About the Tucson Workshops
The Writers Studio Tucson Workshop, the first of our four levels, is designed for students at all levels who are new to the Writers Studio method. This Workshop is open to both beginning and experienced writers eager to learn the elements of craft, including first- and third-person narrators, tone, and mood. An important goal of the workshop is to help writers understand that a narrative voice is born out of conscious creation and not merely the voice we use when speaking or keeping a journal. We encourage students to turn autobiographical fragments into publishable work by using different narrative personas to tell their story in fiction and poetry.
Through exercises, students experiment with narrative and poetic techniques. Our exercises are designed to stimulate students’ imaginations while also teaching a lot of nuts-and-bolts narrative strategies They focus on both fiction and poetry, and use published examples of both genres as models.
Each week we assign a brief reading combined with an exercise, and the teacher explains the technique that makes the piece effective. The following week students bring their written exercise to class, where it is read aloud. Classmates offer feedback, and then the teacher, who has been trained for three years in The Writers Studio method, gives the final supportive critique. Three of the eight weeks are spent revising and deepening exercises written during the term.
In Writers Studio Workshops, we ask students to remain silent when their classmates and the teacher offer feedback. Though this may seem harsh at first, the policy is enormously helpful, as it lets students take in the information calmly and without the reflexive tendency to grow defensive. The workshops are designed to help students learn from their own work, as well as from the work of others. As the student’s understanding of technique deepens so does the emotional power of the writing.
Students who want to keep going take the Workshop three to two times before moving on to the Intermediate Workshop. Students may go from a taking a Tucson Workshop to a Writers Studio Online Level 1 workshop.
The Writers Studio Tucson Workshop meets once a week for eight weeks at Sky Islands High School, 6000 E. 14th Street in Tucson, Arizona. For more information, please contact Renee Bibby at (520) 591-8795 or renee@writerstudio.com.
For the latest news and course announcements, check out The Writers Studio Tucson Facebook Page and sign up for the newsletter.