NYWW @ JCC

Charles Salzberg

This workshop is for students who are actively pursuing a non-fiction writing project, whether it be essays, a non-fiction book, memoir, or op-ed page pieces. Each week students share their work and it is critiqued by the rest of the class and the instructor. Students are usually allowed to submit three times during the semester.

Instructor's approval required prior to registration. Email a 3-5 page writing sample to hoke5@aol.com. Once approved call 646.505.5708 to register.

Hermine Meinhard

Learn to draw on the elusive aspects of experience that give a poem depth and mystery. Using in-class exercises, objects, outside texts, and personal journals, connect to your deepest material, shaping it into finished works.

Meinhard is a faculty member of NYU's School of Professional Studies and a member of New York Writers Workshop. She has an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.

Maureen Brady

Ready to challenge yourself to produce new work? Or revise and prepare works already in progress for publication? Rigorous yet sensitive critique; every other week deadlines; lively discussions about the elements of fiction are the features of this workshop.  Work is read in advance of class for discussion.

Instructor’s approval required prior to registration. To apply, please send
5-10 pages to meb4444@gmail.com. Once approved, call 646-505-5708 to register.

Yvonne Cassidy

Have you a story you’ve always wanted to get down on paper? Did you always love creative writing at school but find it’s something you’ve let lapse? Are you looking for a way to re-engage with writing and get inspired again? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’ you have found the class for you! Whether you want to write a novel, short stories or memoir, over the course of six weeks, Irish novelist Yvonne Cassidy will introduce you to the tools in her writer’s toolbox so you have everything you need to get started and keep going.  Suitable for complete beginners and intermediate level writers, this class will provide a fun and supportive environment to get writing and stay writing!

Laura Geringer Bass

​If you have a story to tell whether that story is a children's picture book, a middle-grade or YA novel, a short story, a memoir, or a piece of flash fiction, this workshop will help you discover the heart of your tale and the narrative structure best suited to your voice and intention. In a supportive environment, participants will share their texts with their fellow writers and with the instructor. Detailed individual critiques, line edits and notes will be offered along with class discussion, prompts and published examples of fine storytelling.

Karol Nielsen

Are you interested in writing a short-form or book-length memoir, essay collection, or creative nonfiction narrative but need to develop the focus and direction necessary to do so? Easy-to-follow lectures teach the essential elements of the storyteller's craft: structure, characterization, plot, description, dialogue, point of view, style, and voice. A series of creative and inspiring in-class exercises deepens students' understanding of the personal narrative and builds confidence. The workshop also considers revision, and publishing in both print and online formats.

Luis H. Francia

You don't need to write about something to write a poem. As the French poet Stèphane Mallarmé once said, poems are written with words, not ideas. This workshop uses Mallarmé's insight as its guiding principle, so participants can embark on a productive literary voyage distinct from that of prose. This workshop emphasizes lyricism and the spirit of play and an openness to technique distinct from narrative (think jazz). Participants will, for example, explore the sound of a word or phrase, and what this might suggest, without regard to meaning. Meaning will be arrived at rather than be predetermined. We will create nonsense that actually makes sense!

Craig Serling & Charles Salzberg

It's a noisy universe out there and getting an idea up on its feet in today's digital age sometimes requires a "sizzle" -- or what's become known as a pitch deck. Whether you have just finished your first manuscript, published your 10th novel, or just have that outline of an idea, this course will help you conceive and execute a multimedia tool to help communicate your story to potential buyers, agents, and publishers. With graphics and/or video, participants will conceive and develop a concept, and learn the steps required to produce it. 

$100 members / $110 public

Yvonne Cassidy

Everyone has a book in them, so they say. Over the course of six weeks, Irish novelist Yvonne Cassidy will introduce you to the tools in a writer's toolbox to help you start yours. Whether you're a complete beginner or have written before, this class will provide a fun and supportive environment where you can write that story you've always wanted to! 

Novelist Yvonne Cassidy is the author of three acclaimed novels: The Other Boy,  What Might Have Been Me, and How Many Letters Are in Goodbye?

Tim O'Mara

The hardest part of writing a crime novel is getting started. The second hardest part is finishing. Using published models, in-class exercises, and student-written material, you'll develop the tools you need to get your hero--and bad guy--from page one to the end of your novel. 

Tim O'Mara, a member of New York Writers Workshop, is the Barry-nominated author of the Raymond Donne mystery series set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His fourth Raymond Donne novel, Nasty Cutter, is scheduled to be published in fall of 2016 by Severn House.  
​

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar
​
Do you have a story idea but can't seem to progress it? Do you need a scaffolding on which to flesh out your narrative? This workshop will take participants through Joseph Campbell's iconic concept of "Monomyth" and, through illustrations and in-class exercises, on a 12-step hero's journey to construct a compelling narrative arc. 

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar trained as an engineer, graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and worked in marketing, advertising and consulting before writing snuck up on her. An award-winning writer and copywriter, she has published four novels.

Luis H. Francia

Marcel Proust's molar's meeting of the madeleine is arguably one of the most famous eureka moments in Western literature. Who would have thought an itty-bitty sponge cake would have led to the profoundly monumental In Search of Lost Time? It was Proust’s equivalent of Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole, allowing him entry into a world he thought he had forgotten. Do you have an object, a person, or a place that could be a rabbit hole? Through examples, printed materials, and discussions, this workshop will show you how to mine that rabbit hole for a deeper understanding of your own life or someone else's.