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a ten week, on-line, interactive small group writers workshop that focuses on the psychodynamics of the writing process
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When: May 12 – July 7, 2014
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Hangout Times: 1 p.m. or 7 p.m. EDT, CDT, and PDT
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Who: Writers of all genres and experience looking for an expert to coach, console, motivate, educate and in all ways help them realize their potential as writers
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How: I post a “lecture” once a week that we discuss online via Google Drive. There are two homework assignments, one short and one more formal piece of writing. We meet every week in a Google Hangout for an hour or so, which is the real time workshop experience, where we share and discuss the written assignments.
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About Me: I have a unique background that informs my teaching of writing: On the one hand, I’ve been a working writer all my life with publications in major magazines such as Redbook and Ladies Home Journal which means I understand what it feels like to be a writer as well as what how the business works. In addition, I’ve had years of experience teaching writing of all genres to students of all levels, so I understand both the pedagogy and the practicalities of teaching writing. Finally, I use my theoretical and practical work as an M.A. in psychology to understand what I call the the Psychodynamics of Writing. All of this is why I think of myself as a writers midwife.
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Cost: $300 for the ten-week session.
It’s hard to describe what happens in a writing workshop. Pull out the tangibles and you get a bullet list of content. So when I showed this to some of the writers who have already taken the workshop, their response was: The experience was so much more profound than what I am feeling from this page….Great description of what participants get but does not depict the magic that happens.
So how do you describe magic? What actually is the magic?
I think probably it’s the intense feeling of connection you get when you are really feeling heard and seen by a group of people who you trust with your most vulnerable self. I’ve designed the homework assignments so that we’ve been “talking” on-line already and when the group session actually starts we’re already in the middle of the conversation. Then we meet face-to-face (at a time that works for all of us)–some of us with cocktails in hand and some of us in sweats or PJs–in real time. Each person reads the essay they’ve written for that week’s assignment. We laugh, we cry, we opine and advise and in all ways give our best counsel and support to the writer. And then after an hour or so, we say goodnight until the next week. It’s informal; it’s casual; it’s intense–and I think that’s the magic.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, email me at jane@midlifebloggers.com or talk to me in the Comments section.
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