Begins Thursday, March 23rd, 2023

Class will meet weekly on Thursday nights via Zoom, 5PM - 7PM Pacific Standard Time.

Open to All writers!

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

Taught by Sara Tatyana Bernstein, PhD, editor and co-founder of Dismantle Magazine. Her writing can be found in Lit Hub, Longreads, Catapult, Hippocampus Magazine, Vox, BuzzFeed Reader, The Outline, and more.

The old feminist adage that “the personal is political” has become so common that taking it for granted is easy. However, figuring out exactly how a particular personal experience reflects or shines a light on the political sphere isn’t always obvious.

This generative 6-week course will explore ways to find the political stakes in personal experiences. Or conversely, how to use your personal experiences to make a larger point about power.

We will consider how things like identity, history, institutions, and other cultural contexts intersect with the stories we tell about our lives to give them a deeper meaning.

Each class session will be divided between a "lesson" and a reading discussion portion, a short free-write prompt/exercise, and then a workshop discussion, which can be a new piece of writing or something the author is already working on. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A clearer understanding of what it means to write about power.
• How to frame your position and avoid universalizing or preaching.
• Strategies for structuring a political personal essay.
• Strategies for researching to put your experience in a larger context.
• Examples of writing that does this work especially well.
• A workshopped piece of writing.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly on Thursday nights via Zoom, 5PM - 7PM Pacific Standard Time.

• Instructor: Sara Tatyana Bernstein
  

• Class size limited to 10 writers

• Class Starts March 23rd, 2023
  

• Course is fully ONLINE.

Instructor Sara Tatyana Bernstein, PhD is an editor and co-founder of Dismantle Magazine. Her writing can be found in Longreads, Catapult, Hippocampus Magazine, Vox, BuzzFeed Reader, The Outline, and more. In addition to writing, Sara teaches fashion and cultural studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon.