The Virginia Woolf Writers’ Workshop opens on September 5! I’ll teach two sections, meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As always, I will send the readings your way exactly 7 days before the class meets, so be sure to sign up by August 29 if you want to join us. And do join us, because it will be so much fun and exciting. The Virginia Woolf Writers’ Workshop is a writing class that will focus on freeing our imagination, and instilling in us the qualities that Virginia Woolf thought would make a good writer. Among them are creating characters, using poetic devices, unconscious writing, and revising, to name only a few. We can easily accept that these qualities or practices are only expected, and not one of them is surprising. What’s important is how Woolf goes about gaining and refining these qualities and practices. What can you write that nobody else can? How can you be true to your own voice? Where do you find your values and reflect them in your writing? How do you stay inspired to return to your writing? How do you explore your ability and take it further? You know, I always take somewhat of a radical approach when it comes to teaching craft. We’ve studied all sorts of things, from writers’ interviews to Japanese philosophy, to think about our craft. This time, we’ll combine philosophy with practice. Every week for four weeks, we’ll do writing exercises that come from Virginia Woolf’s brilliant essays.The writing exercises I chose are based on certain elements and rules of writing, and they’ll show us how to use or refuse said elements and rules. Instead of writing one story to be workshopped at the end of class, we’ll do writing sketches (150-500 words) every week, which we’ll collect in a little class anthology. Woolf’s essays will not only reveal to us her wit and understanding of the art of writing, but give us a structure within which we can start to explore our own philosophy of writing. I hope we’ll gain not only a writing routine at the end of this class but also the habit of thinking deeply and interrogatively about writing. Take this class if you’re already a fan of Virginia Woolf or if you’ve never read her. This class will pay homage to a great writer by combining her philosophy and her writing practice, and it will give you a chance to think like her and to write with her. Our classes are safe and supporting places for writers of all levels. If you want to take a risk, this is the time and place to do it. Please add me on WeChat and I'll sign you up.Can’t do it in September? Other classes are coming—James Joyce and more Virginia Woolf (with a twist!). I’ll be sharing my class calendar shortly, and I hope we can meet in at least one of these classes that I am so excited to teach.
All artwork is by Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell*
You may read about how my reading and your feedback together inspired this new set of classes.
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