This 6-week course covers various essay forms—anaphoric, enumerated, one-sentence, triptych, and collage. We’ll meet each Saturday (beginning at 11:00 AM CST) for 2 hours, and each week, you’ll write an experiment (350-750 words) and receive feedback from me. During the last session, you will have the opportunity to share your favorite experiment with the group. We’ll read work by Hanif Abdurraqib,, Isabel Cristo, Jaquira Díaz, Jacqueline Doyle, Kimberly Goode, Megan Harlan, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Cade Mason, Lishani Ramanayake, Lidia Yuknavitch, and more. Join us! The Zoom Link and course readings will be emailed to you upon registration.

*Each Essay Forms class includes different forms and sometimes, a specific Point of View, so you don’t need to have taken previous iterations of the class.

“I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were,” writes Joan Didion in her essay, “On Keeping a Notebook.” In this 4-week class, we’ll read essays by writers engaged with their younger selves—and you’ll write experiments (350-750 words) each week to connect with and understand the person you used to be. We’ll read work by Marcia Aldrich, William Bradley, Jill Christman, Bernard Cooper, Steve Edwards, Kiese Laymon, T Kira Madden, Kat Moore, Jamila Osman, and more.

A 2-hour seminar on how to close essays. We’ll consider the essay’s tradition of suspending rather than ending by discussing the examples from the model essays by Marcia Aldrich, Jill Christman, Christien Hyung Oak Lee, Lee Martin, Kat Moore, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Jamila Osman, Phyllis Reilly, and Ira Sukrungruang, and you’ll have a chance to share how endings factor into your writing process. We’ll end with a Q&A. Join us! The Zoom link and model essays will be emailed to you.

In this 2-day seminar, we’ll discuss how important it is to establish the When and Where for your essay and your persona (the “I”). We’ll look at the openings of model essays to consider how writers ground the reader in time and place. We’ll also discuss when and why such details may be omitted. On the 2nd night, we’ll hear your (revised) openings of existing drafts or openings for new drafts. The Zoom link and model essays will be emailed to you.

In this two-hour seminar, you’ll learn how to create standout sentences, when to flash a fragment or two, and elevate your prose with sentence variety, rhythm, lyricism, and emphaiss., You’ll learn how to integrate literary devices, punctuation marks, different sentence structures, rhetorical devices, and other techniques for an immediate upgrade to your sentences. You’ll also get to experiment with revising or creating sentences of your own and sharing with the group during the second hour of this can’t miss seminar. T

How might we write essays without following narrative, sequential events, or chronology?  This 4-week class offers a survey of essays that rely on associations, juxtapositions, repetition, intertextuality, patterns, gaps, digressions, echoes, and more to create momentum and meaning. And you’ll get to write experiments in each form (300-800 words)—working to turn What Happened into What Might Happen In My Writing? Join us!

The class readings and Zoom link will be emailed to you.

In this 4-week class, you’ll take a trip across various states and states of mind, reading essays about wandering the backroads, following familiar routes back home, traversing the distance of the desert, and more.. Each week, you’ll write your own roads—experimenting (300-800 words) with ways to essay your adventures, escapes, observations, searches, and discoveries. I’ll send you encouraging, thorough feedback each week, and on Saturdays, you’ll get to hear what’s working in your writing from your classmates, discuss the week’s readings, and learn effective craft elements for writing the road. A packet of the class readings and the Zoom link will be emailed to you one week before the class begins. Join us!

The class readings and Zoom link will be emailed to you one week before the class begins.

A 2-hour seminar on how to open essays—from first words to sentences to paragraphs. We’ll look at examples, along with a few patterns in essay openings from classical to contemporary. During the seminar, you’ll experiment by writing your own essay opening and have the opportunity to share it with the group. We’ll end with a Q&A. Join us! The Zoom link and model essays (by Jo Ann Beard, Chelsea Biiondolillo, August Owens Grimm, Terese Marie Mailhot, Beaumont Sugar) will be emailed to you.

In this two-hour seminar, we’ll discuss ways to give your reader a strong impression and/or image of the people in your essays (including self-portraiture). I’ll share excerpts from essays, along with stills from films, to help you think about new ways to make people known to your reader. We’ll take a break while you experiment with writing (self) portraits and come back together for the chance to share your amazing portraiture.

In this 2-hour seminar, we’ll look at ways various writers think about the concept of persona (the “I”) in their essays, and we’ll look at excerpts from essays to see how writers establish “to whom the thing happened,” as Virginia Woolf described the self in writing. You’ll do a persona inventory, followed by a discussion and Q&A. My goal is for you to leave inspired to return to essay drafts of your own to (re)shape the persona or to start new drafts knowing which persona the essay needs.