Begins Wednesday, February 19th, 2025

The class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 7PM - 9PM Eastern

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

Robin Gaby Fisher is a New York Times bestselling author of twelve non-fiction books. Her latest book, “Unmasked,” with Paul Holes, debuted as No. 3 on the New York Times bestseller list. She is currently working on a project about human trafficking. Her books have been featured in The New York Times, People magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and NPR. In her previous role as a newspaper journalist, she was awarded with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard’s Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers. Her series about two courageous survivors of the Seton Hall arson fire was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing and her stories about the lives of three troubled youths from New Jersey’s inner cities was a Pulitzer finalist in the same category. She shares a Pulitzer Prize for news coverage of the resignation of a New Jersey governor. Fisher’s interest lies in writing about ordinary people with extraordinary stories. She recently left New Jersey and her position as director of the journalism program at Rutgers University’s Newark campus to write full time in Vermont, where she lives with her husband, Loren Fisher, a fine art photographer and gallery owner, and their Bernese Mountain Dog, Pudge.

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

The magic of good storytelling isn't magic at all. It's about digging deep and staying authentic. It's hard work and it's thrilling.

In this course you will learn the basics of compelling storytelling: knowing how to communicate and listen on the deepest levels; character development, crafting cinematic scenes with mood, detail, description and dialogue. Ultimately, you will learn to trust your “voice” which sounds confusing but is simply letting your words and thoughts spill out onto the page in the way you think and speak.

Whether you are a novice or an advanced writer who is pursuing the never-ending process of honing your skills, this is a course for you.

Course texts: Stephen King's "On Writing" - Joan Didion's "Year of Magical Thinking"

COURSE OUTLINE:

• Week 1 Focus: Learning how to interview by asking each other the tough questions that can make or break a story.
• Week 2 Focus: How to develop compelling (three dimensional) characters.
• Week 3 Focus: The power of “show don’t tell” using detail and dialogue to make your stories come to life.
• Week 4 Focus: The beauty of tight writing. Paring down rambling sentences adds punch to any story.
• Week 5 Focus: Short writing exercises and reading your writing for clarity and cadence.
• Week 6 Focus: Learning how to trust yourself and take risks with your writing.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Gain the ability to delve deeper into people and subject matter
• Learn how to use "color" to spruce up their writing
• Be more skilled at writing shorter and more powerful sentences
• Produce short stories and gain the confidence to put your work out there.

TESTIMONIALS:

Robin is absolutely amazing, and an equally amazing professor, advisor, and author. If you want to be challenged, learn a lot about journalism, and even learn more about yourself take her classes. She expects a lot from you, but will help you as much as she can along the way. I always take at least one class with her a semester!

Professor Fisher is by far my favorite professor at Rutgers. She's the absolute kindest woman and also a well respected author, Writer& Journalist. I didn't want to take this class because it was at 8:10am on a Friday, but it was SO worth it. She is the reason I want to continue in Journalism and is extremely helpful and knowledgeable.

I am signing up for her second workshop in Woodstock and can't wait for it to start. She has so many unique and helpful tips and she instills such confidence. Her gift, besides storytelling, is teaching. LOVE HER.

I teamed up with Robin to teach a workshop for adults and I've never seen a teacher hold people's attention the way she did. She's talented and just so real.

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!

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $395 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: Robin Gaby Fisher
• This seminar will meet on Wednesday, February 19th, 2025
• Live class meetings will be held on Wednesdays via Zoom 7PM - 9PM Eastern
• Tuition is $395 USD

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