Visual Arts Center of Richmond

Intermediate

This class is for students who’ve already taken the Intro to Creative Nonfiction or who have been writing for a while and are interested in exploring techniques for taking their writing to the next level. While we will still use prompts and group exercises in class, the majority of our time will be spent developing each individual writer's themes, structure, voice and stories. Through in-class writing, we’ll flesh out and expand what’s already been written and discover what's yet to be uncovered. Be prepared to read and write in class. Material List: Students should bring their own journal and pen.

Instructor: Valley Haggard

6 Tuesdays
March 13 – April 17
10:00 AM – 12:30 PM

All Levels

This class explores the idea of creating and maintaining the fictive dream in short story form, with a practical goal of building good habits and figuring out who we are as writers and what we want to write. Weekly activities will include in-class free writing and short take-home assignments; the latter will be read and work-shopped by fellow class members in hopes of generating ideas for future revisions. We will also look at examples of short literature by authors such as Sherman Alexie, Margaret Atwood, George Saunders, and Flannery O’Connor.

Instructor: Andrew Blossom

6 Wednesdays
January 11 – February 15
6:30 – 9:00 PM

All Levels

Fiction writers and poets thrive on the ability to get deep – to develop a productive intimacy with the ideas that lurk in the recesses of the mind. This class will teach participants to gain access to those ideas using short, focused techniques like character study, automatic writing, memory tapping, symbolic interpretation and more. Such tools not only bring vivid, lush detail to written work, they also help to alleviate writer’s block (and other lapses in focus, i.e. ‘but-I-haven’t-caught up-on-Glee-yet’ syndrome). This class is open to writers in all stages, whether starting a first short story or revising a third novel. All participants will generate raw material with which to craft two finished pieces of work (short fiction and/or poetry) by the final session.

Instructor: Bird Cox

9 Mondays
January 30 – March 26
10:00 AM – 12:30 PM

All Levels

Fiction Writing Workshop is a course in which we'll devise, write, and workshop your short stories. We'll do a lot of in-class writing, and focus critical attention on aspects of narrative craft including story, plot, structure, character, and dialogue within professionally published pieces as well as in your works. We'll do in-class exercises to help you brainstorm and to help you get unstuck. By the end of the course, you should come away with a greater sense of how to evaluate you own work and how to edit as you write.

Instructor: Jamie Fueglein

6 Thursdays
April 19 – May 24
6:30 – 9:00 PM

All Levels

Every life has a tale. The trick can be learning how to tell it. In this course an award-winning nonfiction writer and teacher will help you explore techniques to turn your experiences and your true-life stories into memoir, essay and narrative nonfiction. Writing is thinking. It’s a way to claim what you are and to discover where you’ve been. You will learn how to craft your essays and memoirs, and explore how successful narrative nonfiction can reach readers' hearts and minds.

Instructor: Greg Weatherford

6 Thursdays
January 12 – February 16
6:30 – 9:00 PM

All Levels

In My Antonia, Willa Cather wrote: "Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again." In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Memory is hunger." This one-day intensive workshop puts these two notions together-that some memories are heightened experiences, and that we hunger for more. Participants will try simple strategies for writing about their own lives. The instructor will offer encouraging feedback as well as specific writing prompts to help students develop ideas.

Instructor: Douglas Jones

Section A
Saturday, January 28
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Section B
Saturday, May 12
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

All Levels

Students will write and critique poems, study form, read essays about poetry, and study the work of other poets. We will engage in a lively conversation on craft, attempt new forms, and revise poems that already mean a lot to us. The workshop is open to beginners as well as those who are stuck and want constructive feedback from a vigorous community of readers.

Instructor: Leslie Shiel

8 Thursdays
February 9 – April 12
6:30 – 9:00 PM

This class is currently full. If you would like to be placed on the waiting list, please e-mail us at frontdesk@visarts.org.

Other Suggested Courses
Fiction Writing Workshop, starting April 19
Memoir Writing Workshop, 1 day on May 12
Letterpress Greeting Cards, April 28 & May 5

All Levels

In this poetry workshop, your individual poems and larger projects will hold the spotlight. With 6–10 of your peers, we will consider your intent and use it as a basis to provide helpful feedback. Along the way we will talk about the history of poetry to shed some light on the contemporary period. This is a great way to join a writing group and to form lasting friendships with like-minded writers. Additional help with your work is offered beyond the meeting times.

Instructor: Darren Morris

6 Mondays
January 16 – February 20
6:30 – 9:00 PM

All Levels

Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes about el duende -- "the goblin wind" within us which can breathe our creative spark into creative fire. The ember may be a poem, a story, a confession, a play. It may not even know what it is, or wants to be -- but it's there. So we'll experiment. The goal of this creative writing class is to fan your ideas and inspirations into flame. We'll use timed writing, dream journals, guided imagery, active imagination, and anything else we can think of to get in touch with the stories you want or need to tell -- and those needing or wanting you to tell them. Come with an open mind. Be honest and brave. You will come away from this class not only a better writer, but also a clearer thinker.

Instructor: Douglas Jones

8 Tuesdays
January 17 – March 6
6:30 – 9:00 PM

All Levels

If a playwright writes plays, why is the word not spelled "playwrite”? “Wright” comes from Old English, meaning “worker” or “maker.” A playwright doesn't simply write a play: he or she drafts it, crafts it, builds it--and the nuts and bolts that hold it together are scenes and monologues. In this class we'll explore structure, treatment, conflict, character development, setting, and plot. We'll talk about differences between writing for the stage and writing for film or television. We'll look at some scenes and monologues to see how they work, and then we'll write several of our own. No previous experience in playwriting is required.

Instructor: Douglas Jones

8 Tuesdays
March 20 – May 8
6:30 – 9:00 PM