Classes/Workshops/Conferences
Ongoing Opportunity (winter, spring, summer 2025):
Mentorship in Creative Writing, 
UCLA Extension, Online
Work with me on-on-one through UCLA Extension
Mentorships provide individualized support to advanced writers who seek specific and focused guidance in their work. Students select a mentorship focus from a pre-determined list of options provided by the instructor as part of their application process. Instructors review applications to determine student readiness for intensive personalized instruction and to ensure the student’s writing goals are achievable within the mentorship period. Students and instructors develop a Mentorship Agreement to guide their interactions over six contact hours during the ten-week mentorship period. By the end of the mentorship, students have received advice, input, and support to help them reach their short-term goals.
March 24-June 1, 2025, SNHU MFA Online
The Business of Writing
No matter where we are in our careers now, most instructors in this program, published writers all, have had to discover for themselves how to build a freelance writing career to supplement and support their fiction writing at one time or another. This course aims to provide our students with a clearer path to the knowledge many of us had to gain by painful trial and error. In MFA-602, students will explore potential writing-related careers, learn strategies for pursuing business opportunities and dealing with clients, investigate grants, fellowships, and other funding sources, and even learn about the basic administrative tasks involved in running a freelance business
March 31-June 10, 2025. UCLA Extension, Online
Novel Writing One
That novel is inside you waiting to emerge, but knowing how and where to start can be daunting. This course provides you with weekly assignments, group interaction and instructor feedback to help you explore various methods of writing your first novel while learning the key craft points of plot, structure, characterization, point-of-view, sense of place and voice. The goal is to complete the first chapter of your novel by establishing an intimacy with your characters as you artfully shape their journey and to develop an overall concept to guide you through your story. Required for students considering the long-fiction sequence.
June 9-August 17, 2025. SNHU MFA Online
MFA 700-Thesis Writing
Begin to develop the novel that serves as a thesis for the MFA program. Build a detailed plan that documents the writing process and prepares next steps to be taken toward novel completion. Engage in constructive workshopping, and reflect both on one’s place within a literary community and on how one’s work fits within the publishing ecosystem. Cultivate self-confidence and practical outreach skills by preparing and presenting an effective “elevator” pitch of a novel.
June 25-September 2, 2025. UCLA Extension, Online
Novel Writing One
That novel is inside you waiting to emerge, but knowing how and where to start can be daunting. This course provides you with weekly assignments, group interaction and instructor feedback to help you explore various methods of writing your first novel while learning the key craft points of plot, structure, characterization, point-of-view, sense of place and voice. The goal is to complete the first chapter of your novel by establishing an intimacy with your characters as you artfully shape their journey and to develop an overall concept to guide you through your story. Required for students considering the long-fiction sequence.
September 24-December 2, 2025. UCLA Extension, Online
Novel Writing Two
Armed with your overall concept and first chapter, you continue to develop your knowledge of craft by writing scenes using characters and situations from the projected novel and workshopping your in-progress work. Mini-lectures on the art of the novel, intuitive creative process and conventional vs. non-conventional approaches to novel structure also are covered. The goal is to complete 50 pages of your novel.