Travel Writing

Instructor: Betty Ming Liu
Tuesdays, 12:30–2:30 p.m.
May 25–June 22
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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Whether you’re writing about a fun family vacation, a favorite little neighborhood spot or the emotional landscape of a life experience, your adventures make great stories. Our goal is to shape your travels into compelling, well-organized narratives. The principles that we’ll be exploring are easily adapted to the range of storytelling genres: from essays, short stories, and newspaper travel section articles to chapters of a memoir, novel, or even a blog. Both experienced and new writers can count on lots of supportive, individual feedback that will power evolving writing styles and personal voice. Let’s finally get those special places and moments in your life down on paper—because these stories have already waited too long to be told.

Betty Ming Liu (BBA, Baruch College; MS, Columbia University School of Journalism) is a former nationally syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News who also worked at the paper as a gossip columnist, business reporter, and lifestyle writer. She has also been a staff reporter at the Newark Star-Ledger and Crain’s New York Business, and worked on-air for Thirteen-PBS. In addition to blogging (www.BettyMingLiu.com) and freelance writing, she is currently teaching at NYU, The New School, and Mediabistro.

Exploring the Memoir

Instructor: Betty Ming Liu
Tuesdays, 10 a.m.–noon
May 25–June 22
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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Are you coping with trauma, illness, daily life? Or maybe you’re trying out some crazy adventure? Whether you want to write about a loved one, a meaningful experience, or random encounters, this memoir writing workshop will help coax your compelling moments onto the printed page. Your material can range from vague ideas to drafts of memoir chapters-in-progress. In exploring the memoir, it’s all in the process. Our ongoing cycle of conversation, discussion, and insightful editing will take the performance pressure out of writing. Reading out loud from your own work at each of our meetings will help you find your own, true voice.

Betty Ming Liu (BBA, Baruch College; MS, Columbia University School of Journalism) is a former nationally syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News who also worked at the paper as a gossip columnist, business reporter, and lifestyle writer. She has also been a staff reporter at the Newark Star-Ledger and Crain’s New York Business, and worked on-air for Thirteen-PBS. In addition to blogging (www.BettyMingLiu.com) and freelance writing, she is currently teaching at NYU, The New School, and Mediabistro.

Introduction to Fiction Writing

Instructors: Patricia Dunn and Jimin Han
Saturdays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
May 22–June 26
No class May 29
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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There are two things most writers need and crave: time and space. In this class, we give ourselves the gift of time. In the nurturing space here at Sarah Lawrence College, we find and begin to write the stories we live every day. Using our histories, our memories, and our senses as launching pads, we will begin to transform the ordinariness of our lives into extraordinary fiction. This class is for those who want to write but don’t yet believe they have anything to say, as well as for those who want to write but need the time and space in which to do it.

Patricia Dunn (MFA, Sarah Lawrence College) was managing editor of Muslim Wakeup!, America’s most popular Muslim online magazine with over 200,000 monthly readers, from 2003 to 2008. Her fiction has appeared in Global City Review, Salon.com, Women’s eNews, The Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, The Nation, and L.A. Weekly, among other publications. Her work is anthologized in Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies, Kent State University Press. Her essay, “When the Second Plane Hit,” is in MotherVerse, issue number 9.

Jimin Han (BA, Cornell University; MFA, Sarah Lawrence College). Her nonfiction and fiction can be found in The NuyorAsian Anthology, Global City Review, The Asian American Pacific Journal, and on EssentialMom.com, and NPR, among others.

Fiction Writing

Instructor: Steven Schnur
Thursdays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
May 27–June 24
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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In writing fiction, we discover essential truths about ourselves and others that the workshop environment enables us to fully realize. By providing a sense of audience as well as constructive and supportive criticism that focuses on richness of language, originality of thought, succinctness, and narrative cohesion, this class enables writers to quickly identify their strengths while providing the tools necessary to address their weaknesses. Through weekly presentations of work in progress, participants hone both their writing skills and their critical faculties as they respond to each other’s stories and essays.

Steven Schnur (BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MA, Graduate Center, City University of New York) has published numerous books for adults and children, including Days of Awe, Sanctuary, Father’s Day, The Koufax Dilemma, The Shadow Children (winner of the Sidney Taylor Award for outstanding juvenile fiction), and The Tie Man’s Miracle: A Chanukah Tale (which aired as a PBS animated special in 2005).

Writing from the Chaos of Our Lives

Instructor: Alexandra Soiseth
Fridays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
May 28–June 25
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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Vivian Gornick calls the life you have lived The Situation, but for her, it’s The Story that counts. The Story is what we, as writers, make out of the chaos of our lives. The Story is how we interpret our experiences and make sense of it all. In a supportive and non-competitive environment, we will explore YOUR story. We will help you find a way to tease it out from your day-to-day life—in essence, help you learn to see the world as a writer. We will then help you tell those stories by exploring the craft of writing, through exercises, both in class and at home, as well as through a close reading of your work and published memoirs, personal essays, and short fiction.

Alexandra Soiseth (SLC 2000 –) (BA, University of Saskatchewan; BAA, Ryerson University; MFA, Sarah Lawrence College) is the assistant director of the MFA writing program at Sarah Lawrence. She has taught writing to a variety of students, including high school students, seniors, and men and women in prison. She has been the recipient of a Canada Arts Council grant, an Ontario Arts Council grant, and is the former managing editor of and communications director for Global City Review, a New York City based literary magazine. Her work has appeared on babycenter.com, literarymama.com, and in McGill Street Magazine, The Ryersonian, and on the radio program LifeRattle, among others. Her memoir, Choosing You, was published in 2008 by Seal Press.

Nonfiction from the Heart

Instructor: Sally Koslow
Fridays, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
May 28–June 25
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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Whether you want to write essays, vignettes that may grow into a memoir, or human interest articles for potential publication, this course will help you polish your work. Special emphasis on structure, word choice, learning to self-edit, developing personal style, and on how to benefit from group give-and-take. The instructor will also guide students toward how to publish. Admission is by permission of the instructor and is open to talented novices as well as published authors. Please submit a short writing sample of no more than three pages by e-mail to cce@sarahlawrence.edu.

Sally Koslow, former editor-in-chief of McCall’s and Lifetime magazines, is the author of three novels: Little Pink Slips; The Late, Lamented Molly Marx (a bestseller last summer in Germany); and With Friends like These, which Ballantine will publish this summer. Sally’s fiction has been translated into nine languages, and her articles and essays appear frequently in venues including More; Real Simple; O, The Oprah Magazine; Ladies’ Home Journal; Good Housekeeping; Readers’ Digest; WowoWow.com; and The Huffington Post. She has previously taught at The Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College as well as with the New York Writers’ Workshop, and is also a freelance editor. At www.sallykoslow.com, you will find samples of her work.

Novel Writing Workshop

Instructors: Patricia Dunn and Jimin Han
Thursdays, noon–2 p.m.
May 27–June 24
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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Are you in the middle of a first draft? Second, third, or when-will-this-be over draft? Or are you just starting to think about writing a novel? Wherever you are in the process of writing an extended piece of fiction, this is a course that will challenge and support you. Along with group feedback, you and your work will receive a great deal of one-on-one attention from the instructors.

Patricia Dunn (MFA, Sarah Lawrence College) was managing editor of Muslim Wakeup!, America’s most popular Muslim online magazine with over 200,000 monthly readers, from 2003 to 2008. Her fiction has appeared in Global City Review, Salon.com, Women’s eNews, The Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, The Nation, and L.A. Weekly, among other publications. Her work is anthologized in Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies, Kent State University Press. Her essay, “When the Second Plane Hit,” is in MotherVerse, issue number 9.

Jimin Han (BA, Cornell University; MFA, Sarah Lawrence College). Her nonfiction and fiction can be found in The NuyorAsian Anthology, Global City Review, The Asian American Pacific Journal, and on EssentialMom.com, and NPR, among others.

Screenwriting

Instructor: Scott Webster
Tuesdays, 6–8 p.m.
May 25–June 22
5 sessions; Tuition: $275
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Turn your ideas into movies by learning the basic principles of writing for the screen. Focus will be on character development, story structure, dialogue, theme, and imagery. Class will consist of group critiques in a workshop environment and analysis of great cinematic stories. Students will leave with the first act (approx. 30 pgs.) of a feature-length screenplay and can repeat the course until the script is finished. Writers of all genres and experience levels are welcome.

Scott Webster (BFA, University of Colorado; MFA, Columbia University) is the author of the screenplay The Buddy Grim Show. He was a winner in the 2007 Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competition and also received the ScriptConnect Fellowship and Faculty Honors at the 2008 Columbia University Film Festival. He has worked as a story analyst for Walt Disney Pictures for the past three years.