FALL Online: Self-Portraits: Writing from Life w David Biespiel

This workshop, led by Attic Institute founder David Biespiel, is the kind of study every writer needs, from beginners to the most advanced. It’s an opportunity to write from studying your own self-portrait via photos, drawings, snapshots, b&ws, candids, distortions, &c. The workshop approach empahsizes the concept of obseravtional writing as a direct route to achieve new imaginative possibilities, whether you’re writng fiction, memoir, or poems. The approach demands careful observation and the translation of those observations into clear and precise notes, jottings, and studies. Self-portrait writing is one of the foundational skill sets that all writers should practice. It hones your concentration on details and the language that comes from those details, and it releases you into new zones for your memories and projections to emerge. Our focus will be almost entirely on making new pieces of writing with hardly any time dedicated to critique or revision. Included in your tuition is a signed copy of the tenth anniversary edition of David’s book, Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces, with a Foreword by Chuck Palahniuk, which we will use as a “textbook” for the workshop. [Because this workshop is seven hours, there will be frequent, scheduled breaks to step away from the computer screen and rest.]

Register for this Workshop

NOTE: To protect everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re offering our workshops via Zoom. All students must first sign up for a free Zoom account. Setting it up is easy. And we can help you with questions, if needed. For each class, you’ll receive a Zoom “invitation,” from the instructor. Click the link…follow the simple directions about the settings for your microphone and in-computer video, and you’re immediately in the “room” for the workshop. For critique workshops, instructors will communicate with students about the process of sharing work. For more generative workshops, students will be writing together while on Zoom.

This workshop will have frequent breaks to ease the strain of working online for so many hours, as well as timed writings by hand (again, to ease the time on the computer), and breakout sessions to work one-on-one or small groups.