This course is designed to examine the fundamentals of writing in a variety of forms — personal essays, opinion stories, profiles, features, and memoirs. The best writing is descriptive, precise and visual, and through our readings you will be inspired to write like the pros., Each week, you will respond to a prompt that addresses issues central to the human experience– love, loss, aging, re-invention and the navigation of all sorts of relationships. Those works will be read aloud, with peer reviews.
The goal is to explore and amplify your original voice, in clear and detailed sentences, a skill that will help you in any profession. The ability to write well is the backbone of a successful life.
This course also focuses extensively on how to get published.
The professor is a bestselling author of seven books and a regular contributor to national publications. Professor Iris Krasnow will take students through every step of the publishing process, from forming a focused idea, to pitching editors, writing a book proposal, finding an agent or self-publishing, and through the marketing process.
As we live at social distance that provokes deep introspection, our course is an escape into an intimate and supportive community, in which to speak your heart, to write your heart, to remember who you are.
Our Zoom Room will resound with power and truth, as you grow in your own thinking and writing. The ability to communicate clearly gives us the confidence and strength to forge onward in our lives, crucial as we endure times of great adversity. As you focus on the art of writing well, you will discover unknown parts of yourselves, and excavate pieces of meaningful history.
You will come away from this course knowing the difference between good and great writing, this while connecting with some like-minded new friends. Write Well is a course designed for any person, of any age, who has stories to tell, opinions to air and simply wants a really valuable and fun weekly retreat.
While we will study the techniques of others, the heart of this course is your writing. Throughout the semester, with in-depth instruction on the craft of writing, you will be encouraged to dig deeply into your own experiences as well as connect with issues you are passionate about. From this personal place comes the strongest writing., and from the space we create comes some really great company!
“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. “
Anne Lamott, from Bird by Bird
Iris is an Assistant Professor Emerita at American University, where she has taught journalism and writing courses for the past thirty years. Born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. she received her undergraduate degree in photojournalism from…
Full Bio
