with Penny Guisinger

Date TBA

Price: $180*

*Our Access Fund provides self selected Sliding Scale Pricing to residents of Passamaquoddy Territory, Charlotte & Washington Counties.

In the writing process, revision is where the magic happens. First drafts are a lot of work, and are often (appropriately) messy. It’s through the revision process that any piece takes shape, gains focus, and emerges as a finished work. In this two-session workshop, author Penny Guisinger will provide tools and approaches to revising prose (fiction or  nonfiction). We’ll talk about bringing a cold eye to the page, looking for unnecessary words, and mining an early draft for those gems that emerge as the heart of a finished piece. In an open process of sharing and feedback, participants will shape drafts into more polished manuscripts. 

The first session will be spent on the fundamentals of revision, including personal examples provided by the instructor. Participants will engage in some in-class writing, and we’ll share and gently critique those drafts with an eye toward how they could be revised. In the second session, participants will share their revisions and talk about what worked and what didn’t. Everyone will leave the class with a second draft, and a sense of direction about where to go with the next revision.

Penny Guisinger is the author of Postcards from Here, which is a memoir collection of micro-essays, a former Assistant Editor at Brevity Magazine, and the founding director of Iota: Short Prose Conference.  Her work has been published in River Teeth, Fourth Genre, The Rumpus, and other places. She lives near Lubec, ME.

Iota celebrates the small, the brief, the miniature. Through online learning opportunities lasting from two hours to six months, writers learn skills, get feedback, and develop an understanding of how to say more with less. Alongside offerings focusing on the specifics of short forms, Iota offers opportunities to learn writerly basics such as revision, grants, artists statements, and more.