In my Seattle writing classes, I have experts talk about how to write for magazines, among other topics. Alaska Airlines Magazine associate editor Andrew Waite talked to my summer Seattle writing class about how to write successfully for magazines. He …
Category: Classes
How to Outline a Story or Book
How to Outline a Story or Book Outlining a story or book allows you to chart the emotional peaks and valleys of the story so that you’ll know where you’re heading when you sit down to write. As I …
Break into Freelance Magazine Writing
In my Seattle writing classes, I invite experts to talk about their approach to writing and editing. I had the pleasure of having Alaska Airlines Magazine associate editor Andrew Waite talk to my spring Seattle writing class about how to …
New Issue of The Writer’s Workshop Review
I’m now working on the next issue of The Writer’s Workshop Review, the online literary magazine for The Writer’s Workshop. The stories have been accepted; now the editing begins, choosing the photos to run with the stories, writing the captions …
The Art of the Pitch For Freelance Writers
Pitching story ideas to magazines and newspapers is one of the essential skills I teach in my writing classes. Recently I had the pleasure of hosting Paulette Perhach, a Seattle-based freelance writer and author of Welcome to the Writer’s Life, …
How to Write a Dramatic Scene
In my Seattle writing classes, I teach how to write a dramatic scene, an especially effective way of organizing stories. In my Seattle writing classes, I explain how to use dramatic scenes to give life and movement to stories, whether …
The Writing Life from The Writer’s Workshop
THE WRITING LIFE WITH THE WRITER’S WORKSHOP In her essay collection, Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor talks about writing as a habit of art. I discuss this approach in The Writer’s Workshop talk on The Writing Life, on Wednesday, …
Five Best Openings in Seattle Writing Classes
The opening is the most important part of any story or book, one of the topics I’ll be discussing in my upcoming Seattle writing class, Tell Your Story, spend as much time as necessary finding a strong lead. Rewrite the …
Fish Tales in Seattle Writing Classes
Kevin Bailey knows fish. As founding director of the Man & Sea Institute and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, he developed a deep and profound knowledge of fisheries and love of the sea. Near the end of his …
The Art of the Interview in Seattle writing class.
THE ART OF THE INTERVIEW Interviewing is an essential skill for any writer, one of the skills I’ll be teaching in my upcoming Seattle writing class. Almost all non-fiction articles and books require some interviewing as part of the …
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“One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store.”
Patricia Marx -
Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced…the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always.
Ernest Hemingway -
Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.
Willa Cather
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First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!
Ray Bradbury
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The Writer's Workshop, an on-campus and online program offering writing
classes in Seattle, online and travel writing classes.