Dear Reader,
Join me for a five week hands-on writing workshop.
Who is this workshop for?
This five-week generative writing workshop is for everyone who is curious about what it means to write for a general public audience. Together, we will examine thinking patterns, writing styles, and techniques in order to write effectively beyond academia. How do you write a manuscript proposal? How do you pitch an editor? How do you translate years of research into something people want to read? This workshop is designed to be fun and challenging, to help you get out of your head and into your voice. All you need is your creative desire and curiosity.
What You’ll Learn over 5 weeks
We will meet weekly on zoom for 2.5 hours to examine and explore what makes an effective piece of public writing. Every student will engage in writing exercises during class designed specifically to practice writing for a public audience. We will explore syntax, sound, rhetorical devices, the opening, middle, and end game of a good essay. You will learn how to identify structure in essays, articles, and books. Most of our time will be spent on interactive practices that draw on different writing techniques designed to help you find your unique voice as a writer.
Beginning with an idea, chapter, essay draft, you will experiment with prompts that help you develop your work and prepare it for submission or perhaps even publication. You will have an opportunity to talk with people in the public humanities who have been on this journey, and together we will demystify what it means to write for a public audience.
Week 1: Writing up
Clearing common obstacles to writing for a public audience
Week 2: What language can do
Getting out of your head and into your voice
Week 3: Playing with form
Approaches to style. Is it an essay, article, a book or a book chapter?
Week 4: Strategies for editing
Sculpting, de-tangling, texture, color
Week 5: Letting go
Pitches, proposals, agents, publicists, and the ups and downs of using social media
What You Get
Five interactive Zoom workshops
Opportunity to workshop writing with the class
Curated reading list and weekly exercises
Access to private discussion board
Course Schedule
Sundays, 3:00pm - 5:30pm EST
June 28 — July 26, 2026
$695
Enrollment is capped at 12 students. After you enroll you will receive an email from me welcoming you to the workshop. One week before we begin you will receive a course packet with readings, exercises, and assignments.
Until soon,
Sam
Thank you for offering this, especially on Sunday afternoons! Looking forward to it.