Hollins University is giving both novice and practiced writers the opportunity to grow their craft through the flexibility of online learning as the school nationally recognized for its creative writing program launches the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop/Online (TMWW/O) this fall.
The program’s inaugural session begins September 8 and continues through November 10.
Open to all adults, TMWW/O will offer 10-week courses taught exclusively by published authors who earned a master’s degree in the Hollins creative writing program. Enrollment for each course is capped at 15 students in order to ensure each student receives quality and comprehensive feedback.
“Each class focuses on generating and revising new work, with an emphasis on the writer’s voice, form, and metaphor,” says Program Director Luke Johnson M.F.A. ‘09, who teaches at the University of Mary Washington and is the author of the 2011 poetry collection, After the Ark. His poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in New England Review, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, The Threepenny Review, and the Best New Poets anthology.
Johnson adds that classes are designed to foster participation from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. “Whether you’re just starting your first poem or adding to an already extensive oeuvre, the online classroom offers an opportunity for in-depth engagement with accomplished writers and peers, and the flexibility to access weekly writing assignments, discussion boards, and craft lectures. Whether through a chat room, a threaded discussion, or a live interaction, the online format provides a multitude of ways to improve as a writer.”
TMWW/O will offer the following courses during the fall of 2013:
- The Art of Writing Fiction. Students focus on acquiring the tools necessary to create their own writing and edit it for publication, from creating compelling characters to crafting complete stories with something at stake. Students share their own writing for peer review in a digital workshop environment led by CL Bledsoe M.F.A. ‘08, an eight-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of five novels and four poetry collections.
- Poetry: Starting with the Line. This course, taught by Johnson, is designed to benefit both the beginning and the practiced poet, and to provide an opportunity for each to develop his or her craft while assembling a portfolio of new work. The course starts with an understanding of the poetic line and uses this to explore the fundamentals of poetry.
- Creative Nonfiction: Tell It Slant. This class explores the art of the memoir and techniques for illuminating experience while also considering the narrator’s combined role of participant/observer. Constance Adler M.A. ‘99, whose book My Bayou: New Orleans Through the Eyes of a Lover was published in 2012, is the instructor.
