Class Starts Thursday, July 11th, 2024

The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Thursdays, 7:00PM EDT - 9:00PM EDT / 5:00PM MST - 7:00PM MST).

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

Led by Hillary Leftwich, the author of two books, Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023, new edition) and Aura (Future Tense Books and Blackstone Audio Publishing, 2022), with a third collection of experimental/hybrid forms TBA. Her latest work can be found or forthcoming in The Sun, Santa Fe Writers Project, and The Rumpus. 

This workshop is best suited for intermediate to advanced writers who are already familiar with both forms of lyric essay and poetic forms.

The most important part of being comfortable experimenting with genres is being brave and learning the tools to experiment and create the forms that work best for your writing. 

In this six-week workshop, we’ll focus on creating a mashup of genres using the lyric essay as the backbone for experimentation. We’ll explore the forms and structures used in lyric essays, such as creating a braided essay within a hermit crab form, a "herbraid," or using poetic forms such as the pantoum to develop a segmented essay, the "pantmented."

Each week, we'll focus on different lyric essays and poetic forms to discover together how we can imagine and make real our pieces we can’t quite bring to life or those we are stuck within the editing process.

Writers can expect in-class writing exercises, discussions, and optional take-home exercises. May this be an opportunity to experiment and create your own forms without rules.

Because each class is tailored to the needs of the group, assignments and topics will vary.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1 – Lyric Essay and the Prose Poem: We will have a look at the lyric essay and how it operates along with its twin, the prose poem, and learn a technique to combine the two into one piece that operates as both.

Week 2 – Essay as a Contrapuntal: This week, we will concentrate on the richly-textured lyric essay along with the contrapuntal poem form to create a contrapuntal lyric essay. 

Week 3 - Hermit Crab Braid: This week we will learn about the hermit crab essay and how to combine this form within a braided essay to create a unique mash-up.  

Week 4 – Collage/Segmented Essay and Haibun: We will look at lyric essays that use various techniques to create a collage effect and mash it with the haibun poetry form to create one beautiful piece of writing.  

Week 5 - Notes, Margins, and Erasures: This week, we will look at lyric essays subverting texts through techniques that hybridize the shape and space of the lyric essay and its counterparts and how to use these forms within white space, erasures, and other techniques.  

Week 6 – Final Workshop: Our final workshop will be all about exploring and play by uncovering and looking at how digital art and texts can offer an alternative way of how we create words within the lyric essay and other genres. 

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Working in multiple modes of expression.
• Finding nuanced ways to face the blank page and to handle difficult, complex subject matter.
• Experimenting with organizational strategies.
• Producing a complete lyric essay and at least one chapter of a hybrid memoir.

SELECTED COURSE TEXTS:

Course texts will be provided by Hillary as PDFs or Google shared docs from craft books and anthologies.

TESTIMONIALS:

"This course was very useful to my manuscript project, and I appreciate the resources that Hillary used and shared about this memoir methodology." -Former Student

"The writing prompts helped to silence my inner critic. The number of different types of prompts helped to get different types of writing. I also loved the encouragement to share without judgment." -Former Student

"The in-class writing prompts were great." -Former Student

"Hillary was warm and gracious, the creative flash prompts were fantastic, and the sample pieces were great." -Former Student

"Loved the teacher, Hillary, and the class!" -Former Student

"The reading lists Hillary shared were most helpful. I got a wealth of information from the research she has done into this form." -Former Student

"I thought Hillary's feedback was great, and she provided a supportive space for all participants. Her homework questions, in particular, always seemed to be spot on, and this was a seminar where I feel my writing actually advanced." -Former Student

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

• Instructor: Hillary Leftwich
  
• Class Starts Thursday, July 11th, 2024
  
• The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Thursdays, 7:00PM EDT - 9:00PM EDT / 5:00PM MST - 7:00PM MST).
  

Instructor Hillary Leftwich is the author of two books, Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023, new edition) and Aura (Future Tense Books and Blackstone Audio Publishing, 2022), with a third collection of experimental/hybrid forms TBA. She owns Alchemy Author Services and Writing Workshop and teaches creative writing at several universities and colleges along with Lighthouse Writers, a local nonprofit for adults and youth. She teaches Tarot and Tarot writing workshops focusing on strengthening divination abilities and writing. Her latest work can be found or forthcoming in The Sun, Santa Fe Writers Project, and The Rumpus. Hillary is also certified as a Trauma-informed, Survivor-Centered Advocate through the State of Colorado: Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence.