Featured Online Writing Class

THE WOMEN WRITERS’ BOOK GROUP: Building Meaning in a Memoir by Chelsey Clammer

START DATE: This class is currently closed.

END DATE:

DURATION: 4 weeks

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this group is to act as a writer’s book group. What that means is that we will read a book together and learn different writing craft techniques from it. This month we will be reading Lying by Lauren Slater. Reading the memoir as a guide, we will explore the different stages of building an engaging narrative that fully engages the reader. Along with this, we’ll look at what “truth” is in regards to how the narrator grows throughout the memoir. Concentrating on specific craft elements such as voice, tone, structure, organization, description, and word choice, this course will show the possibilities of how we can get our readers hooked on our true stories by toying around with what “truth” in memoir writing means.

Throughout the course, book group members will take turns giving and receiving feedback on participants’ writing, and each participant will receive line edits on her own writing from the instructor every week. Members will also engage in discussions online through the course’s website. The group will be coordinated through email and a private forum. We’ll be reading about 50 pages of the book per week.

Chelsey Clammer is one of the best writing teachers I’ve ever had. When I signed up for this course, I had hit a dead period in my writing, when I felt I might not be able to write another essay ever. After 20 years as a publisher of a magazine I founded and years of coming up with a personal essay and a prose poem for the cover every month, I simply hit a wall. I was convinced I’d lost my mojo, but a friend had taken the same class with Chelsey and raved about it. This course was a major breakthrough for me, and I came up with drafts for three essays over the course of the four weeks! Thank you, Chelsey, for helping me find my words and my self-confidence. ~ Nikki Hardin (Previous WOW class participant)

I have taken two of Chelsey Clammer’s classes and I cannot wait to take my third. She is a very accomplished author and is so generous about sharing her talents with her students. The materials are timely, relevant and inspirational. I have no problems balancing coursework with other commitments; in fact, the work is so much fun that I find myself easily pushing everything else out of the way to write. Thanks to Chelsey and the feedback of classmates, I have several new writing projects that I plan to submit soon for publication! ~ Ashley Memory (Previous WOW class participant)

I’ve taken two of Chelsey’s classes and signed up for her submission consultation services. I’m excited to share that all three of the essays we worked on have been accepted for publication! The first class I took with Chelsey is her fantastic Not What But How: Improving Essays with a Focus on Craft, Not Content where I worked on an essay I had been struggling with. Chelsey helped find the direction I needed, and I’m happy to say that essay is upcoming in Empty Mirror. Utilizing Chelsey’s editorial skills on an essay that had received personal rejections and come close, but not close enough, to receiving an acceptance, resulted in Under the Sun saying yes and is forthcoming spring of 2020. The essay I wrote in Chelsey’s When Life Fissures: Writing About Grief in Fragments class was picked up by Mojave Heart Review just weeks after the class ended. Whether you are new to writing, or need a refresher, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for with Chelsey. Chelsey has an innate and amazing ability to see your vision, even when you can’t. With her close reading, eye for detail, helpful feedback, friendly personality, she’ll get your words singing on the page. Chelsey is the writer/editor/teacher muse you didn’t know you needed. I can’t rave enough about what I’m a big fan of Chelsey’s writing, and an equally big fan of Chelsey’s editing/teaching. ~ Cindy Bradley (Previous WOW class participant)

Chelsey’s class has been absolutely amazing. I have produced three refined and excellent pieces--one has already been pubbed by The Nervous Breakdown, and I just got an acceptance from Hippocampus for the second (pub in January)! The third is still out there, submitted to three places. Chelsey provided me excellent edits and emailed back quickly when I had questions. The class was fun, I learned a lot and was inspired to continue writing after it ends using the prompts she gave. She was even generous enough to answer questions I had about MFA programs. I am thankful that I ended up in her class. ~ Sarah W. (Previous WOW class participant)

In May, I took Chelsey Clammer’s course on writing memoir based on the empathic writings of Leslie Jamison. Discussion and analysis of Jamison’s essays, formed the backdrop for our approaches to our essays. I worried; I’d been writing only poetry for the past five years. Would I have enough ideas and skills to shape a coherent essay for feedback from the mentor and classmates? Ms. Clammer taught me that, whether published or not, all of my writings are important. She showed me how rewarding it is to investigate a portion of one’s life and share it with an audience. I discovered I could write about a tiny segment of my past. The resultant essay gave information and a degree of entertainment to my readers. Two of the essays completed during the four-week course are now under consideration by editors: one at an essay contest at Under the Gum Tree and the other at Mom Egg Review. ~ Carole Mertz

WEEKS AT A GLANCE:

Week 1: Introducing Yourself and Your Story

You know that the very first line of any piece of writing needs to grab the reader’s attention. Slater takes this standard to heart in Lying, and as we will see this week, the hook of her first sentence is just a glimpse into how an author can catch—and more important hold onto—the reader’s attention. Through this, we’ll discover interesting ways to introduce the reader to your story. By looking at how the narrator’s voice is established, how themes can be set up, and how word choice and tone can impact meaning, we’ll explore key ways to introduce the reader to who you are and what your story is about.

Assignment: Read the assigned pages, and complete at least one of the writing exercises on your own. Post your response to one of the discussion questions online. Email the instructor your writing-in-progress for the week (700-word limit). Comment on your peers’ essays as assigned.

Week 2: How to Engage Your Reader

Now that we’ve seen how an author can grab your interest in who she is and what her story is about, this week we’ll look at how a writer can build from that first impression in order to engage the reader even more. Presenting the reader with well-timed and key facts, new characters, and unexpected situations, the reader’s perspective on the writing can begin to expand and gain depth with complexity. We’ll specifically look at how structure and organization can enhance the reader’s engagement with the text.

Week 3: Telling Your “True” Self

Shocking the life out of the reader can undoubtedly bring some intrigue to a piece of writing. But what if you don’t have a plot twist in your story? How can you surprise the reader when there really isn’t some huge situational surprise? It’s all in how you tell your story. For this third week, we’ll be looking at how the ways a narrator’s emotional growth are revealed throughout a memoir can lead to a huge shift in understanding and meaning. By focusing on character interaction through the craft of dialogue and description, we’ll discover the different ways we can create tension and further intrigue by exploring a narrator’s emotional shifts.

Week 4: Making Meaning

What makes a good memoir different from an extraordinary memoir is meaning. In other words, a successful piece of writing must do more than just tell a story—it needs to create a larger sense of meaning through that story. For this final week, we’ll look at the different aspects of a well-crafted ending, and how those elements can create more meaning in the story as a whole. Focusing on the art of weaving together self-reflection with in-scene action, we’ll see how being able to oscillate between the two types of storytelling can impact the meaning you are wanting to make.

Sample Lesson: Click to view a sample lesson from Chelsey Clammer’s course The Empathy Exams: Week I.

Materials needed: Please purchase your own copy of Lying in preparation for the first week of the course.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: Chelsey Clammer is the award-winning author of Circadian (Red Hen Press, 2017) and BodyHome (Hopewell Publications, 2015). A Pushcart Prize-nominated essayist, she has been published in Salon, Brevity, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Normal School, Hobart, The Rumpus, Essay Daily, and Black Warrior Review, among many others. Her third collection of essays, Human Heartbeat Detected, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. You can read more of her writing at: www.chelseyclammer.com.

COST: $150, which includes weekly assignments and individual feedback from the instructor. You will also be invited to a private group for student interaction and discussion.

BUY NOW: THE WOMEN WRITERS’ BOOK GROUP: Building Meaning in a Memoir with Chelsey Clammer (4 weeks, starting 7/6/2020) Limit: 10 students. Early registration is recommended.

This class is now closed. Please check out Chelsey’s upcoming classes here.

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Additional Testimonials for Chelsey Clammer:

This past August I signed up for Chelsey Clammer’s four-week WOW! course, The Women Writers’ Book Group: Furiously Happy. Not only have I never participated in an online book club or writing class, but I have never tried my hand at flash/short fiction or humorous fiction. But I can read, and thought it would be fun to dissect the book with an instructor and other writers. And laugh a little along the way. I was blown away. Not only was the online class a lot of fun and very informative, but Chelsey’s exceptional insights into the book combined with her weekly exercises and feedback gave me some confidence and inspiration to try my hand at writing humor. She kept the pace and energy level of the class high, not easy to do online. Chelsey also expertly guided me with her edits and encouragement. She suggested I submit a couple of my pieces that came out of her exercises. I was so new to all this, I didn’t even know where to begin to submit. Chelsey walked me through that process, too! I thought you’d like to know that one was published online. I couldn’t have been published without Chelsey and the WOW! classroom. Thank you so much for offering the opportunity to grow as a writer! ~ Kate Bradley-Ferrall (Previous WOW class participant)

Chelsey is a careful and thoughtful editor who let’s other writers’ voices stand out while at the same time helping them clarify and distill their words. ~ David Olimpio

Chelsey Clammer is professional and prompt, with a keen eye for detail. I trust her editorial advice absolutely. ~ Jen Palmares Meadow

Working with Chelsey I feel I’m in a rich partnership that as much about preparing essay drafts for publication as it is about growth, discovery, and the joy that comes from telling the stories that matter to me. ~ Kineret Yardena

Having Chelsey for a writing teacher happily exceeded my expectations. She a gifted and accomplished writer, fully dedicated to the writing life and to sharing her talent and knowledge with others, and it felt to me she was a much a member of our class as she was the instructor, which allowed me to trust her and take risks with my writing. ~ Patricia Heim

Chelsey is a careful and thoughtful editor who let’s other writers’ voices stand out while at the same time helping them clarify and distill their words. ~ David Olimpio

Chelsey Clammer is professional and prompt, with a keen eye for detail. I trust her editorial advice absolutely. ~ Jen Palmares Meadow

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Notes: Upon successful completion of payment, your name, email address, and contact info will be submitted to your instructor. Just before class begins, she will e-mail you with instructions on how to get started.

Questions? Email Marcia & Angela at:
classroom[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com

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