding and using comp titles is one of the most challenging parts of querying. \n\n\n\nThis webinar will demystify the process of identifying and effectively using comp titles. Learn why the industry relies on comps\, where to find the best ones\, and how to use them to strengthen your pitch. Discover tools\, databases\, and research methods to uncover comps with strong sales numbers—all with step-by-step guidance and one-on-one assistance. Learn a structured\, 7-step process to streamline the search\, giving you everything needed to research and find your titles. \n\n\n\nAs an added resource\, a 30-minute video will be provided\, detailing how to use your newly found comps to improve your chances of securing the right agent or publishing house. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\n✅ Discover effective strategies for finding strong comp titles\n\n\n\n✅ Learn how to use comp titles to strengthen queries and pitches\n\n\n\n✅ Understand how comps demonstrate market viability and attract agents\n\n\n\n✅ Overcome the frustration of searching for and selecting the right comps\n\n\n\n✅ Avoid common mistakes that can weaken a book’s positioning\n\n\n\n✅ Gain tools to maximize success in securing an agent or publisher\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for ….\n\n\n\n\nAspiring and Querying Authors – Writers preparing to pitch their book to agents and publishers who need strong comp titles to strengthen their query.\n\n\n\nSelf-Publishing Authors – Writers looking to position their book in the market and attract the right audience using comp titles.\n\n\n\nLiterary Agents & Editors – Publishing professionals who want to refine their ability to identify and evaluate comp titles for submissions.\n\n\n\nBook Coaches & Writing Instructors – Professionals who guide writers through the querying and publishing process and need effective strategies for teaching comp title research.\n\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAMY COLLINS\, Agent with Talcott Notch Literary Services\, has over 30 years of experience matching books with readers. As a former book buyer\, publisher\, and sales director\, Amy focuses on the marketplace and sales potential for authors. As an agent\, she represents many authors who have signed deals with major publishers and is currently negotiating book to film as well. Amy is the author of several non-fiction books and is currently traveling the country with her two dogs meeting with editors and authors. She can be found on Instagram\, Threads\, and BluSky at @askamycollins. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@craft-talks.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/webinar-the-dreaded-comp/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Event-Template-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250402T161500 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250319T153132Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T143139Z UID:10000006-1743606000-1743610500@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:WEBINAR | Writing the Taboo in Memoir: Bring Your Most Vulnerable Stories to Life DESCRIPTION:At their best\, personal narratives about “taboo” topics speak to our darkest truths and teach us what it means to be vulnerable.\n\n\n\nTopics like mental illness\, sex\, and violence are often branded “taboo” and can be some of the most difficult material to write about. But at their best\, these narratives speak to our darkest truths and teach us what it means to be vulnerable. Even the most stigmatized topics can be made approachable if you know how to pull the reader in and give your story universal resonance. No matter how difficult the subject matter\, memoirists can keep readers engaged by using craft techniques like worldbuilding\, identifying universal truths\, and exercising narrative control. \n\n\n\nThis webinar will explore the challenges and opportunities of writing honestly about taboo topics. We’ll discuss why it’s so important to give voice to unsayable truths\, and how to use craft tools to create unforgettable memoirs and essays. We’ll also address self-care strategies\, how to know when material is “too” explicit\, and how and when to exercise narrative restraint. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXPLORE why certain topics are “taboo” in personal narratives–and why you should write about them anyway.\n\n\n\nLEARN craft tools for making such stories feel resonant to readers\, including worldbuilding\, identifying universal truths\, and exercising narrative control.\n\n\n\nADDRESS the practical challenges of writing about taboo topics\, including self-care strategies\, knowing when material is “too” explicit\, and how to use narrative restraint.\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for ….\n\n\n\nA memoirist or personal essayist who is tackling topics often considered taboo or stigmatized in society. Examples of these kinds of topics include mental illness\, sex\, and violence. \n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available. ✔All registrants receive the recording. ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT YOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKATIE BANNON is a writer\, editor\, and educator whose work has appeared in 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 is a developmental editor who loves working with memoirists and essayists on how to write and revise their most vulnerable\, taboo stories. She teaches at GrubStreet and lives in Central Massachusetts with her partner and two cats. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email Info@craft-talks.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/writing-the-taboo/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250308T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250308T160000 DTSTAMP:20260507T083812 CREATED:20250122T200257Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250217T155842Z UID:10000004-1741446000-1741449600@writingcraft.com SUMMARY:Angle of Vision: Reflection and Retrospection\, Time and Tense DESCRIPTION:Writers of nonfiction prose rarely consider tense\, but it is essential to orienting a reader. Writing about our own experiences\, crafting through verb tense\, allows retrospection—consideration of the past from the vantage point of the present. \n\n\n\nRetrospection is a powerful form of meaning-making: it allows us to consider what happened through the lens of subsequent experience\, adding a layer of significance to memory and allowing writers to recognize and reflect on what’s changed and why it matters. To powerfully use this voice\, writers must make thoughtful choices when choosing tense. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe’ll examine and discover how tense functions; consider the oft-repeated advice that present tense is more vivid and immediate; and analyze how mastering tense allows seasoned writers engage in retrospection and reflection. \n\n\n\nIn this webinar\, you will:\n\n\n\n\nEXAMINE the ways one can use tense to enable retrospection and reflection\n\n\n\nANALYZE past and present tense\, to understand how each functions discretely and how they can work together\n\n\n\nLEARN to use tense in your own writing\, to create an angle of vision that draws meaning from memory and experience\n\n\n\n\nThis webinar is ideal for writers of memoir and personal essay who want to better understand how to write from their own memories and experiences.\n\n\n\nClosed captioning is available ✔All registrants receive the recording ✔ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nYOUR PRESENTER\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMichael Copperman’s  prose has appeared in The Oxford-American\, Guernica\, The Sun\, Creative Nonfiction\, Boston Review\, Salon\, Gulf Coast\, Triquarterly\, Kenyon Review and Copper Nickel\, among many others\, and has won awards and garnered fellowships from the Munster Literature Center\, Breadloaf Writers Conference\, Oregon Literary Arts\, and the Oregon Arts Commission. His memoir TEACHER: Two Years in the Mississippi Delta (University Press of Mississippi 2017)\, about the rural black public schools of the Mississippi Delta\, was a finalist for the 2018 Oregon Book Award in CNF. His work is represented by David Dunton of Harvey Klinger. \n\n\n\nQuestions? Please email info@craft-talks.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegistration Info\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvent Organizer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocation URL:https://writingcraft.com/event/angle-of-vision-reflection-and-retrospection-time-and-tense/ CATEGORIES:Webinars ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://writingcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Event-Template-from-Canva-1.png END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR