First Session is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026

This class will meet via Zoom on Tuesdays from 7:00PM - 9:00PM Central

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Leslie Contreras Schwartz served as the 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and the 2019-2021 Houston Poet Laureate and is currently a core faculty member in poetry and creative nonfiction at Alma College’s low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing. She is the author of four books of poetry and, more recently, a memoir, with experience in teaching undergraduate poetry workshops at Rice University and creative nonfiction for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program in Writing.

Her books include Black Dove / Paloma Negra (FlowerSong Press, 2020,) which was named for finalist for the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for 2020 Best Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters; Who Speaks for Us Here (Skull + Wind Press, 2020); Nightbloom & Cenote (St. Julian Press, 2018), a semi-finalist for the 2017 Tupelo Press Dorset Prize, judged by Ilya Kaminsky; and Fuego (St. Julian Press, 2016). She is also the author of a lyrical memoir, From the Womb of Sky and Earth, which won the 2022 C&R Press Nonfiction Award.

Her work has been featured in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, the Poetry Foundation, Paris Review, AGNI, EPOCH, Missouri Review, Iowa Review, [PANK], Verse Daily, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, The Toast, Houston Noir (Akashic Books, 2019), and 2019 The Best Small Fiction anthology, among others.

As storytellers of human experience, writers often grapple with stories of trauma and how this topic can pose challenges both in the creative writing classroom and from a writer’s creative practice.

How can we engage with traumatic stories or narratives about the body as writers while accessing our ability to carefully craft language, using structure and reason? In this six-week intensive, we’ll explore ways to guide and engage the reader through difficult territory by carefully using craft tools to authentically capture traumatic experiences with complexity and nuance.    

We will practice using craft techniques that can be used when writing about material that activates the nervous system to the point of being steered off course; these craft techniques pull writers back to the business of language and crafting stories while channeling our emotional gifts to the page with thoughtfulness and care. Students will also practice modes of writing that provide conduits to direct the raw material of traumatic experiences, allowing the writer to shape and direct focus around and about the experience.    

The class will include studying writers who use a variety of craft techniques to bring clarity to traumatic experiences, both collective and personal. Students will read excerpts from Esmé Weijun Wang, Carmen Maria Machado, Lidia Yuknavich, among others.

COURSE OUTLINE:

This course will include workshops of students’ work after week two.

Week 1: Introduction to writing about trauma: an overview of craft techniques

Week 2: The power of sensory details and scenes in writing about trauma

Week 3: Using narrative distance and varying point of view in material about trauma

Week 4: Using structure and form as a container for material about trauma

Week 5: The use of figurative language and extended metaphor in writing about trauma

Week 6: Imagination, retelling, and focal points on specific events in a narrative in material about trauma

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Students will generate a short draft based on experiences of trauma.
• Studies will also cultivate a writing practice that can be maintained outside of the classroom.
• Students will learn how to use craft techniques to write effectively about experiences of trauma, and how to create a practice that provides healing and empowerment.

TESTIMONIALS:

"The reading selections were amazing -- such a broad selection -- the instructor's insights were incredibly helpful and I could see students incorporating their learnings into their writing. That does not happen in every class."

"The readings were well chosen and arranged around craft elements. Nice job."

"I liked the way Leslie incorporated deeply uncomfortable literature such that it encouraged the students to speak up and write intimately."

"I learned a tremendous amount in her class through the lectures and discussion of readings. She thinks deeply about the writing craft and she was able to convey insights about the craft of writing memoir much better than others."

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for an engaging class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $445 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

• Instructor: Leslie Contreras Schwartz
• First Session is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026
  
• This class will meet via Zoom on Tuesdays from 7:00PM - 9:00PM Central
• Tuition is $445 USD

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this class.