Current & Forthcoming Courses
Personal Essay Workshop
2 May – 20 June 2024
8 weekly workshops
Brooklyn Community Centre, 18 Harrison Street
parking is available on site & the #7 bus is frequent
“Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.”
— Montaigne
Overview: For five centuries, the personal essay has flourished as the genre of discovery, driven by the writer’s own habit of inquiry and attention. As individual and curious as the writer’s own mind, the personal essay reflects Montaigne’s maxim that 'Every man has within himself the entire human condition'. This interactive workshop invites you to chart your own thinking and experience in non-fiction’s most versatile form of writing.
This eight week course explores your habit of attention through a different lens each week. The weekly prompts provoke and inspire.
You will receive detailed written feedback from the tutor and in-class feedback from your peers, with the opportunity to develop and expand your writing. Examples of different prose styles are considered, with an attention to craft and language. Reading, writing, and discussion are at the heart of the course. This interactive workshop invites you to chart your own thinking and experience in non-fiction’s most versatile form of writing.
Writing Memoir
forthcoming
8 weekly workshops
Brooklyn Community Centre, 18 Harrison Street
parking is available on site & the #7 bus is frequent
“And your memory is ready to show you everything,
having waited all these years for you to return and know.”
— John O'Donohue
Overview: Through writing a memoir we realise how much we live forwards and understand backwards. Memoirs combine narration with reflection, and from the wealth of images and memory a story emerges that is known only to and through you. This interactive workshop invites you to explore and shape your own life experience in writing. Over eight weeks, you will build on your writing from week to week. Each workshop explores a new writing prompt integral to life experience and the memoir: time, memory, character, place, and other themes.
This workshop gives you the freedom and opportunity to explore your own voice to creatively write a memoir. It is not intended as an instructional course on how to write the memoir. You will receive constructive feedback from the tutor and your peers that will allow you the chance to develop and build on your writing skills. Examples of published memoirs are considered, with an attention to craft. Discussion and participation are at the heart of this writing workshop. In addition to group workshopping and outside of class time, the tutor will also provide you with tailored written feedback on the pieces you write throughout the course. You will need to set aside time for reading and writing between classes.
Creative Nonfiction Workshop
forthcoming
8 weekly workshops
Brooklyn Community Centre, 18 Harrison Street
parking is available on site & the #7 bus is frequent
“No maps or anything, just words.
But words leading precisely to what I searched for.”
— Odysseas Elytis
Overview: Creative nonfiction is the catch-all term for any form of prose that uses the techniques of poetry and fiction to achieve its aims. The genres share more than they separate and this course is designed to explore where they overlap.
Target audience This course is for anyone who wants to see how much more is possible within nonfiction prose. À la carte, but may swap some dishes out for others:
Que sais je? : The familiar essay
Flash nonfiction: Tiny sharp stories
The lyric essay: Singing is being
Travel writing: Anywhere but here
Borrowed forms: The hermit crab finds its house
Collage: Sans glue?
Nature writing: The world as meditation
The prose poem: Border country
This eight week course explores your habit of attention through a different lens each week. The weekly prompts provoke and inspire. You will receive detailed written feedback from the tutor and in-class feedback from your peers, with the opportunity to develop and expand your writing. Examples of different prose styles are considered, with an attention to craft and language. Reading, writing, and discussion are at the heart of the course.
Class limit: 12 students
Please email to express interest and enrollment will commence when enough writers are keen.
Contact Diane
022 510 2910 in New Zealand
+64 225 102 910 for international calls
literarynonfiction@gmail.com
