This class wonders how page constraints can prompt creativity. We will read and write poems a page or shorter and flash fiction and nonfiction under 1000 (and often under 300) words, opening up our understandings of these micro forms and exploring the pressures and reliefs of brevity. Class will include discussion of readings including Ishmael Reed, Julia Alvarez, and Justin Torres with application onto your work, generative and consistent and varied writing and sharing, and the opportunity to workshop 1-3 of your new shorts and receive generous and associative feedback. Each writer will be workshopped once formally, but there will be constant chances for engaged informal responses.
Our process will always include sharing work, ideas and encouragement of new approaches, genres, and perspectives. Whether your schedule permits you only bursts in which to write short pieces or you hope to add to your practice of a longer project, this class provides an encouraging and rigorous environment for writing where less is more.
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. The Zoom calls will have automated transcription enabled. Please let us know (classes@catapult.co) if you have any questions or concerns about accessibility.
Check out this page for details about payment plans and discount opportunities.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- New poems, flash stories, and micro essays
- Feedback on recent writing
- Ways to adapt process and content to a writing practice
- 10% discount on all future Catapult classes
COURSE EXPECTATIONS:
Writers are expected to read each week's readings (under 10 pages), share work-in-progress, and prepare notes for workshop of other students. For your own workshop, you may turn in up to three shorts, totaling fewer than 5 double-spaced pages (usually with 12-point font and 1-inch margins).
COURSE SKELETON:
Week 1 (with introduction): The Sentence
Week 2 (with workshop): The I
Week 3 (with workshop): Forms and Skeletons
Week 4 (with workshop): Motion and Experimentation
Week 5 (with workshop): Versions and Revision
Week 6 (with celebration): The Piece
"The atmosphere Cindy created was kind, the exercises were stimulating, and feedback was truly generous."
"The class was excellent, and stretched me in all the best ways as a writer."
"The readings were tightly organized and the writing prompts were very generative."
