NOTE: Due to precautions being taken in the interest of community safety during the Covid-19 outbreak, this in-person course will be fully hosted online. If you have any questions, please reach out to classes@catapult.co
“Elliott is one of the first readers of my work because she's perceptive, insightful, has a brilliant feel for the intention buried under the work, and her comments are always wise. In fact, I almost didn't give a testimonial because I wanted to keep her all to myself, but grudgingly decided that other writers deserve to know what it's like to have their work read and commented on by her. If you're lucky enough to study with Elliott, you're lucky, indeed.” - Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies; Floria; Arcadia; Delicate, Edible Birds; and The Monsters of Templeton
This workshop is for fiction writers who have previous workshop experience. Each writer will workshop two pieces (short stories or novel excerpts) and have one individual conference with the instructor. Workshop will be supplemented with assigned readings and generative writing exercises. Writers who take this course will leave with rigorous feedback, a clearer sense of their own strengths as fiction writers, and a greater dexterity with craft techniques.
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 desktop client so you have access to all platform features.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Peer and instructor feedback on two workshop submissions
- Greater confidence as a writer, one and off the page
- A better understanding of the practice and application of craft techniques
- Access to Catapult's list of writing opportunities and important submission deadlines, as well as a 10% discount on all future Catapult classes
COURSE EXPECTATIONS:
- Each student will submit (a short story or stand alone novel excerpt) to workshop twice. Each submission should be a maximum of 25 double-spaced pages
- At each class, we will discuss two submissions, so each week, students will be required to read and comment on up to 50 double-spaced pages of their peers' work
- Be prepared to engage actively in discussion
Elliott Holt is the author of the novel, You Are One of Them, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She has an MFA from Brooklyn College, where she won the Himan Brown Award. She is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony. Her writing has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Time, VQR, and Guernica, and in the anthology Shallow, Selfish and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. She has taught at Brooklyn College, American University, NYU, and at the Paris American Academy.
“A novel of grand and intimate scope, artfully balanced between the political and personal. The book’s narrative satisfies on multiple levels, as both a compelling character study and a psychological thriller with a ferociously intelligent ending.”
"Holt's beguiling debut… in which there is no difference between personal and political betrayal, vividly conjures the anxieties of the Cold War without ever lapsing into nostalgia."
"Holt has found inventive ways to use language that suggests the porousness of identity, the correspondence between self and other, neighbor and foreigner, you and them. Her ingenuity brings distinction to this confident, crafty first novel."
"A hugely absorbing first novel from a writer with a fluid, vivid style and a rare knack for balancing the pleasure of entertainment with the deeper gratification of insight. More, please.”
"Elliott Holt is an incisive, nuanced, and deeply intelligent reader and editor. I trust her with all my drafts and she always pushes the work in exactly the right ways, with great precision and care. Her editorial gifts have been hugely important in my own creative life, and I trust her eye completely."
"Elliott was always ready with a kind, tactful, but penetrating insight that got to the heart of what the student writer had attempted or accomplished. She was great at giving feedback that offered the student a way forward for an individual piece, but also spoke to larger issues relevant to that student’s writing, and to the group as a whole. She also gave amazing reading recommendations-- she was a one-woman catalog of useful individualized suggestions."
