ANDREA CASWELL: Revision Revolution: Embracing Change to Transform Your Work, Masterclass, October 27, 2-4 PM ET on Zoom
Instructor: Andrea Caswell
Dates: Sunday, October 27, 2024, 2-4 pm ET on Zoom
Can't make it on October 27? No problem. A recording will be sent to all registrants.
Cost: $60
Open to: All fiction and nonfiction writers with work at any stage of revision
“Revision is the journey of a story—the story of a story, if you like—and of its writer’s relationship with that story.” ~ Peter Ho Davies, The Art of Revision
Most writing is the act of rewriting, or re-vision, from the moment we craft a piece and begin to imagine its next draft. The word revolution is an auto-antonym; it means both to return to a point of origin, and the opposite, to depart from a fixed point by making a significant change. Thus the concepts of revision and revolution go hand-in-hand whenever writers undertake the rewriting process.
This two-hour master class reframes revision as a dynamic collaboration between writer and text, rather than a combat sport. How can we embrace revision as a creative partnership that helps us transform our work into its next iteration? In what ways might we nurture both the work and ourselves during these transformational stages? In this class, students will:
- learn revision strategies for use with works-in-progress
- explore roadblocks that may surface during revision, plus ways to work with them
- gain perspective on potential directions for next drafts
- develop insights to hone their creative strengths and writing/rewriting practice
Writers will leave the session with a set of actions they can take to begin or continue the process of revision on a short story, essay, or longer work. There will be time for Q & A near the end of class.
The first twenty students to register will have the opportunity to submit a piece (up to 800 words) to the instructor for personalized feedback for an extra fee of $50. Work must be submitted at the time of registration. Feedback will be returned no later than two weeks from class date.
Submissions guidelines for writers choosing instructor feedback option:
- a single piece of work (800 words maximum length) may be submitted at time of registration
- work should be double-spaced in Times New Roman or similar 12-point font
- indicate title of piece and genre (fiction or nonfiction), and whether submission is a short story, essay, or an excerpt from a longer story, novel, essay or memoir-in-progress
- if you choose the personalized feedback option, the instructor will be in touch with you with instructions for uploading your manuscript
----
Andrea Caswell holds an MFA in fiction and nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She’s a senior fiction editor at Cleaver Magazine and is on the faculty of the Cleaver Workshops. She runs Cleaver’s Short Story Clinic, offering detailed feedback on fiction up to 5000 words. Andrea’s work appears or is forthcoming in Tampa Review, The Coachella Review, River Teeth, The Normal School, Atticus Review, Columbia Journal, and others. She’s an alum of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. For more information, please visit www.andreacaswell.com.