Workshops are a tried and true way to gain valuable feedback on a work-in-progress. Giving and receiving good workshop feedback is a learned skill that writers can develop and hone, and learning how to participate in and benefit from a workshop can be invaluable to any writer looking to take their craft to the next level. Allowing other writers to critique your work in a group setting (where you critique their work in turn) offers fresh eyes and a fresh perspective, helps you to zero in on problems you might be overlooking, strengthens your skills as a reader, and opens the way to communing with your peers in a safe, nurturing environment.

Upon registering, you will be emailed a selection of published stories to read before the class convenes. These stories will be the basis of an in-class critical discussion or “sample workshop.”

Through the lessons and handouts, you will leave the class with a greater understanding of…

— what to consider when reading works with a critical eye, including how to identify what is working within a piece and, just as important, what isn’t working and why, and how to identify the narrative structure and rhetorical strategies at work;
— how to “read like a writer” — tools for better understanding the technical aspects — the nuts and bolts — of storytelling and how to apply those techniques to your own stories;
— how to give feedback in a helpful and constructive way;
— how to accept feedback in a workshop and how to apply it to your work-in-progress.

NOTE: This class is required in order to sign up for one of our Advanced Craft Workshops, but does not guarantee admission. The price of this half-day class will go toward the cost of the workshop if accepted as a participating student. (Good toward first workshop only.) For more information on our advanced MFA-style workshops, click HERE or call us at 512-499-8914.

About the instructor:

Charlotte Gullick is a novelist, essayist, editor, educator and Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College. A first-generation college graduate, she received her AA with High Honors from Santa Rosa Junior College, a BA with Honors in Literature/Creative Writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a MA in English/Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis. She began a MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts in July 2014.

Charlotte’s first novel, By Way of Water, was chosen by Jayne Anne Phillips as the Grand Prize winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards Program, and a special author’s edition was reissued by the Santa Fe Writers Project in November of 2013. Charlotte’s other awards include a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship for Fiction, a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, a MacDowell Colony Residency, Faculty of Year from College of the Redwoods as well as the Evergreen State College 2012 Teacher Excellence Award.