Reading Closely to Write

Wednesdays, August 23 through September 13
6:00 to 7:00 p.m. CT

It’s an open secret that we learn to write better and better by reading more and more closely. On Wednesday, August 23, Writing Smartly will begin another short course of four one-hour sessions called Reading Closely to Write. Each week we will examine the structure and stylistic design of sentences from one or two very short stories (each averaging about 16 pages) written by celebrated authors. We will analyze the grammar and composition of certain significant sentences, and consider how other designs the author could have chosen would have produced different effects. Our emphasis will be on the language of the readings, so that we can begin to develop an eye and ear for discovering our own written voice.

New selections this term will be from The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction, edited by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco Publishers, 2008), readily available at Amazon and elsewhere. Tuition for this four-session online short course is $300 paid through Zelle (ultimo@writingsmartly.com), or $310 paid through PayPal.

If you have any questions, please email me directly. I hope you can join us.

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