FALL 2011 CLASSES

Our Fall 2011 term is now completed. Click here for information about our exciting course offerings during the Spring 2012 term.

For more information, including our cancellation policy, visit About Our Programs or contact us via email at 

COMPLETED 49 ALASKA WRITING CENTER FALL 2011 CLASSES

Truth or Dare: Non-Fiction Workshop

• Instructor: Leslie Hsu Oh
• Class: 1 week, 15 hours
• Dates: Oct. 7-9
• Day/Time: Friday 6-9 pm, Saturday and Sunday 10 am - 4 pm
• Location: 645 W. 3rd Ave.
• $210 members Register and pay now! $225 non-members Register and pay now!
• Description: Augusten Burroughs was sued for defamation after writing Running with Scissors. James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces has been called a liar by many. Despite all his publishers withdrawing publication, Bruno Dössekker believed with absolute certainty that he was the holocaust survivor Binjamin Wilkomirski, the protagonist of his "fictionalized" memoir Fragments. In this course, we’ll examine ethical dilemmas that poets, fiction, and nonfiction writers successfully navigated in their critically acclaimed nonfiction. We will also write and workshop pieces that challenge your craft ethically.
• Genres: Nonfiction
• Age level: 18+
• Experience level: Intermediate, Advanced  

Writing and the Creative Spark

• Instructor: Melinda Moustakis
• Class: 1 week, 3 hours
• Dates: Oct. 15
• Day/Time: Saturday, 1-4 pm
• Location: 645 W. 3rd Ave.
• $39 members Register and pay now! $45 non-members Register and pay now!
• Description: In this three hour generative writing session, we'll look at three different ways to spark creativity in your writing by reading published pieces in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry and then using them as inspiration for writing prompts. We will look at ways to re-imagine point of view, memories, and everyday objects. This course is supported by a grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
• Genres: All
• Age level: 16+
• Experience level: All

Perspectives and Viewpoints

• Instructor:         Andromeda Romano-Lax
• Class:               3 weeks, 7.5 hours
• Dates:               Oct. 25-Nov. 8
• Day/Time:         Tuesday/6:30-9 pm
• Location:           645 W. 3rd Ave
• $105 members    Register and pay now!
• $115 non-members Register and pay now!
• Description:       It's the first decision a writer must make, the key to analyzing a story or novel that works, and a powerful tool to employ in the revision process, when a piece of fiction isn't quite working. We'll review all the basics and terms, from first-person to third-person, objective, subjective, and omniscient. We'll discuss how classic and contemporary works differ in their POV strategies. But we'll look most closely at what introductory approaches and texts leave out: subtleties of psychic distance, transitioning between points of view, and how POV creates character. We'll investigate what our default strategies are and why, and explore when and how to stretch our own POV muscles in new directions. We'll write and share short writing exercises and analyze successful examples from published works from Faulkner and Fitzgerald to contemporary authors, including passages that break conventional POV rules.
• Genres: Fiction, Nonfiction
• Age level: 16+
• Experience level: All

Fiction with David Vann     THIS COURSE IS FULL; to waitlist email 49writers@gmail.com

• Instructor:   David Vann
• Class:        1 session/2.5 hours
• Date:          October 28
• Day/Time:  Friday/2:30-5 pm
• Location:    645 W. 3rd Ave.
• $39 members    Register and pay now!
• $45 non-members Register and pay now! 
• Description: Join acclaimed author David Vann in an exploration of the divided protagonist, style, and the use of landscape.  Advance readings by William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, Flannery O'Connor, Marilyn Robinson, and Vladimir Nabokov will be provided. Sponsors of David Vann's visit include the Alaska Quarterly Review, Anchorage Chapter of Alaska Library Association, Anchorage Public Library, Anchorage School District, 49 Writers and UAA Bookstore.
• Genre: Fiction
• Age level: 16+
• Experience level: All

 Time in Narration    COURSE FULL; email 49writers@gmail.com to waitlist

• Instructor:         Andromeda Romano-Lax
• Class:               3 weeks, 7.5 hours
• Dates:               Oct. 4-18
• Day/Time:         Tuesday/6:30-9 pm
• Location:           645 W. 3rd Ave
• $105 members    Register and pay now!
• $115 non-members Register and pay now!
• Description:       In real life, time travels only one direction. In fiction and creative nonfiction, the possibilities are endless. This multi-genre class will explore narrative time management, one of the most overlooked yet essential elements of creative writing, especially in modern and post-modern works: linear and non-linear storytelling, jumping and shifting, compression and expansion, flashbacks, parallel story lines, experimental approaches, and time and memory as subject. We'll also consider the uses and misuses of tense. We'll write and share short writing exercises and analyze successful examples from published works, from Virginia Woolf and Richard Yates to Martin Amis and Nicholson Baker, challenging ourselves to manipulate time more creatively and purposefully.
• Genres: Fiction, Nonfiction
• Age level: 16+
• Experience level: All

Nonfiction Workshop FAIRBANKS   CLASS CANCELLED 

• Instructor:         Ned Rozell
• Class:               4 weeks, 15 hours
• Dates:               Oct. 4 - Nov. 1
• Day/Time:         Tuesdays/6:30-9 pm
• Location:           Bear Gallery FAIRBANKS
• $210 members    Register and pay now!
• $225 non-members Register and pay now!
• Description:       Students will respond to each other's works-in-progress (10 pages or less distributed a week in advance). We'll also discuss anthologized non-fiction excerpts, focusing on the craft and intent of each piece. We'll identify the non-fiction techniques and determine whether they are serving or inhibiting the selection's overall design. The purpose of this workshop is to respond to literature as writers so we might better respond to our own work.  This workshop is co-sponsored by the Fairbanks Arts Association.
• Genre: Nonfiction
• Age level: 18+
• Experience level: All

Poetry Toolbox: Lines and Tropes

• Instructor:         Susanna Mishler
• Class:               4 weeks, 12 hours
• Dates:               Oct. 22-Nov. 12
• Day/Time:         Saturday, 1-4 pm
• Location:           645 W. 3rd Ave
• $170 members    Register and pay now!
• $185 non-members Register and pay now!
• Description:     In this workshop we'll look at some of our tools as poets - the line and the trope. What are the different kinds of lines and tropes? What kinds of effects do they have on a poem? Knowing more about our tools makes us better at our craft, leading us to improve as readers, writers, and listeners. Emphasis will be on trying new things in our own writing, and on building our appreciation as readers for the tactics at play in a poem. Over the course of the workshop we will build a small 'dictionary' of poetic strategies and examples for all to take home and use. This workshop is for poets looking to hone skills and try out new modes of writing, though ambitious beginners are also welcome.
• Genres: Poetry
• Age level: 16+
• Experience level: All