Saturday, May 11th, 2024

Live Seminar Via Zoom 12:00PM – 3:00PM Eastern

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Led by Jon Roemer, who has served as Senior Editor/Publisher of Outpost19 Books since 2013, an award-winning publisher of fiction and nonfiction based in San Francisco. He is also the author of the novel Five Windows (Dzanc), hailed by BuzzFeed, Alta, The Brooklyn Rail, Kirkus, and others. His writing has appeared at StatoRec, The Millions, 3AM Magazine, The Writer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. He studied literature and fiction writing at Northwestern University.

Learn more about Jon in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Concise writing is powerful writing. But is it really?

In this lively 3-hour seminar, we’ll apply the core techniques behind writing concisely and see how they impact some influential writing, including yours.

In the first 90 minutes, we’ll revise a page of Proust and a passage by Henry James to make each more concise–and we’ll pretty much ruin them.

Then we’ll work in reverse, revising a passage by Gwendoline Riley (My Phantoms) and another by Emma Cline (The Guest), rewriting them with more elongated prosody–and reveal the power behind their choices.

No deep reading required. We’ll provide brief excerpts, review them together and pinpoint a few signature craft choices.

In the second 90 minutes, we’ll look at your own work, using a similar exercise to help challenge and refine your own style. Bring an excerpt from your own work that you’re ready to tinker with. Bring some irreverence and light-hearted curiosity too.

Students will read very brief excerpts from The Guest by Emma Cline, My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley, In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust and The Golden Bowl by Henry James. All provided during the seminar.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• In this seminar, you’ll review how to use common techniques to write more concisely.
• You'll learn how to identify and critically assess your own style.
• How to use the tools of craft to define, refine, or disrupt your work;
• And how to use craft experiments to break through blocks or slumps.
  

• Instructor: Jon Roemer
  

• Saturday, May 11th, 2024

• Live Seminar Via Zoom 12:00PM – 3:00PM Eastern