BUSINESS WRITING

Writing Better Emails, Memos, and Reports

This 2-hour seminar explores the role of tone, clarity, and word choice in daily workplace communications and the affect those have on content and clarity. Audience: This seminar can be tailored for management-level, office employees, public points of contact; employees at any level.

Generating Creative Content for Business

This combination seminar / workshop introduces creative writing techniques for those in the company who are required to generate content, both inter-office and for perspective customer/clients. It includes tips and exercises to generate or maintain good writing habits, nurturing and developing ideas, and establishing a “writing life.” This seminar / workshop is scalable and can be condensed to a 2-hour format or offered in something as extensive as 8 or 16-hour sessions. Audience: any employee charged with generating written content.

Say What You Mean: Improving Clarity in Workplace Writing

2-hour seminar to improve written communication in the workplace. Topics include: writing as conversation; what you don’t say says something, the rhetorical triangles of communication; tone and style; “types” of workplace writing; the role of audience and inventory. Audience: This seminar can be tailored for management-level, office employees, public points of contact; employees at any level.

CREATIVE WRITING

Know Your Character From the Inside Out

“Telling it true” is one of the most important aspects of writing fiction. The “truth” in fiction comes from your character. This 4-hour workshop focuses on Character Development and explores ways to generate story items, plot complications, even descriptions that show fully developed characters and their perspectives. This workshop/seminar can be tailored from 2-4 hours and/or for developing main or secondary characters specifically.

Look, that Man is Beating a Dead Horse: Show, Don’t Tell Unboxed

This workshop takes a new look at creating metaphors, similes, and descriptive writing in general. Craft techniques such as sensory writing, active/passive voice, the “camera lens” POV perspective, authorial intrusion, filtering, connotation/denotation, and clichés will be included. This workshop/seminar can be tailored from 2-4 hours.

Hardhat Writing: Building Story Form, Plot, and Structure.

There are no real absolutes when it comes to how fiction is put together. However, there are some constants to consider. This workshop / seminar discusses conflict, crisis, and resolution, different story arcs and models, and the differences between story and plot. This workshop/seminar can be tailored from 2-4 hours.

Everybody’s an Expert: Write What You Know (and You Know Everything You Need To Know).

Write what you know is one of the most misunderstood pieces of writing advice. Flannery O’Connor once said, “by the age of 20, a person knows everything one needs to know to write a good story.” This workshop / seminar explores what she meant by that statement and how it applies to a writing life. We will explore topics such as finding topics, developing the author’s voice, and mining life’s minutia for the best stories. This workshop/seminar can be tailored from 2-4 hours.

ACADEMIC WRITING

Writing the Personal Statement Essay for College

2-hour seminar for high school students and their parents. Topics include: College and University Expectations; Interpreting prompts; shaping and focusing the essay; format; grammar and style refresher; Dos and Don’ts. Audience: High School Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.

Writing the Personal Statement Essay for Graduate School

2-hour seminar for undergrads preparing to write the Personal Statements for graduate school. Topics include: Program Expectations; content; revision for each institution; research needed for success; format; grammar and style refresher; Dos and Don’ts. Audience: College Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.

Plagiarism, Fair Use, & Citations: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

2-hour seminar discussing the legalities of using source material in your writing. Audience: High School and College

BOOK CLUB SERIES

In depth discussions of selected works of Literature. These talks originate in the more detailed, “academic” interpretations of the works but are presented in a reader-oriented, more relaxed and easily accessible manner than what one would expect in an academic setting. Each discussion centers around answering the question: why and how is this writing still relevant? Exploring that question means we approach the work looking for how examples from the text relate to our everyday world. “Book Talks” can be for an individual work or for a “series” of works.