Resources for Refining Your Creative Writing Practice

This four-week class offers an in-depth exploration of how to optimize writing habits and routines for productivity and mental health. For Virginia Woolf, that meant “a room of one’s own.” For Honoré de Balzac, it meant fifty cups of coffee per day. What does it mean for you?

Answering this question is a process of getting to know oneself as a writer. On the surface level, this means exploring one’s preferences: neighborhood cafe, kitchen table, or seaside retreat? Daily trots or monthly marathons? MacBook, pen and paper, or Olivetti? On a deeper level, we will explore how to set and meet realistic expectations for productivity and mental health. And we’ll ask each other the hard questions to challenge our limiting beliefs and unlock our potential for creative flow.

This class will have two main components. The first component will be a review of the resources available to writers who wish to refine their creative practices. In the first week, we’ll learn about software and hardware tools that writers can use to minimize distractions. In the second week, we’ll review books on writing craft. In the third week, we’ll review writing communities within Portland and other resources for writers outside the home. And in the fourth week, we’ll discuss working with agents and editors to complete and publish a manuscript.

The second component will be in-class writing, reflection, and discussion exercises. These exercises will help us hone our creative practices to feel happy and productive throughout our most arduous creative undertakings. Subjects will include: managing goals and deadlines; when, how, and who to ask for feedback; writing alone vs. working together. After four weeks, students will have composed a clear, concise, personalized work plan, including goals, routines, resources, and assigned reading. They’ll also have an updated toolkit of resources to help them along their creative journeys. And lastly, they’ll have built community among fellow process-oriented writers who are serious about doing the work. Open to writers working on novels, memoirs, reportage, and other long-form writing projects.

Access Program
We want our writing classes and Delves 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 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.