reflection deferred

Hopefully a reflection deferred doesn't shrivel up like a raisin in the sun (much more likely to fester tbh!), because my planned look back on a year of weekly newsletters will have to wait for next week—daycare is closed for a presumed exposure, so we're here with a quarantined toddler (in the lead-up to two of my biggest deadlines of the year). Fun! So I will reflect next week, and this week I will just tell you that next year I'm teaching two classes for Catapult, and maybe you want to take them!

First up is a four-week seminar for nonfiction writers about reading like a writer, i.e. analysis and theft:

“If you want to write, read.” Okay, but then what?

Reading great writing is one of the best teaching tools for writers, but you need to know what to do with what you read. In this seminar, we’ll read essays by writers such as Eula Biss, Jamaica Kincaid, and Leslie Jamison that pull off difficult, subtle, mysterious moves—and then we’ll figure out how. With reading and analysis we’ll identify the concrete choices writers make in their work, which will allow us to answer questions like How did they do that? and, more importantly, How can I do something like that in my writing, too? We’ll examine topics such as setting (and subverting) readers’ expectations, creating a sense of flow in nonlinear writing, and using research and quotation to support and challenge your own ideas. Once you see the moves that make great nonfiction work, you can put them into practice.

That class starts Feb 5.

Then, on March 19, I'm teaching a one-day intensive for prose writers about how to cheat your way to expertise:

Writing is an art. But it is also skilled work. All too often, we expect great writing to bubble out of us unprompted, as long as we make space for the muse to arrive. But what really makes space for the muse is a whole lot of skills and strategies.

Research shows that expert writers know how to make much of their process automatic, so that their full attention can be on creative generation. But you don’t have to wait for expertise. You can build a process that breaks writing up into small, manageable steps, and in doing so clear space for creativity.

In this one-day intensive, for writers of all experience levels, you’ll learn about the science of writing development and how you can use that knowledge to build a better writing process for yourself. We’ll talk about working memory, generation vs. assessment, how to quiet your inner critic (or at least tell her to wait her turn), and revision strategies that will make writing better and more enjoyable, every step of the way.

Let me know if you have any questions! Real writing next week, childcare willing!