I TEACh creative WRITING workshops of all shapes and sizes. I also offer ONE-ON-ONE TUTORING AND PRIVATE WRITING COACHING.
GROUP WORKSHOPS
Want to hire me to teach a creative writing, journaling, or communication workshop for your group or business? I offer themed creative writing classes, business communication workshops, brainstorming and journaling courses, and writing lectures for groups of all sizes both online and in-person. I can help enhance your corporate communication style in everything from inter-office emails to public marketing text. Let me teach members of your group to communicate more creatively and more effectively. Fill out the form at the bottom of this page with the details of your event, and I’ll get back to you with pricing and more information.
private writing coaching
Looking for a private tutor or writing coach to help you organize your novel, streamline your essay, or polish your writing style? I offer private writing tutoring and coaching through one-on-one Zoom lessons catered to your specific writing goals. Contact me via the form below to discuss how coaching can help you express yourself clearly and tell a more compelling story.
WHAT IS A WRITING COACH?
Working with a writing coach provides practical insight into the process of writing by breaking down your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Through weekly video chat lessons, we will discuss your writing goals, the organization of thoughts on a page, and the stylistic elements of writing in a safe, non-judgmental, one-on-one learning environment. Each writing session is designed around your goals, and can include private editing sessions, selected example texts, and specific writing exercises designed to improve the quality of your communication. From planning and outlining an idea to refining and polishing your use of language and punctuation, coaching sessions are custom-made writing classes that meet you where you are.
Trying to finish a novel? I can help you organize your thoughts, manage your time, and create a compelling, cohesive storyline.
Hoping to improve your communication in business correspondence? I can help you understand the nuances of tone and diction, making your writing more compelling, appropriate, and persuasive.
Trying to craft a poetry portfolio for MFA applications? I can show you where your writing succeeds, how to use form to enhance meaning, how to avoid common poetic clichés, and what elements of a poem produce the most striking effects on a reader.
Hoping to craft the perfect essay to win a scholarship or grant? I can teach you the various technical aspects of writing that contribute to the success of a text, and how to hone your rhetorical skills in order to say what you mean to say.
Want to be a better writer in a wide range of contexts? I would love to help you understand what makes writing “good” and help you create more effective, compelling, and appropriate text for any occasion.
Private writing sessions start at $90/hour.
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
I’ve always thrived on the exchange of information that takes place in writing classes, from private tutoring to teaching Professional Writing for Engineers at the University of Florida to teaching Creative Journaling through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The art of listening, the skill of organizing information to meet a particular need, and the thrill of constant exposure to new ideas have been the major forces driving me for as long as I can remember.
Over the course of my experiences teaching, counseling, and working in other leadership roles with both children and adults, I’ve learned the importance of clarity paired with kindness. My instinct for openness, the direct handling of issues, and promoting honest, straightforward discussion of boundaries leads to a calm, comfortable, and safe classroom atmosphere.
I have learned that a group’s sanity and success often depend on the communication style among group members. I require honesty as well as respect between individuals because of (not in spite of) any differences of opinion or background. I make this immediately clear in any class I teach, but it’s especially important to consider in a creative writing workshop, where students share intimate, creative work. That sharing makes people feel vulnerable, and vulnerability is strength. By respecting someone’s unique perspective AND feeling comfortable enough to share clear, honest feedback on their expression of it, we can honor that strength.
I became a poet, in part, because of my high school calculus teacher, whose passion for math burned so brightly it often extended into elaborate, slightly off-topic classroom discussions about the histories and love lives of ancient mathematicians. She knew and loved each formula so deeply she felt compelled to share the whole history of detailed events that led to the development of that particular equation. I remember drafting a poem about Galois’ duel in the margins of my calculus notes, tearing up along with the teacher as she recounted the saga of Andrew Wiles and his lifelong dream of solving Fermat’s last theorem. I have modeled my sense of what it means to be a good teacher after her example: that blend of boundless curiosity and genuine joy that can leap from teacher to student. No matter the subject at hand, a good teacher is part story-teller, part problem-solver, part architect, part translator, and above all a vivid example of what love looks like.
past classes, lectures, & Workshops
Innovating and Problem-Solving through Writing
Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, Nashville, Tennessee | November 2020
As an entrepreneur or executive, your job involves identifying needs in your environment, accessing available resources, and using those resources to create viable new products and services. This isn’t easy. There's a long history of entrepreneurs using the process of writing to work out the logistics of their business dreams. Regular writing practice can refresh your awareness of the world around you, enhance your ability to focus on relevant detail, and increase your ability to connect disparate ideas. It can also help you form more effective, long-lasting work relationships by refining your ability to express your needs and goals. This workshop will walk you step-by-step through a series of short writing exercises designed to help you become more aware of the raw material at your disposal and more effective at realizing your vision.
MODERN SONNETS: The evolution and formal rules of the sonnet
The Porch (Online), Nashville, Tennessee | September 2020
Ever wonder why a poetry form developed in the 13th century remains popular in 2020? Sonnets, or “little songs,” were born out of a desire to wrestle with opposing viewpoints and conflicting feelings. It’s hard to hold contradicting ideas in our heads. It’s stressful to absorb the chaos of the world without an outlet. Writing is one way of processing the many contradictions and confusions that make up human experience. And the sonnet is one of the oldest, most effective forms of exploring amorphous, entwined concepts like life and death, sickness and health, love and marriage, time and energy, light and darkness. Whether you’re an experienced poet or totally new to poetry, the sonnet can be a useful vehicle to process the world-- especially when we’re spending so much time alone in quarantine. This one-week, generative writing class will explore both ancient and modern sonnets, providing lessons, exercises, and writing assignments focused on the useful, forever-popular 14-line form.
SONGWRITING: Basic Lyric Writing for High School Students
The Porch (Online), Nashville Tennessee | September 2020
A self-guided online workshop through Prezi, The Porch non-profit literary collective, and its student-focused youth programming wing SLANT. What makes a song stick? Why do some songs feel applicable for centuries, while others feel dates within weeks? What makes a song “good” and how can we write better songs? This online songwriting workshop for high school students can be taken online at your own pace. With guided study of famous songwriters and lyrics broken down into their stylistic language elements, each topic explored focuses on how the writing enhances the song’s meaning and contributes to its popular success. The self-guided slide show includes examples, mini-writing-exercises, lecture and lesson portions, as well as writing assignments to help aspiring songwriters hone their talent for writing meaningful, catchy, vivid song lyrics.
FUNSTUCK: Writing Exercises to Help You Crawl Out of the Rut
The Porch (Online) Nashville, Tennessee | July 2020
Sometimes when writing a longer work of fiction or nonfiction you get to a point where it’s just not fun anymore. You get stuck, and the process of writing loses the thrill of exploration that made it feel worthwhile. Have you gotten to a point where you don’t enjoy the process? Are you avoiding writing because it’s not fun anymore to keep plugging away? It happens. One of the best ways to move forward when you get stuck is to change tactics. Let someone else tell you what to do for a while, try some new approaches, and get back to the kind of writing that feels like discovery. In this class, we’ll explore different ways to get out of that rut. Through a series of daily emailed lessons, step-by-step writing exercises, and fun, fresh creative prompts, we’ll get you back into your work by taking you out of it for a while. Try some new things and see how the experience shifts your perspective and reignites your creativity.
POETRY FOR SONGWRITERS
The Porch, Nashville, Tennessee | August 2020
For seasoned musicians and songwriters as well as aspiring writers and poets in Music City, this 4-week generative writing class explores the art of crafting memorable, compelling, and poetic song lyrics. We’ll explore the work of some of the world’s most impactful lyricists, from Joni Mitchell to Leonard Cohen, Conor Oberst to John Prine, Taylor Swift to Missy Elliot. We’ll consider what makes a song “good” and why specific lyrics “stick” while others don’t. From vowel sounds and rhyme schemes to specific word usage and rhythmic phrasing, we’ll break down popular song lyrics for the musicality of their language. In this course you’ll work through a series of assignments designed to help you create your own song lyrics. Join us to perfect a song you’ve been struggling with, create a new series of lyrical lines for future use, or add language to music you’ve already created.
WRITING FOR NON-WRITERS: Borrowing the Visual
The Porch, Nashville, Tennessee | March 2020
Sometimes an image or visual scene can inspire a thousand words, whether those words are precisely related to that image or not. This 3-hour, generative creative writing workshop explores ways that writers can use visual cues to structure pieces of writing. We’re not talking strictly about ekphrasis, or describing works of art with words. This class is about looking at the visual world for guidance, structure, and inspiration to combat the paralysis of the blank page. We’ll work through a series of creative exercises that use pre-existing, visual relationships and scenes as formulas for organizing our thoughts and ideas on paper. We’ll take inspiration from YouTube videos, art prints and posters, Instagram posts, advertisements, movie scenes, and other visually-oriented materials, and repurpose them as scenes, subjects, proportions, and moods in our own writing.
BORROWING PICTURES: Visual Writing for High School Students
SLANT Nashville, Tennessee | January 2020
Sometimes an image or visual scene can inspire a thousand words, whether those words are precisely related to that image or not. This creative writing workshop explores ways to use visual cues to inspire pieces of writing. We’re not talking strictly about ekphrasis, or describing works of art with words. This class is about looking at images for guidance, structure, and inspiration to write whatever we want. By examining aspects of the visual like composition, color contrast, shape, and texture, we can repurpose what we see into subject, mood, and style in our own writing. We’ll work through a series of creative exercises that use visual elements found in YouTube videos, movie scenes, advertisements, instagram posts, paintings, memes, and other visual art as formulas for organizing our own thoughts and ideas on paper.
STUDIES IN CHARACTER: Craft Workshop
The Porch, Nashville, Tennessee | October 2019
Good characters stick with us. The craft of depicting characters is often the most important (and sometimes the most difficult) part of narrative storytelling. A 3-hour intensive workshop designed to hone your ability to create compelling, realistic, dynamic, and complex characters. What makes a character believable? What makes a character human? Why do some characters feel more real than others? What elements of fiction writing can be used to create depth in a character? How do I develop characters with more depth? We will work through a series of special writing exercises designed to explore the various elements that make up a character. We’ll practice writing and brainstorming tactics that will help you consider your characters more fully, adding dimension to your stories. This one-day fiction-focused workshop blends group discussion, selected example texts, lecture, and games— all focused on important aspects of creating a fictional character.
INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING: Poetry, Fiction, and Non-Fiction
The Porch, Nashville, Tennessee | September 2019
This 6-week course is open to beginners and long-time writers alike. In 2-week sections, we'll look at the process of writing fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction through a series of reading assignments, group discussion, and creative writing prompts. Part interactive lecture, part creative writing workshop, this course explores the basics of writing in each of the three main genres. We'll examine inspiring examples of great writing, talk about what makes a particular poem/story/nonfiction essay good, break down the mechanics of putting together a work of creative writing in each genre, and discuss trends in popular writing. We'll also produce work in each genre through themed writing assignments, and provide feedback for each other's work in small groups. Whether you're a seasoned poet curious about the art of the nonfiction essay or an accountant looking for a creative outlet, this class allows you to dip a toe in each genre and see what happens! All are welcome.
CREATIVE OBSERVATIONS: Journaling
Great Smoky Mountains Association Members Weekend | September 2019
Learn creative ways to record and repurpose the details of your life! Through a series of examples, videos, in-class writing activities, and lecture portions inspired by everything from recent neuroscience research to Monet’s creative habits, you’ll learn tactics to refresh your awareness of the world around you. This 3-hour, workshop-style class explores unique methods for creative journaling, a practice that helps you stay present in your daily life while gathering detailed, raw data to make your written and verbal expression more compelling. We’ll cover the basic concepts of creative observation and explore concrete journaling methods used by writers and artists to refresh their focus, maintain attention to detail, and see the world in new ways.
THE BREAKTHROUGH SOLUTIONS JOURNAL WORKSHOP
Charlotte, North Carolina | June 2019
A day-long, creative-focused workshop for those looking to increase awareness, improve clarity of communication, expand empathy, and approach problems in fresh ways. What do you get when you blend a poet, a singer/songwriter, a professor, an international leadership consultant, a peak performance coach for world-class athletes, and a playwright? A very interesting day of learning that leads to breakthrough solutions. Learn to approach problems in the workplace using lateral thinking, a generative approach to solution design that involves expanding possibilities instead of reducing the possible to one “right” answer. This One-Day workshop explores a series of techniques for creative observation used by writers, visual artists, successful entrepreneurs and world-class athletes to refresh their focus, maintain their attention to detail, and see the world in creative ways. Workshop conducted by Elise Anderson and Carlos Salum.
CREATIVE JOURNALING: Seeing the World through Fresh Eyes
The Porch, Nashville, Tennessee | July 2019
Learn creative ways to record and re-use the details of your life! This 3-hour generative class covers the basics of creative observation by teaching you concrete methods used by writers and artists to refresh their focus, maintain their attention to detail, and see the world in new ways. The practice of creative journaling allows you to gather detailed, raw data from daily life that makes your written and verbal expression more compelling. Refresh your awareness of the world around you through a series of creative journaling exercises that you can repeat on your own at home. The class includes examples, videos, in-class writing activities, discussion, and lecture portions inspired by everything from recent neuroscience research to Monet's creative practice. Workshop will take place from 2-5pm at The Porch headquarters in Berry Hill.
THE WRITE EXPERIENCE: Creative Ways to Record Your Days
Great Smoky Mountains Association Oconaluftee Visitor’s Center, North Carolina | April 2019
Refresh your awareness of the natural world and the infinite, beautiful details of everyday life through a series of exercises designed to draw your attention to new aspects of your environment. Learn tactics for observing in new ways, featuring lessons inspired by poets, artists, writers, and explorers. Learn how to incorporate your notes and repurpose your memories into more compelling creative writing and everyday expression. In this class, we’ll explore six new methods for creative journaling, a practice that keeps you present in daily life and helps you gather detailed, raw data to reuse later.
OTHER past CLASSES
ENC3246: Technical Writing for Engineers at the University of Florida
ENC3254: Business and Professional Writing at the University of Florida
ENC1101: Writing Academic Arguments via “Food and Culture” at the University of Florida
Introduction to Creative Writing: Beginner Poetry Workshop at the University of Florida
Creative Writing: Advanced Poetry Workshop at the University of Florida
Reading an Image: Panel Lecture presented at the 2015 Pedagogy Conference at the University of Florida
French 101 Evening Language sessions at Davidson College
French 102 Evening Language sessions at Davidson College
Want to hire me to lead a group writing workshop or corporate journaling and communication class? Want to learn more about my one-on-one writing coaching?