Advanced Writing Workshops
Our classes feature limited enrollment with close individual attention to each participant's work. We offer workshops several times a year in San Francisco and major cities around the country. If you saw an ad or received a flyer for a class not listed below, it means the class has filled. The classes often fill quickly, well before the application deadlines, so if you're interested in a class, we encourage you to contact us promptly.
To apply or receive more information, call 415-346-4477 and leave a message.

Workshops

SAN FRANCISCO

Jan. 20 to 23, 2011

 


4-Day Intensive Workshops
for Short Story Writers, Novelists, and
Authors of Creative Nonfiction

with Tom Jenks

The class will meet every day for four days, with a morning workshop and an afternoon seminar focused on craft. For the seminar, there will be reading assignments and study of works by well known writers. Each participant will have one manuscript workshopped in class and a second manuscript reviewed for an individual conference with Tom. We will study storytelling and the formal elements of fiction, including voice, point of view, characterization, imagery, plot, and theme. Attention will also be given to scene building, sentence making, and the dramatic movement of descriptive writing. The program is very similar to the six-day intensive class, though limited to fewer participants and using a slightly abbreviated curriculum. The same high level of individual attention will be given in the 4-day classes as in the popular 6-day intensives also described on this page.

Enrollment limited to 12 participants.

Application deadline:
June 4, 2010
 
   


Dates and locations  tba


6-Day Intensive Workshops
for Short Story Writers, Novelists, and
Authors of Creative Nonfiction.

with Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian

The class will meet every day for six days, with a morning workshop and an afternoon seminar focused on craft. For the seminar, there will be reading assignments and study of works by well-known writers as well as daily writing exercises. These exercises will be directly drawn from your own work and related to the aspects of craft under discussion each day in the seminar. Each participant will have one manuscript workshopped in class during the week and a second manuscript reviewed for an individual conference with Tom or Carol. Throughout the week we will give specific, daily focus to each writer's work. We will study storytelling and the formal elements of fiction, including voice, point of view, characterization, imagery, plot, and theme. Attention will also be given to scene building, sentence making, and the dramatic movement of descriptive writing.

Enrollment limited to 20 participants.

Application deadline:
tba
WRITERS EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY TOM JENKS INCLUDE:

Rick Bass
Richard Bausch
Ann Beattie
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Janet Burroway
Robert Olen Butler
Italo Calvino
Ron Carlson
Michael Chabon
Frank Conroy
Don DeLillo
E. L. Doctorow
Andre Dubus
Stuart Dybek

Jennifer Egan
Richard Ford
William Gass
Donald Hall
Ron Hansen
Charles Johnson
Ken Kesey
Min Jin Lee
Bernard Malamud
Peter Matthiesson
Jill McCorkle
Jay McInerney
James Alan McPherson
Arthur Miller

Susan Minot
Lorrie Moore
Maud Newton
Joyce Carol Oates
Tim O'Brien
Ann Pancake
Jayne Anne Phillips
George Plimpton
Padgett Powell
Annie Prouix
Mark Richard
Tom Robbins
Philip Roth
James Salter
Bob Shacochis
Lee Smith
Debra Spark
Scott Spencer
Robert Stone
Elizabeth Tallent
John Updike
Kurt Vonnegut
John Edgar Wideman
Joy Williams
Tom Wolfe
Tobias Wolfe
Richard Yates
Alezi Zentner