Performing Your Work: Practice for Public Readings
$95
Are you terrified every time you’re asked to read your work aloud? Do you feel like you need to make your public readings more engaging? You’ve worked hard on your writing and you want to bring it to your readers beyond the page. As writers, we don’t often get much instruction in performing our work. Even as we give public readings, make audio recordings, and film our excerpts for the internet, we’re often left to our own devices. In this course, we’ll practice reading our work aloud, incorporating theatrical techniques and exercises, and experimenting with performance styles to bring our words to life for an audience. This course is suitable for writers of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid work. Writers of all levels of experience are welcome. You’ll leave this course with performance techniques, practice reading aloud, and a polished and rehearsed 5 minutes you can pull out at your next reading or open mic.
We’ll begin by reading our work aloud to each other, taking notes on how we feel while reading, what we struggle with, and what our goals are for performing our work. We’ll also learn a variety of techniques and exercises used by actors to warm up our voice and bodies, expand our vocal range, and emote more freely as we read.
Access Program
We want our writing classes and seminars to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. Our Access Program offers writing class and seminar tuitions at a reduced rate. Most writing classes have at least one access spot available.
Please apply here for access rate tuition. Contact Susan Moore at susan@literary-arts.org if you have questions.
Liaison position
Every in-person class and seminar at Literary Arts has one liaison position. Liaisons perform specific duties for each class meeting. If you are a liaison for a class or seminar, the full amount of your tuition is covered by Literary Arts.
Apply here for the liaison position.
Miranda Schmidt
Miranda Schmidt is the author of the novel Leafskin (Stillhouse Press 2025). Their writing circles folklore, ecology, and queer magic and has appeared in Triquarterly, Orion, Electric Literature, Catapult, and more. With an MFA from the University of Washington and PhD from Bath Spa University, they have taught creative writing at Portland Community College, University of Washington, the Loft, and the Portland Book Festival. Their newsletter and teaching project, Writing Toward Nature, explores methods for bringing the more-than-human more deeply into our writing craft. Miranda lives in Portland, Oregon.
