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Personal Essay Clinic: Writing About Family

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Personal Essay Clinic: Writing About Family

DURATION/TIME
4 hours
Tuesday, June 13 
6:30-10:30 pm

LEVEL
Intermediate/advanced

LOCATION
New York (Soho)

PRICE
$125 ($100 for )
more info

Course Details

Love them or hate them, we all have strong feelings about our families, no matter how old we are. What better way to get to the root of those feelings -- and to the root of who we are -- than by writing about the people who know us most intimately: our parents, siblings, spouses or kids.

This four-hour seminar is your chance to workshop that essay about your mother you've always been meaning to write (but would never want her to see), or recapture the relationship you used to have with your brother, or explore how you've somehow, unwittingly, managed to recreate one of these earlier family relationships in your current, grown-up life. In addition to a close critique of each essay, students will learn how to deal with the problems inherent in writing about relatives, and discuss the basics of pitching and publishing personal essays so they can find the right venue for their work. Through others' examples, you'll learn how to turn the red pen on your own work and learn to edit yourself with a sharp editorial eye.

In this small class -- limited to 10 students  -- your piece will be read and commented on by the class, critiqued by the instructor, and edited as heavily as the piece requires. The instructor will also recommend venues for which the work is suitable. Your pitch letter for the class will be workshopped as well.

You'll learn how to edit yourself, what your work is missing, what it has too much of, and where it would fit perfectly for publication. No matter how much experience you have, every writer needs an editor. Let our teachers, writing veterans who continue to reign over the marketplace, be yours.

In this workshop, Paula Derrow, Articles Director at Self (who assigns personal essays for the magazine), will edit and critique personal essays.

Admission Requirements:
Please submit a brief letter of interest (including a brief work history) as well as a writing sample (less than 2,000 words).

Instructor Bio

Paula Derrow's Courses

Paula Derrow
Paula Derrow is the articles director of Self magazine, where she edits the "Self Expression" column as well as investigative, general-interest, and psychology features. (One of these features, "I gave up my breasts to save my life," by Lauren Slater, was nominated for a 2003 National Magazine Award award in the Best Essay category.) She has more than 20 years of editing and writing experience at a variety of women's and general-interest magazines and Web sites, including Glamour, American Health, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, and Lifetime Television for Women (lifetimetv.com). Her first book, an anthology of essays by women about sex in real life, Behind the Bedroom Door, will be published by Bantam in 2008.

Testimonials


Paula's course resulted in my being published in The New York Times' Modern Love column. Paula's suggestions inevitably take a personal essay from 'a good idea' to publishable. -- Liza Monroy, freelancer, novelist, mb instructor

"Paula Derrow gets to the heart of the personal essay. She inspired me to finish essays I had been toying with in my mind for a long time, and I have submitted my first essay for publication. -- Glenn Michael Gordon, former editor, Reader's Digest online

"I took Paula's workshop and was immediately impressed with her deceptively laid-back style. Her feedback was incisive and powerfully focused on the heart of each person's story. I wrote a piece shortly after the class that ran in the June 2006 issue of Runner's World. Thanks, Paula!" -- Bill Braine, editor and freelancer

"Paula convinced me that what I was writing was not only publishable but also worth publishing. With her encouragement -- and unremittingly honest critique - I was able to hone pieces I've since placed in the NYTimes City Section, and the My Word (person essay page) of the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine. I can't commend Paula highly enough." -- Erica Rex

"I'd recommend this class to anyone interested in developing their own authentic essay writing voice in a supportive creative environment." -- Anna Marrian, freelancer

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