Saturday, June 3rd, 2023

Live Seminar via Zoom from 2:00PM - 5:00PM EST

Now Enrolling!

Elissa Bassist is the editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and the author of the award-deserving memoir Hysterical. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism since the website launched in 2009. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Creative Nonfiction, and more, including the anthology Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, edited by Roxane Gay.

Writing a full-length book about yourself is a thrilling, empowering, ideal experience; it’s also horrifying, humbling, and impossible.

In this seminar, I'll share how I did it and how you can, too, from recyclable drafts to book proposal to publication. I'll reveal my insights, secrets, and instructions on "rule of three."

I'll show off my notebooks and rejections. I'll gossip about my research and revision strategies. I'll weigh the pros and cons of panic attacks and discuss how to keep going during the “I quit” episodes of a years’ long process.

Preparation and workload: Read (and love) Hysterical (if you want). There are also tons of handouts (to be referenced during classes) and brainstorming and writing exercises (to be done in class) to bring out what you have to offer the world that it’s missing.