Spring Writing

I spent the morning hauling in firewood (my house is still a bit cold) and I heard thunder in the distance. Clearly, it’s spring.

During the spring, rather than offer traditional writing classes, I offer more sessions of Fanning the Flame– a one on one 4 week course. Please see below. Email me with questions or to enroll corinne.manning@gmail.com

Fanning the Flame: One on One Course

Rolling dates, 4 weeks

Cost: $200

Instructor: Corinne Manning

This is a build your own course that you and I co-create together. There are two, hour long, in person meetings at the beginning and the end of the session, and writing assignments and reading are established to best fit the needs of the individual student. This is a great launching off point for those looking to find their voice and is also a powerful option for those needing to fan the flame of your own writing process.

Winter Writing Classes in Seattle, Consultations and Retreats

Winter, moving into spring, can be one of the most powerful times to find and engage in our stories and to be in community with writers in Seattle. If you’d like to enroll in Healing Narratives, or in a one-on-one mini course please email me: corinne.manning@gmail.com. This winter and upcoming:

  • Healing Narratives: Nonfiction Class in Ballard; Thursdays February 5-March 12 (skipping Thursday March 5)
  • Fanning the Flame: One-on-One Four Week Courses; rolling start dates

And upcoming in the Spring:

  • New! Weekend Long Retreat and Intensive on Vashon Island: March 27-29 (This will be rescheduled in May or June. Apologies and please stay tuned)

Healing Narratives: Nonfiction Class 

Thursdays: February 5- March 12 (skipping Thursday, March 5)

7-9pm

Location: Ballard

Instructor: Corinne Manning

Cost: $180

to enroll email: corinne.manning@gmail.com

Maybe you went on a road trip and figured it all out, or had a psychic tell you to take care of your feet, or survived, or learned to use your loss in a new way. In this safe space we will use methods that explore the outlying regions of our memories. Through numerous exercises we will explore our memories and allow them to transform from experience to narrative. Our goal will be to create narratives that heal the reader as purely as it healed the writer. There will be in class exercises and some out of class explorations. Outside reading will include selections from narratives of healing:  Matthew Sanford, Roberto Bolano, Kate Borenstein and Alice Walker, among others.  This class is open to all genders. Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible, with a ground floor entrance. Please inquire for more info..

Fanning the Flame: One on One Course

Rolling dates, 4 weeks

Cost: $200

Instructor: Corinne Manning

This is a build your own course that you and I co-create together. There are two, hour long, in person meetings at the beginning and the end of the session, and writing assignments and reading are established to best fit the needs of the individual student. This is a great launching off point for those looking to find their voice and is also a powerful option for those needing to fan the flame of your own writing process.

I’m very excited to be offering a weekend long writing intensive at my home in Vashon Island. More information will be available soon.

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Fall 2014 Writing Classes and Consultations

It’s time for fall classes! This season join me for a two day class on Vashon Island and one-on-one mini courses in Seattle. To enroll or for further information please email corinne.manning@gmail.com.

 

Caring about the Reader

Two class meetings: Saturday October 4 and Saturday October 25

Time: 1-3:30pm

Location: Vashon Island

Instructor: Corinne Manning

Cost: $125 (includes both meetings. Two sliding scale spots available)

In 2012 at Town Hall, Junot Diaz said that a reader is a writer’s greatest friend. In this two day prose focused class we’ll explore this question: what does it mean, as writers, to care about the reader? We’ll consider how to make it apparent in our writing that we know that the reader is there while not limiting our own vision. The potential for this exploration is a mutual exchange for the writer and reader. The first class will consist of generative writing exercises and discussing examples from masters such as James Baldwin, Edwidge Danticat, and George Saunders. Our second class meeting will focus on discussing student work.

 

Fanning the Flame: One-on-One Writing Consultations

4 week course

Rolling Dates: Now scheduling September, October, and November

Price: $200

This is a build your own course that you and I co-create together. There are two, one hour long, in person meetings (book ended at the start and finish of the 4-week period). Writing assignments and reading are established to best fit the needs of the individual student. This is a great launching off point for those looking to find their voice and is also a powerful option for those needing to fan the flame of their own writing process.

Testimonial: I had a project that I wanted to work on but the whole idea was so huge and overwhelming that I had no idea where to start. Working with Corinne individually calmed my panic and gave me the direction and accountability I needed. Corinne also encouraged me to attempt projects I would have been too insecure to try on my own like pitching a story to the Moth podcast. She has without a doubt expanded my creative process and I can see a difference in the work I am producing. I could not have tackled this project with out the one on one help from Corinne. Jessica Cashman, Psychology for Women

 

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Writing Consultations & Free Summer Classes

This summer The Living Room Workshops will offer two free writing classes in Seattle; one tailored for those just getting started. Throughout the summer I will continue to offer writing coaching, manuscript consultations, and Fanning the Flame: One-on-One Courses. To enroll please email corinne.manning@gmail.com

 

  • July 12, Writing With A Voice– Free, description below
  • August 2  August 9, Putting Yourself into Words– Free, description below
  • Fanning the Flame: One-on-One Writing Consultations, description below

 

Fanning the Flame: One-on-One Writing Consultations

4 week course

Rolling Dates: Now scheduling July and August

Price: $200

This is a build your own course that you and I co-create together. There are two, one hour long, in person meetings (book ended at the start and finish of the 4-week period). Writing assignments and reading are established to best fit the needs of the individual student. This is a great launching off point for those looking to find their voice and is also a powerful option for those needing to fan the flame of their own writing process.

Testimonial: I had a project that I wanted to work on but the whole idea was so huge and overwhelming that I had no idea where to start. Working with Corinne individually calmed my panic and gave me the direction and accountability I needed. Corinne also encouraged me to attempt projects I would have been too insecure to try on my own like pitching a story to the Moth podcast. She has without a doubt expanded my creative process and I can see a difference in the work I am producing. I could not have tackled this project with out the one on one help from Corinne. Jessica Cashman, Psychology for Women

 

Putting Yourself into Words: A Place to Start

To enroll please email corinne.manning@gmail.com

Saturday August 9, 2-3:30

Instructor: Corinne Manning in Capitol Hill

Investment: Emotion, dedication, and drive

This is the class for beginnings: of a daily writing practice, of stepping toward your story, and finding yourself through words. In this supportive class we’ll explore different methods to begin to build your own daily writing practice.

 

Writing With A Voice: A Generative workshop

To enroll please email corinne.manning@gmail.com

Saturday July 12, 2-3:30

Instructor: Corinne Manning in Capitol Hill

Investment: Emotion, dedication, and drive

In this generative class we will get noisy and explore what it means for what is on the page to have a sound as distinct as what travels along our vocal chords. Class time will include lots of writing and some reading.

 

 

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Spring Writing Classes

Crocuses and Daffodils mean time for spring writing classes in Seattle. To enroll or for more information email corinne.manning@gmail.com for details.

  • Fanning the Flame: One on One Writing Course; 4 weeks, scheduling for May & June
  • Stories We Tell: Fiction Workshop; Tuesdays April 1- April 29, 7-9pm

Descriptions below:

 

Fanning the Flame: One-on-One Writing Consultations

4 week course

Rolling Dates: Now scheduling for May and June (cause June is still Spring in Seattle!)

$200

This is a build your own course that you and I co-create together. There are two, hour long, in person meetings (book ended at the start and finish of the 4-week period). Writing assignments and reading are established to best fit the needs of the individual student. This is a great launching off point for those looking to find their voice and is also a powerful option for those needing to fan the flame of their own writing process.

 

Stories We Tell: Fiction Workshop

Tuesdays: April 1- April 29 (5 Weeks)

7-9 pm

Location: Capitol Hill

Instructor: Corinne Manning

Cost: $180

In this workshop we will explore the variety of methods to tell a story through fiction. Craft lessons will arise out of student work. Since this class will be dedicated to the reading and responding to classmates’ short stories, outside reading will be light but may include Rebecca Curtis, Joan Silber, George Saunders, and James Baldwin.

 

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Winter Writing Classes

 

It’s Time for Winter Classes! Some scholarships are available, please email corinne.manning@gmail.com for details.

  • Stories We Tell: Nonfiction & Fiction; Tuesdays February 4- March 5, 7-9pm
  • Tale: A Two Day Moveable (Writing) Feast; December 14-15 (Saturday & Sunday)

Descriptions below.

To enroll please email corinne.manning@gmail.com

The Stories We Tell: Fiction and Nonfiction

Tuesdays: February 4-March 4 (5 weeks)

7-9pm

Location: Capitol Hill

Instructor: Corinne Manning

Cost: $180

We will use this class to explore our own stories, what makes them stories, and how to best tell them. We will explore documentary work such as Sarah Polley’s film Stories We Tell and will read fiction and nonfiction by writers such as James Baldwin, Scott Russel Sanders, Eula Biss, and Mary Gaitskill. This is a great continuation course for anyone who has taken Writing Trauma/Healing Narratives or a launch off point for those interested in creating narratives, or simply finding the story.

 

Tale: A Two-day Moveable (Writing) Feast (Class full)
December 14- 15, Saturday and Sunday
 
Instructors: Corinne Manning, Anca Szilagyi, Anne Bean
 
Saturday: 1-2:30, 3-4:30 (Capitol Hill, Central District)
Sunday: 1-2:30 (Greenwood)
Cost: $100
 
Explore magical realism and fairy tales with 3 teachers over the course of one weekend in this moveable feast of a writing workshop. Participants will move from house to house gaining craft skills, knowledge, and writing some “marvelous” fiction and exploring the memoir as fairy tale. Readings will include Brothers Grimm, Angela Carter, and Alyssa Nutting.

Each class will last 1.5 hours and will take place in Capitol Hill and the Central District on Saturday, ending in Greenwood on Sunday. Carpooling is encouraged. Course must be taken as a whole. No single class drop ins.

 

Fanning the Flame: One on One Course

Rolling dates, 4 weeks

Cost: $180

Instructor: Corinne Manning

This is a build your own course that you and I co-create together. There are two, hour long, in person meetings at the beginning and the end of the session, and writing assignments and reading are established to best fit the needs of the individual student. This is a great launching off point for those looking to find their voice and is also a powerful option for those needing to fan the flame of their own writing process.

Note: Accessibility is limited due to four flights of stairs and no elevator.

Fall Classes 2013

Registration for fall writing workshops is now closed but stay tuned for winter workshops. If you’d like to join the mailing list email me at corinne.manning@gmail.com

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It’s time for fall classes!

To enroll please email corinne.manning@gmail.com

 

Healing Narratives: Nonfiction Class (Full)

Mondays: October 28-November 25 7-9pm

Location: Capitol Hill

Cost: Corinne Manning

Cost: $180

Maybe you went on a road trip and figured it all out, or had a psychic tell you to take care of your feet, or survived, or learned to use your loss in a new way. In this safe space we will use methods that explore the outlying regions of our memories. Through numerous exercises we will learn to stay present with our memory and allow it to transform from experience to narrative. Our goal will be to create narratives that heal the reader as purely as it healed the writer. There will be in class exercises and some out of class explorations. Outside reading will include selections from narratives of healing:  “Waking” by Matthew Sanford, “Heaven’s Coast” by Mark Doty, “Under the Influence” by Scott Russel Sanders and others. This class is open to all genders.

Note: Accessibility is limited due to four flights of stairs and no elevator.

Fiction Workshop: On Compassion (Full)

Tuesdays: September 24- October 22 7-9 pm

Location: Capitol Hill

Instructor: Corinne Manning

Cost: $180

This workshop style class will explore the role of compassion in fiction. As writers, in order to create compelling stories and characters there is requirement of compassion so that we can appropriately write and reach even the most surly complicated characters. This is an excellent opportunity to get feedback on short stories or novel chapters as each participant will get to share work in workshop twice. Outside reading will include writers such as James Baldwin, Joan Silber, and Mary Gaitskill.

Free Summer Class and Participant Accolades

Thanks for a productive and lovely first “school year!” The Living Room Workshops will go on hiatus for the summer but Corinne is offering a free one day class. 

Writing With A Voice: A Generative workshop

To enroll please email corinne.manning@gmail.com

Saturday July 27th, 1-2:30

Instructor: Corinne Manning in Capitol Hill

Investment: Emotion, dedication, and drive

In this generative class we will get noisy and explore what it means for what is on the page to have a sound as distinct as what travels along our vocal chords. Class time will include lots of writing and some reading. 

And finally here are some celebrations for current Living Room Workshop students. 

  • Taylor was accepted into Columbia University’s Teaching College and will be starting in the fall.
  • Cecily was accepted to the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and will be working on her memoir. She also recently won her first Slam.
  • A student is working on a manuscript (a follow up to another beautiful book) that’s being considered for publication. 
  • Casey and Kathleen will perform at BOOST: Poetry to Uplift your Spirits at Hugo House on Friday, May 31. 

 Fall classes will post in July. In the mean time, may your writing or your desire for it continue to conquer like blackberry. 

Classes in March and April and May

If you are interested in enrolling in any classes or have any questions please write to Corinne at corinne.manning@gmail.com. Scholarships are available.

Multi week Classes

Five Courses: A Multi Genre class

Instructor: Kate Lebo in Ballard ← New Instructor!

Wednesdays 7-9 pm

May 8- June 5

5 weeks–$205 cost includes class text

Food is personal. Food is universal. Food is never just about food. Who knows that better than a bunch of hungry writers? For five weeks (one course a week, so to speak), we’ll use what we grow, cook, and eat to find new routes into an everlasting meal of poems and non-fiction pieces. We’ll find the sweet spot where public and private lives collide in the kitchen, explore the synesthetic impatience of wanting to eat a tulip or lick a Rothko, and discover the secret to packing a fat little blackberry so full of metaphor it can carry the weight of an entire being. Expect to read a little, write a lot, and leave this class hungry for more. Class price also includes the class text, Hungry Ear, which will be distributed on the first day of class.

Fearless Pages

Instructor: Evan J. Peterson in Greenwood ← New Instructor!

Tuesdays 7-9 pm

May 14- June 4

4 weeks–$150

In this generative workshop, open to writers of prose, poetry and hybrid genres, we create the space where you can write the things you haven’t allowed yourself to write before. Too personal? Too bizarre? Downright nasty? Bring it on. We will begin the process of breaking down our blocks and filters by encountering writing that blasts the image onto the page and challenges convention.

One Day Classes

Writing Fiction like a Mystic

One Day Class: $50

Saturday April 6

1-4 pm

Instructor: Corinne Manning in Capitol Hill

Fiction writers make up stories right? Yet somehow, we find our own story in them, somehow, these stories reveal truth. Alice Walker referred to herself as a Medium at the end of her novel the Color Purple. Many fiction writers either share this sentiment or have less esoteric terms for the same sensation—of embodying and telling the lives and stories of people that may or may not exist. In this one-day workshop we will play with different writing exercises to tap into the source of where these stories come from and bring voices to life.

Improvised Writing

One Day Class: $50

Saturday April 13

1-4 pm

Instructor: Kathleen Nacozy in the Central District ← New Instructor!

In this workshop we will use improvisation techniques to rouse our innate writing voices. Captivating words seem spontaneous yet purposeful, whether the words are improvised or painstakingly construced. As writers, we tend to over-edit and squelch our process. Even a short practice of improvisation can help writers renew focus. It’s also incredible fun. This workshop is designed for writers of written and spoken word.

 Full or Postponed

Tell it True: A nonfiction workshop  Class Full

March 18- April 22

Mondays 7-9 pm

6 weeks—$215

Instructor: Corinne Manning in Capitol Hill

What does it mean to consider an issue or tell stories that are authentic to our own voices? In this workshop we will explore the best way to tell truth within the form of the essay. We will look at personal, braided and lyric essays side by side, sometimes blending genres in order to give our essays the power to fully come into being. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop two essays of any form of their choosing.


Eco-Poetics: Poems to Save the World Class postponed to Summer

Instructor: Janie Miller in Capitol Hill

Tuesdays 7-9 pm

March 26-April 30

6 weeks—$215

I’m interested in the dash between eco and poetics, resting like a magnet between the study of ecology and the concerns of poetry. There’s room for magic in that dash, a space for poetry to give voice to all that is alive and mysterious in the nonhuman world. This is a critical time for the planet, and in this 6-week class we will study Eco-Poetics through conscientious reading and explorative writing. We will become witnesses to the ever-evolving land and its creatures. We will concentrate on poetic techniques to help release the magic in your lines. Several classes will be taught “plein air” style, taking our writing to several sacred areas of Seattle, other classes will meet traditionally. Classes begin just after Spring Equinox, Tuesdays from 7pm-9pm, March 26 – April 30.

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Classes in January and February

Winter classes are now full but there will be more classes starting in March. If you have questions about The Living Room Workshops email me  at corinne.manning@gmail.com. If you’re jonesin’ for some winter writing consider a Writing Mentorship or check out Hugo House’s rad workshop schedule.

Writing Trauma: Narratives of Healing (Class Full)
January 23- February 20

Wednesdays, 7-9 pm

5 weeks –$180

Maybe you went on a road trip and figured it all out, or had a psychic tell you to take care of your feet, or survived, or learned to use your loss in a new way. In this safe space we will use methods that explore the outlying regions of our memories. Through numerous exercises we will learn to stay present with a significantly difficult memory and allow it to transform from experience to narrative. We will also look at selections from narratives of healing: “Waking” by Matthew Sanford, “Heaven’s Coast” by Mark Doty, work by Margueritte Duras, Alice Walker and selections from “Maus” by Art Spiegleman. Our support text will be the invaluable  Trauma and Recovery. Through this process we can begin to gain power over the event and shape it into a structure that heals readers just as purely as it healed the writer.

Nonfiction Workshop (Class Full)
January 7th, 2013- February 11

Monday, 7-9pm

6 weeks–$215

In this workshop we will explore the essay and its various forms. Students will workshop two different essays, one at the beginning and one at the end, and in between we will explore different forms of the essay: the personal essay, the braided essay, and the lyric essay. In spirit with the French root of the form—essayer—we will view our work as attempts and work together to discover all of the opportunities present to more fully reveal our work.

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