It can be hard to quantify the magic of Craft Studio. How’s this?

1) Start with an intimate cohort of writers, most of them working on books or short-form, many of them publishing, some of them newer to the practice.

2) Build on a shared love of reading, of words, sentences, images, worlds, stories, and characters.

3) Co-create the deepest, most resonant lessons in craft as you generate your best work on the page in response to prompts drawn from a wide-range of mostly-contemporary fiction and narrative nonfiction.

4) Power your own writing projects forward in class while leveling up your prose from the strength of your technique to the insistency, humor, and honesty of the truths you pull from the page.

5) Find community.

6) Find your voice.

7) Finish your work.

Tuesday In-Person Berkeley 6 - 8 PM PT

FALL DATES: Sept. 1 - Dec. 8

Classes meet with Elizabeth every other week for ten pivotal lessons designed with your project’s needs in mind. On the weeks Elizabeth doesn’t join, optional self-directed meetings run using curriculum that builds on the previous lesson, provided by Elizabeth.

BONUSES:

Craft Studio is more than an individual class. It's a community of amazing, generous writers. Writers who read, who love story, who love each other's story. Craft Studio is powered by the inspiration that got us all into this crazy, magical business in the first place: reading. Storytelling. The words on the page and the ways they take off in our imaginations, resonate in our own life experiences, and shape who we can become. We are building something together. That's why we call ourselves Story Makers.

This year, we are embracing a wrap-around program that will keep all of us thriving, writing, moving forward in our stories and in our writing lives.

Some of this is already in place and some of it is new. Here is what it looks like:

Your Lessons Based on Your Writing: Each member of Craft Studio shapes the focus of the lessons, making requests and offering insights based on your own work, your struggles and triumphs. This keeps the material fresh and relevant to creating great books, essays, and short stories, work produced at the top of our game.
The Craft Studio Lessons Video Podcast: In addition to the ten primary lessons, which are available as recordings, Elizabeth makes follow-up lessons for the alternate weeks. New this year, whether or not you are able to join the group live those weeks, each member of Craft Studio will have access to a video recording of Elizabeth presenting the alt weekly curriculum. The recording will walks you through the examples and insights and sets you up to write then and there!
But there is more: we will host two key quarterly sessions:
- The first quarterly session will guide you through a goal-setting session that is authentic to how you get work done (not how you wish you got work done!), and that sets you up to succeed--and to use the Craft Studio sessions and the recorded alt weekly curriculum to meet your goals and finish your projects. That session will also include strategies for organizing the writings you generate in and out of class, and for finding ways to connect what you produce in those powerful writing sprints to your larger goals, creating scenes and key moments that can go right into your books and stories.
- The second key quarterly session will involve everyone who would like to do so presenting the logline for any ongoing project (with coaching from Angie!). This will help all of us practice talking about our work in a succinct, clear way, and will also allow everyone in the community a sense of what everyone is working on. We are, truly, each other's readers and first fans, and that is no small thing.
In addition, every member of Craft Studio will be able to take, for FREE, one 4-Hour course of your choosing for each term you enroll (worth $195) or get the equivalent discount off of a 3- or 7-class plan. Choose the 4-hour Story or Essay or Excerpt or Opening Chapter, the 4-hour Stand-up Comedy Routine or Story Development or Book club or Film Club!
Five minutes before every Craft Studio, we kick off with 5-minute Book Group, where people share what they are reading or about to read--what they are loving or getting ready to throw across the room.
Your Juicy SMA Book Group Reading List: Finally, there will be a list of contemporary books that are prize-winning or best-selling or in the zeitgeist that will be drawn on during the year. We will have a book-club session on the site where we can discuss our reactions to these and other books.

Comments from Craft Studio Students:

"You are a brilliant teacher, bordering on a certain special kind of genius, where you can take a raw clay of a thinker like me and help make me into a writer and finish one book and also three more, hopefully."

"I would often come to class feeling like I wasn't in the mood, or unsure if I would be able to think of anything to write, but it was always so great! I'm still not sure I understand how or why, but I would always come away feeling reinvigorated in my writing."

"Elizabeth - you are a gifted instructor. Your classes are magic for me!"

"I benefited from each lesson. I learned, or was reminded of, a different aspect of craft each time. I also wrote each time, which was helpful, especially between projects. The positive feedback was extremely gratifying in times when I was doubting my writing abilities. It was a really supportive, talented group. I loved the "rules": no apologies, just write, and give specific honest praise. I also loved Elizabeth's insightful feedback on each piece of writing."

"I love your classes, Elizabeth. They are such a gift. Thank you."

Investment:

$1495/ term: If you are paying in one payment, please consider a check. Contact support@bookwritingworld.com for instructions.

Payment plans: Deposit of $375 followed, monthly by 4 automated payments of $299

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