Class Starts Tuesday, April 29th, 2025

The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Tuesdays, 6:30PM - 8:30PM PM Eastern)

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

Instructor Mathangi Subramanian, Ed.D. is a neurodiverse South Asian American writer and educator whose novel, A People's History of Heaven (Algonquin Books), was long-listed for the PEN / Faulkner and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her middle-grade book, Dear Mrs. Naidu, won the South Asia Book Award, and her picture book, A Butterfly Smile, was inducted into the Nobel Museum by economics laureate Dr. Esther Duflo. Mathangi's work has been published by Lit Hub, McSweeney's, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among others. A Fulbright Fellow and a trained educator, she holds a doctorate in education from Columbia Teachers College. She currently lives with her husband, kid, and a couple of gerbils who are surprisingly supportive of her creative life.

Nerd out about your revision process with these practical, hands-on techniques you can immediately apply to your work in progress.

"Have you ever stared at your manuscript and wondered, "What do I do now?" Liven up your lines with this six-week class! We'll learn how to improve our work at the line level by exploring things like syntax, word choice, and sensory detail. We'll also talk about how to balance showing and telling and how to get our work out there into the world.

This class will be especially useful for folks working on book-length projects! Here is a sample of what you will learn: how to distinguish between scene and exposition; how to generate and use sensory details; how to use syntax to create emotion / vary sentence structure; how to identify and generate poetic devices; how to identify and create a word collection. 

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Scene vs. exposition. Students will learn how to distinguish between scene and exposition, when exposition is necessary, and how to replace unnecessary exposition with sensory details and scene.

Week 2: Embodied emotions. Students will brainstorm ways to write about emotions that are rooted in the body. They will then analyze their manuscripts for places where embodied emotion can replace exposition. Accommodations available for neurodiverse students who experience emotions differently than neurotypical students.

Week 3: Syntax. Students will analyze the use of syntax in their work. They will then use a writing exercise to understand the effect of long and short sentences, and use this exercise to revise the syntax in their work.

Week 4: Word collections and strong verbs. Students will learn the poetic technique of creating controlling image based word collections. They will use these collections to strengthen the verbs in their work, and make revisions in class.

Week 5: Poetic devices. Students will earn the basics of poetic devices, generate poetic devices, and incorporate the devices they include into their manuscripts.

Week 6: Industry talk. Students will learn about pitching agents and presses, how to know when their manuscript is complete, and how to build a brand. Beyond this basic information, the instructor will also shape this class based on students' questions and needs.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Students will leave the course with a set of revision techniques they can implement immediately.
• They'll also leave with a better ability to analyze a piece of their writing and decide what types of revisions they'll need.
• Finally, they'll gain more control over their craft by generating examples of each of these. 

ADDITIONAL INFO:

If you can't attend this class live, it will be recorded! Students will receive a recording the day after the class, which will be available for 30 days.

TESTIMONIALS:

Mathangi is whip smart and insightful. What I learned in her class was invaluable — it helped my writing so much! I  look forward to taking her classes again. - Award winning author and poet Devi Laskar

I am ever grateful that Mathangi was my first writing teacher. Her encouragement to keep writing, that my voice mattered helped me overcome the raging imposter syndrome of who am I to think that I can take up space with my writing. With each one of her classes, I've been challenged to explore more deeply why and how I write and what I want my writing to share with people… her last class really made me question why i had been writing with the emergency brake on--not really putting myself on the page questioning what I believe are injustices in the world for fear to offend. I am so grateful for her enthusiasm, insights and the fun I've had in all her classes.  - Author Glori Medina

Mathu packs more into a workshop than any instructor I’ve had - her background in education shows! Her workshops never feel rushed and each person gets a voice.  I love her advice tailored to our writing. Most of all, I love knowing that I’m growing as a writer with every class I take from her! - Alcinda Cundiff

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: Mathangi Subramanian
  
• Class Starts Tuesday, April 29th, 2025
  
• The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Tuesdays, 6:30PM - 8:30PM PM Eastern)
• Tuition is $495.