Saturday, June 23- Sunday, June 24, 10:00am-5:00pm (one hour lunch break)

Cost: $380         Location: SURF Incubator, 999 3rd Ave. Suite 700, Seattle, WA 98104

How do we best tell our stories of illness? In this private 12-hour class in downtown Seattle, writers will consider how different revision strategies can showcase, enrich, or tighten the stories they have to tell. We'll look at different versions of the same essay as published in different publications, noticing the changes--tiny and significant--that shift focus and tone. Participants will submit an essay of up to 12 pages (double-spaced) for workshop by June 9, each reading their peers' work ahead of time and benefiting from a respectfully-facilitated conversation about their own. We'll also play with this draft (or another) in ways that help crack open different possibilities, enjoying clarified visions even if the attempts don't make it into a final draft. 

Writers should read Lauren Slater's Prozac Diary in advance of our meeting, a text that will help us talk about structure, multiple identities, syntax, and time management, while offering us electric writing prompts. 

For workshop, Kati will prepare a comprehensive letter for each writer discussing their essay. The letter will identify the key craft choices at work and suggest whether or not they are operating in the way the writer intends. The letter will also offer questions to move the essay forward, ways of enlarging or sharpening the topic at hand, and potential homes for it in the publishing world.