Craft Talks

REPLAY | Writing Through the Lens: Think Like a Photographer to Craft Compelling Scenes
2026-06-01 00:00 - 2026-06-30 23:59 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Struggling with writing scenes or recreating lost memories? Thinking like a photographer can help.

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

Not included in the Season Pass

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

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

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

Registrants will receive a handout with prompts and actionable tips.

In this webinar, you will:

LEARN to read photographs in order to better understand composition of scenes

DRAW inspiration from two-dimensional images to “frame” your own scenes

LEARN how to create compelling prose that draws your reader into your story

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

The live event happened in November 2023.

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

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

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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WEBINAR | Poetry, Prose, or Both? Writing and Publishing a Hybrid Memoir
2026-06-24 15:00 - 16:15
Crossing genres can be an obstacle—or a selling point. Explore the craft of writing and the art of pitching a memoir that wants both poetry and prose.

For Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, and Hybrid

Sometimes a moment demands the compression of a poem. Sometimes it needs room to breathe in prose. But what happens when your memoir wants both? In this webinar, we’ll explore the craft of hybrid memoir—how to recognize when a piece is calling for verse versus essay, how to let both forms coexist without flattening or repeating yourself, and how each genre can do work the other can’t.We’ll also tackle the practical challenges of bringing hybrid and multi-genre work to publication: how to structure the manuscript, how to describe it in a query, how to find receptive publishers, and how to talk about your book when it defies easy categorization.Drawing from Brenda’s experience writing and placing Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems (Skinner House Books, April 2026), she’ll share both the creative and publishing lessons learned along the way.

In this webinar, you will:

LEARN to recognize when a moment, image, or memory wants to be a poem or an essay

GAIN permission to try different forms and genres for the same material

DISCOVER strategies for letting poetry and prose speak to each other without redundancy

EXPLORE organizing principles for a hybrid manuscript

PRACTICE language for describing multi-genre work to agents, editors, and readers

IDENTIFY which presses are most open to unconventional memoir forms

This webinar is for…

writers who enjoy the freedom to explore more than one genre at once (and want to feel better about it!)

anyone who has wondered: “Is this a poem or is this an essay?”—and suspected the answer might be “yes”

writers working on a book that feels like “essays” and “memoir” and “maybe poetry” all at once

anyone who has been told their manuscript is “hard to categorize” or “difficult to shelve”

those preparing to query or submit a multi-genre project and unsure how to describe it

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

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

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

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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