Class Description
Now more than ever before in our lifetimes, the personal is political—and so is art. Our lives, and our art, contain within them the strands of social justice issues and moments that testify to an urgent need for social change. This workshop will be devoted to harnessing the political impact of those stories, and crafting personal narratives that are successful on both the artistic and political levels. In the first session, we’ll read inspiring works by writers who came before us and try our hands at some prompts designed to unlock the stories our lives hold. Students will spend the week between the sessions drafting. Then we’ll reunite for a session focused on revision and finding how best to pair the personal and political in each piece. Students may work on writing of any length, though the classroom focus will be on the personal op-ed and the essay.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.