So: you’ve got a piece of writing that you love, but you know it needs some work. It’s got all the potential to be a great piece, but no matter your efforts you can’t figure out how to revise it. Every time you go back in, you spend hours fixating on a period or a comma and not making any real changes. You put the story away and start a new one. Same thing: great potential, uneasiness, tinkering, stalling. Wash, rinse, repeat.
In this one-day revision workshop, students will learn to break out of this vicious cycle by gaining tips and tricks for revision. Most writers (even professional ones) face blocks when it comes time to revise, and together we will learn some tried and true methods that actually work.
In our one-day session, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of trusted revision techniques, and later students will apply those techniques to their own work. This class is ideal for those writers who are great at starting stories but not finishing them, or for those to whom “revision” is a scary word. Together, we’ll learn that revision doesn’t have to be terrifying—that in fact, revision is where some of the best work happens.
Class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom accessed from your private class page. While you can use Zoom from your browser, we recommend downloading the Zoom desktop client so you have access to all platform features.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Learn how to gain necessary distance from your own work
- Learn to identify key moments in your work and ways to dig into those moments
- Learn how to apply goal-management skills directly to revision, breaking down daunting work into manageable tasks
- 10% discount on all future Catapult classes
Zoela Renee Summerfield is the author of the novel Every Other Weekend. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Guernica and The Threepenny Review. Her first book, Everything Faces All Ways At Once, is available from Fourteen Hills Press. A MacDowell Colony fellow, she currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
“Summerfield's eye is sure, her writing hilarious and scathing and healing. It is a gift to find ourselves here, and find ourselves, perhaps, inhabitable. With EVERY OTHER WEEKEND, Summerfield brings us home to ourselves.”
“Zulema Summerfield is among the best new writers I've read in a long, long time. She tells the truth, but with a beautiful slant, and any reader who comes in contact with her will be better for her singular vision.”
Peter Orner
author of AM I ALONE HERE?
“Zulema LISTENS, without judgement, and asks probing questions that pry open the trap doors of your mind. Once she helps you hear yourself name your stumbling blocks and fears, she provides clear, practical, and infinitely wise solutions. You will leave your session with a personalized list of creative assignments, excited and ready to engage in your creative practice with playfulness and JOY.”
Nadja Spiegelman
author of I'LL TELL YOU IN PERSON
“Working with Zulema gave me a mental stimulus I didn’t know I needed. She has a knack for seeing things clearly and from different points of view, and I left feeling not only enlightened, but invigorated from her insight. I only wish she was always around me for whenever I hit a bump in the road.”
“Zulema Summerfield has the rare ability to see a story not just for what it is, but what it wants to be. She is guided in her feedback by the work itself, not by any rigid aesthetic, and her considerable knowledge of narrative and all-things literature allows her to give specific, constructive criticism that will help you articulate and achieve your vision. If you work with Zulema, count on being inspired, encouraged, and pushed to do your best work. She has a sharp eye and a huge heart, and what more could you want from a coach, a teacher, a comrade?”
