Based on her book The Author’s Checklist: An Agent’s Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript, this workshop will cover more than 50 points for consideration before submitting to an agent, editor, or indie publisher, such as how to sharpen dialogue and prose, improving characterization, complicating plot, and much more.

In this three-hour workshop, Elizabeth will not only teach the essential elements of the query, but will also work alongside participants to help them complete a solid query draft before end of class.

Brevity seems easy (after all, we live in a hashtag world). But it’s not. What if 100, 500 or 1000 words is all you’ve got to take a reader’s breath away? Instructor Britta Stromeyer Esmail will examine the craft of writing short-short stories and help differentiate between forms of flash fiction. 

In this three-hour workshop, Elizabeth will not only teach the essential elements of the query, but will also work alongside participants to help them complete a solid query draft before end of class.

"If you have not seen Granada you have not seen anything." So says the Spanish adage. In this class, we shall visit the city of the pomegranate which is defined by the events of 1492 when the last Moorish King Boabdil surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella, thus ending the Nasrids domination of the city.

In this workshop, Elizabeth will not only teach you what Author Platform is, but will also give you many examples of how to begin building platform or augmenting the platform you already have in place. 

This course is designed for those who have no or very little knowledge of French. We work with pronunciation, vocabulary enrichment, and short conversations.

This course is for students who wish to become more fluent and self-confident in speaking and writing French, expand vocabulary, understand and participate in casual conversations, and better comprehend the French way of life.

Writing a synopsis is difficult for many fiction writers because it’s a technical piece of writing rather than creative. In this three-hour workshop, Elizabeth will break down the synopsis in simple terms, and get you well on your way to a first draft by the end of workshop.

Whenever I read a metaphor, something alters, and a rival reality emerges. If someone’s hair color is compared to basil, the world that previously kept those two things apart is made anew. We’ll explore why metaphors are so powerful, but the main focus will be trying out different strategies for how to make them. By the end of the class, you’ll come away better able to create your own original metaphors.  

Five Ways In to Character is a unique, five-part technique for creating characters on the page and in performance. Synthesized by Julia McNeal, and honed over the last 15 years, this technique has never failed to deepen, clarify, and improve the character creation of all who apply it. The first of the Five Ways, “Way One,” introduces the first of the “Outside-In” approaches of the technique.

Five Ways In to Character is a unique, five-part technique for creating characters on the page and in performance. Synthesized by Julia McNeal, and honed over the last 15 years, this technique has never failed to deepen, clarify, and improve the character creation of all who apply it. Way Two completes the “Outside-In” work of the technique — focusing on gender; and Way Three is the deep core of the technique: the Inside-Out work that opens the door to any character’s truest being and unique nature.

Five Ways In to Character is a unique, five-part technique for creating characters on the page and in performance. Synthesized by Julia McNeal, and honed over the last 15 years, this technique has never failed to deepen, clarify, and improve the character creation of all who apply it. Ways Four and Five are both Inside-Out work (starting with the inner world of a character, and discovering how that manifests outwardly).

Patterned on a graduate school creative writing workshop, this class will guide participants through conceiving, pitching, and writing an original travel piece of up to 2,500 words. We'll begin by closely reading, discussing, and critiquing examples of excellent travel writing before participants will move on to crafting their own stories. Each piece will be closely read and discussed in class.