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Date: Saturday, July 11 Time: 10am-3pm (with one-hour lunch break) (Pacific Coast Time) Format: Zoom Ages: Adult Class Description: Writing creative nonfiction almost always requires taking risks – whether formal, so that your life story can stand out in a crowded literary landscape, or emotional, as you work in a genre requiring high levels of vulnerability and disclosure. In this workshop, we will explore the resources at our disposal to help us take both these sorts of risks, on and off the page. The aim is for students to leave feeling empowered to move away from only predictability and perfection, so as to write stories that feel real, charged, and alive. In the first half of the workshop, we will look at examples of recently published books that enact varying degrees of experimentation or risk – to take in the broad “lay of the land,” and better understand the current state of writing/publishing in this genre. This seminar will be interspersed with generative writing exercises for students to try their hand at formal play. In the second session, I will speak about the “behind the scenes” journey of writing my memoir, THE STORY GAME, and share resources I used to manage the risks beyond the page. There will then be an “Ask Me Anything”-style session, followed by a guided exercise to help students think through some of the mental or emotional blocks they might personally be facing in their publishing journeys. Finally, I will share about my time as a nonfiction editor at the literary magazines GUERNICA and ADI, to provide some industry perspective. LEFT MARGIN LIT'S CANCELLATION/REFUND POLICY: If you find that you can't take a class for which you registered, you may request a refund, less a $25 administrative fee, at least 48 hours prior to the start of the first class session. After that threshold, refunds are not possible. If a class doesn't reach its minimum enrollment, it will be cancelled, and all students will receive full refunds.