ABOUT

Writing is difficult, but there are plenty of ways to make the process easier! In this workshop, we’ll take lessons from haiku writing that we can apply to our poetry (as well as prose). To immerse a reader means giving them enough tools to create their own world. Learn how to dictate the emotions and experiences your reader will encounter through the use of compelling imagery, deliberate word choices, tonal language, and precise structure. We will use haiku and examples from Issa and Basho as a guide for evocative writing in short sequences; the lessons we’ll learn translate well to poetry as well as to fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. This class is appropriate for levels that range from beginner to advanced.

INSTRUCTOR

Geoff Anderson is a Cave Canem fellow and Callaloo fellow with poetry in journals like Cimarron Review, Tar River, The Journal, Indiana Review, and Ninth Letter. He founded diVERSES, a platform dedicated to developing writers for creative and financial independence.

ABOUT

You don’t want to miss this: our original wildly popular “Go Rogue” workshop is back!

Put the “creative” back in “creative writing” with an afternoon of writing . . . JUST FOR FUN! Give yourself a gift with this uber fun class where you’ll write just for the heck of it. Our escapades will feature lively, intriguing activities and unexpected prompts inspired by Thurber House’s camps for young writers. (And, sure, you’ll learn something . . . we’ll just pretend you didn’t!)

This workshop is open to adults and teens ages 15+.

INSTRUCTOR

Katherine Matthews is a freelance writer, editor, and writing instructor. She served as managing editor at PageSpring Publishing and as editor-in-chief of Flip the Page: Central Ohio’s Teen Literary Journal. Her work has appeared in Columbus Monthly magazine and, most recently, in the anthology awfully hilarious: period pieces. Her creative nonfiction received an Individual Excellence Award grant from the Ohio Arts Council. Katherine served as committee chair for the Word is Art Stage at the Columbus Arts Festival for six years. At Thurber House, she teaches children and adults and produces interactive mysteries for the Summer Writing Camp.

ABOUT

One of the most powerful gifts a writer has is imagination, and one way writers throughout history have used that power is to write about new imagined futures and help others see the possibilities of what could be. In this generative workshop, we will look at examples from speculative fiction authors throughout history who have conjured utopias, matriarchies, communal societies, and more, and learn how we can use these world-building and alternate reality techniques in our own writing.

INSTRUCTOR

Shelley Mann Hite is a Columbus, Ohio-based writer and editor. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Rumpus, HuffPost, Motherwell, Stonecrop Review, and more, and she is working on a memoir manuscript. She is a prose editor for Typehouse Literary Magazine, and co-founder of the Columbus Women’s Writing Group. She got her start in journalism, and previously was an editor at Columbus Crave and Columbus Alive.