ALL1416-C First 6 Weeks Wednesday 9:00-10:20 Start Date 29-Jan
Grossman 106 Limit 12
This is a class that encourages experimentation and challenges your assumptions on how to get started or improve your writing. It is an open and welcome writing community. Participants will bring their favorite pen, pad or notebook and write using an improv approach. Writing longhand opens creative pathways not often used in a digital world. Each class will have a theme and explore different writing elements, including dialog, narrative, description and point of view. The format starts with a suggestion, a one-line prompt from the group. There are no homework assignments or required readings, no critique and no judgment. It is a place to fire up your imagination and try new things.
The leader chooses a one-line prompt for the group. Participants will write (longhand) whatever comes to mind, for a specific time; 2 to 8 minutes, selected at the start of each prompt. Each prompt launches a mini-creative writing exercise and suspends the “inner critic”; the voice that often gets in the way of really good ideas! The result may be sad, funny, reflective, or poignant. Writers will take turns reading what they wrote, or they may “pass” with… no comment or judgment. Sharing helps both the writer and the group, but it is not required. It is a place to fire up your imagination and try new things. A prompt may jump start a paragraph, or reframe an opening line, or help sort out other projects you are working on.
Anyone who loves to write, is looking for fellow writers, and may be out of practice or unsure of how to start. This is not a group to read passages of your new novel or try out plot twists or character development. This is a class that encourages experimentation and challenges your assumptions on how to get started or improve your writing. It is an open and welcome writing community.
Assignment: All work will take place in person in class. Participants will write between 4 and 10 prompts per class. There are no homework assignments or required readings. The instructor will provide resources or suggestions based on topics and requests from class.
Coordinator: Ann Tucker
Ann is a retired corporate executive. She is a graduate of Bates College with a degree in English Literature. She received her MBA from the University of St Thomas in MN. In her career, she worked in marketing communications responsible for developing and managing projects in Europe, the UK, South America and Asia. She taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Augsburg University in MN before moving full time to the Cape in 2019.