CLASSES & WORKSHOPS
The Faraway Nearby
A camping writing and yoga retreat, co-facilitated with Yael Flusberg
Bogachiel State Park
Olympic Peninsula
eight miles south of Forks, WA
August 2 to 10, 2024
Join writer-editor-educator Wendy Call and poet-yoga therapist-healer Yael Flusberg in a temperate rainforest (during the driest time of year) for self-directed literary creativity. We will gather at near the Olympic National Park for nine days in a small, warm and welcoming community of writers. Breathe in the rich landscape, hike through the rainforest, meditate by the rushing Bogachiel River, and delve into your writing practice. Write. Revise. Read. Process. Enjoy!
Daily, hour-long (morning) free writing sessions and (afternoon) yoga practice will enhance this self-directed writing retreat. Wendy and Yael, who each have more than fifteen years’ experience as workshop leaders and facilitators, will be your hosts for your time at this lovely campground. We will share the responsibility for cooking our meals, enjoy time offline, and sleep under the stars.
Registration was by application and the retreat is currently full. The full fee for the retreat is $895, with 50% scholarships offered to two BIPOC writers. You can see more information about the retreat here. This retreat may become an annual event, please stay tuned!
Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop
eight-week, all online, ansychronous workshop
digital platform: Wet Ink
for those who have worked with Wendy previously
next session begins Tuesday, September 3, 2024
In this workshop, we will write and we will offer one another feedback. It’s that simple. This course does not include assigned lessons, readings or exercises. It’s all about the writing. The first week, each participant will explain what they hope to accomplish during the eight-week session and describe their writing project. By Wednesday night each week, you will post work-in-progress, along with specific questions you would like your peers (and Wendy) to address—you set the terms for the feedback. The amount of writing that you post is chosen by you—the cost of the course is based on how much writing you plan to post and receive feedback on.
You will receive constructive, supportive feedback on your work that encourages you to move forward and challenges you to improve your craft. Each week, you will offer feedback to two of your peers by Sunday night (four nights after the writing is posted), responding to the questions they have posed about their work. The amount of your peers’ writing you are expected to offer feedback on is linked to the amount of writing that you have signed up to post weekly. Wendy offers detailed feedback to everyone by Monday night (five nights after the weekly posting deadline).
Wendy offers individualized suggestions for readings and specific exercises to advance your particular project. While there are no set lessons or prompts, the course website includes resources on topics like “How to Interview,” “How to Revise,” “How to Submit to Literary Journals,” and “How to Make An Annual Writing Plan.” Wendy posts new “How To’s” to the site based on your requests. All requests related to writing CNF are most welcome!
The workshop is intended for writers who have an ongoing work-in-progress, whether that’s a single essay or a book-length work. All subgenres of creative nonfiction are most welcome: lyric and personal essay, memoir/wemoir, literary journalism, auto/biography, and everything else under the big tent of “creative nonfiction.”
Email Wendy if you are interested in the Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop. The fee for the eight-week workshop ranges from $310 to $670, based on the number of words you plan to post for feedback each week.
Next-Level Creative Nonfiction
Offered online at Writers.com
ten-week all online, asynchronous class
digital platform: Wet Ink
next session is planned for Spring 2025
Each week, we’ll explore one essential element of creative nonfiction:
crafting good questions,
research strategies,
the narrative arc,
the first-person narrator,
strong character development,
true-to-life scenes,
self-editing techniques, and
that elusive thing called “style.”
Eight weeks begin with a new "key" to nonfiction prose; two weeks are devoted to developing a first draft of your work on nonfiction and then revising it.
We’ll dissect great examples from masters of the genre – including James Baldwin, Jo Ann Beard, Annie Dillard, Joan Didion, Zora Neale Hurston, George Orwell, Luis Alberto Urrea, Alice Walker, and David Foster Wallace, looking at the gorgeous rooms they unlock with these eight keys to fabulous nonfiction. Then you will roll up your sleeves and get to writing, putting new skills to work in your nonfiction prose. All literary nonfiction genres, from memoir to literary journalism to lyric essay, are welcome. This online course includes short weekly assignments, with feedback from your peers and from the instructor, and culminates with each writer drafting and revising a 3,000-word nonfiction work. Register at the writers.com website.
Writing Outdoors
Teaching a creative nonfiction workshop at the Rainier Writing Workshop, July 2022 (Photo by John Froschauer, PLU photographer)