Workshops

Consistency and courage count for more than talent or technique in writing success, whether success means starting your story that longs to be written, joyfully adding pages, being surprised by the muse’s gifts, or publishing your masterpiece. These qualities aren't flashy. But they work, if practiced daily and even—or especially—during difficult times. The good news is that everyone can develop consistency and courage. This workshop will help you do that.

Writing with Consistency and Courage is designed for writers at any level who are looking to begin a new project, resume an old one, overcome obstacles in a work-in-progress, or surprise themselves a forward leap.

You'll be guided to examine what courage and consistency mean for your writing. You'll learn several techniques for getting to and staying at the page, overcoming resistance, and tapping into and trusting your creative intuition. You'll discover ways of finding a fresh perspective on your material. Finally, you'll compose new work in response to prompts, generating momentum to carry you into the next writing session.

One student said of Writing with Consistency and Courage:

Tamara’s Writing with Consistency and Courage workshop transformed my writing practice. Her approach is both compassionate and practical, providing the tools I needed to stay motivated and overcome self-doubt. Tamara created a supportive and inspiring environment where I felt empowered to take risks and push my boundaries as a writer. The strategies Tamara shared have become an essential part of my daily routine, and her genuine encouragement helped me find the courage to write more boldly. This workshop is a must for any writer looking to build a consistent writing habit and embrace their creative voice with confidence.

--Christina S.

The best flash pieces transport readers immediately and reveal dazzling truths with singular style, form, language, or slant. Essays of fewer than 1,000 words are fun to write and often easier to publish than longer pieces.

In this five-week online workshop, we’ll study and practice the magic of flash nonfiction. We’ll examine how a handful of exemplary brief essays and micro memoirs achieve their impact. We’ll identify the elements essential to flash nonfiction. We’ll discuss what such short pieces borrow from other forms and how they differ from prose poems or memoir excerpts, for example.

You’ll be prompted and guided to craft and refine your own flash nonfiction pieces. You’ll begin composing brief essays in class, based on a variety of prompts that are sure to spark new ideas and lead your creativity in unexpected directions. Then you’ll choose one of those beginnings to develop into a draft that you’ll receive light feedback on. 

We’ll discuss revision techniques, pinpointing strategies especially useful for this form. You’ll be invited to share your revised draft and solicit additional comments to help you develop your work further. (Sharing your work is entirely optional. Writers who choose not to share their work will still benefit from writing exercises and discussions related to form and craft.) Finally, we'll cover how and where to publish your flash nonfiction.

Transforming your drafts, rather than tinkering with them, will help you overcome writing plateaus and get your work published.

In Transformative Revision, I offer helpful frameworks for regarding revision and practical tools for improving your work in substantial ways. You'll get a personalized critique of one standalone piece of fiction or nonfiction (e.g., essay, story, or chapter) up to 5,000 words long. I'll tailor discussions and exercises to address common challenges I notice in students' manuscripts. There will be plenty of time for questions.

Transformative revision requires curiosity, honesty, and fearlessness. It asks us to be vulnerable and open to change. Revision that goes beyond tinkering will change the work and its author for the better.

In this workshop you’ll experiment with several techniques to transform your fiction or nonfiction in and outside of class. You'll learn what works for you. You'll leave with a new version of your work-in-progress and a custom revision toolkit you can use with other pieces. You'll also leave--I hope--with more confidence in your material, your process, and your writing self.

Powerful essays and memoirs stretch beyond the lives and events they depict. In this workshop, we'll explore several techniques for expanding the dimensions of creative nonfiction, including speculation, research, structural invention, and stylistic innovation. We'll read examples of these techniques in works from authors such as Jo Ann Beard, Ross Gay, Maxine Hong Kingston, Claudia Rankine, and Jesmyn Ward. Students are asked to bring the draft of an essay, memoir excerpt, or hybrid piece on which to work.

We'll discover where and how various techniques enhance our themes and content. We’ll address questions of balance, scope, and shape in our pieces. We’ll aim to stretch and surprise ourselves, to weave the universal with the personal in captivating ways.

Every true story contains gaps. Imagining our way into these gaps, we transform our material and our writing experience. In Filling the Gaps, we’ll explore the power in what might have been. We'll examine more than a dozen reasons for speculating and inventing in creative nonfiction and discover how these techniques lead us to deeper truths. We’ll take inspiration from authors such as James Baldwin, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joshua Wheeler. We’ll zero in on how, where, and why writers pivot between the known and unknown. And we’ll discuss ways of distinguishing imagined content while integrating it seamlessly.

Worried you'll bore readers by incorporating facts in your creative nonfiction? Learn how to make researched material work for you.

How do you know when too much information will bog down a narrative and bore the reader? How can you tell which facts will complement your scenes and reflections in an essential way? Weaving researched material into your essay or memoir skillfully will deepen your work's impact, reflecting the universal in the particular and offering new contexts for experiences that might otherwise feel familiar.

In this workshop, you'll discover how facts, anecdotes, oral histories, or interviews can benefit your personal essay or memoir. You’ll learn techniques for integrating this material to varying extents and purposes, from a casual reference that fills a gap to a daring leap that makes the reader’s head spin. You’ll examine inspiring examples from well-known authors. You’ll also learn about potential pitfalls and how to avoid them.