writing Spring 2019 classes - Hugo House · plore, and discuss how he has written more than twenty books in forty years—all while being constitutionally incapable of writing or

Spring 2019

writing classes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Craft Intensives ... 2

Visiting Writers ... 3

Fiction ... 6

Nonfiction ... 9

Multigenre ... 13

Poetry ... 17

The Writing Life ... 19

Resources ... 21

About Our Teachers ... 22

About Our Classes ... 25

REGISTRATIONRegister in person, by phone, or online at hugohouse.org.

All registration opens at 10:30 am$500+ donor registration: March 4Member registration: March 5General registration: March 12

Register early to save with early bird pricing, in effect March 4 through March 18.

BECOME A MEMBERAs a member, you help us provide thought-provoking classes and events that connect writers and readers to the craft of writing. You’ll also receive great benefits, including early registration and discounts on classes and events.

CATALOG KEY

Online class

Need a coffee fix before class? All Hugo House students receive a 10-percent discount from our generous friends at Cafe Argento.

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[email protected] 206-322-7030

If you’re looking for genre-specific classes, look under Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry. You can also look under Multigenre and in the Visiting Writers section, as many of these classes are useful for writers in any genre. For classes on submitting, publishing, and the business of being a writer, look under The Writing Life.

TIERED CLASSESOur tiered workshops are designed to equip you with tools and skills for your level of experience. You may self-select into classes based on where you feel comfortable. You can take classes at a given level as many times as you would like.

CLASS LEVELSMost classes at Hugo House are intended for writers at any level of experience. If a class is intended for a specific level, it will be noted in the description.

INTRODUCTORY | Writers with limited experience in a writing class or workshop setting who want to expand their knowledge should consider introductory classes. These classes are also designed for writers who want to explore a new genre.

INTERMEDIATE | Writers with some experience in genre-specific instruction looking to deepen their understanding should consider intermediate classes. These classes often feature a workshop component in which student work is shared and critiqued.

ADVANCED | Writers with significant experience in a writing class or workshop setting who seek assistance and feedback with revision should consider advanced classes.

ALL LEVELS | Classes open to all levels are useful for writers at any level regardless of prior writing class experience.

HUGO HOUSE & YOU

Hugo House opens the literary world to everyone who loves books or has a drive to write. This is a place for people to read words, hear words, and make their own words better.

Writing is a challenge—it takes humility, it takes honesty, it takes the ability to discover and reveal common humanity. For anyone who takes on the challenge, Hugo House is that writer’s greatest ally.

We offer readings, classes, book launches, workshops, teen programs, consultations with professional writers, and much more. Our namesake, Richard Hugo, was raised by severe, taciturn grandparents but overcame his impover-ished childhood to become a nationally renowned poet. As Hugo wrote, “Writing is a way of saying that you and the world have a chance.”

NAVIGATING THE CATALOG

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CRAfT InTEnSIVE: EVERyThIng I know So fAR

In this series, New York Times bestselling author David Shields will explain, ex-plore, and discuss how he has written more than twenty books in forty years—all while being constitutionally incapable of writing or reading a linear narrative. In each session, David will examine a “work-around”: Brevity, Journal, Collage, Re-mix, Photo/Film, Collaboration. Students will have ample time to ask questions. To explore the topics further, you can also take The Workshop with David.

EVERyThIng I know So fAR: ThE woRkShop You can take this class separately or in tandem with David Shields’s Craft Intensive lecture series. In this workshop, you will try—and get feedback on—the gestures that David discusses in his lectures: Brevity, Journal, Collage, Remix, Photo/Film, Collaboration. This class is open to 20 students.

Craft intensives provide an opportunity to absorb insights into the process and practice of accomplished writers who have a particular approach to writing, or who are investigating specific elements of the writer’s toolbox. These sessions include a mix of craft talk and discussion, offering participants a learning experience that differs from our traditional writing workshop model, which focuses primarily on student work.

The craft intensive model enables more participants to engage with the ideas and philosophy of the featured writer. The tone is conversational and informal. While most Hugo House classes are fairly small (typically limited to 15 people), our craft intensives are open to up to 40 participants, allowing for lively discussion, questions, conversation, and/or smaller breakout groups.

david shields is the internationally bestselling author of twenty-two books, including Reality Hunger (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Other People: Takes & Mistakes (NYTBR Editors’ Choice). The film adaptation of I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel was released by First Pond Entertainment in 2017. Lynch: A History, Shields’s documentary about Marshawn Lynch’s use of silence as a tool of resistance, is being released this year. Nobody Hates Trump More Than Trump: An Intervention was published in 2018; The Trou-ble With Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power is forthcoming in March 2019. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a senior contributing editor of Conjunctions, Shields has published fiction and nonfiction in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, A Public Space, Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeney’s, Believer, and Best American Essays. His work has been translated into two dozen languages.

CRAFT INTENSIVES

david shields

Six sessions Tuesdays, April 30–June 11

[No class May 28] 6–8 pm

General: $550 | Member: $495

david shields

Six sessionsSundays, May 5–June 16



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VISITING WRITERS

One session | Thursday, April 4 | 1–4 pmGeneral: $89 | Member: $80.10

whAT now?

You wrote something. So now what? The most indispensable tool in writing is editing. Every draft is an opportunity to reimagine, experiment, and learn. In this workshop, we will closely read and consider our works-in-progress. There will be no prescriptions or quick fixes. As a group, we’ll examine the engines and heartbeats of each piece, and discuss strategies for discovering its “best self.” Students will learn to develop their “editor’s brain” and find new ways to challenge themselves. This class is for poetry & short prose (flash fiction or micro essays, 800 words max).

fInDIng youR ThEmES This workshop will allow writers of all levels to explore their personal themes so that they can start, revise, and finish their story drafts. Please bring writing paper and a pen. (This course does not include a lunch break.)

obSESSIon IS youR muSE: Don’T fIghT IT, wRITE IT!

Most good writing—whether fiction or nonfiction—arises from a writer’s obses-sions. In this intensive session, we’ll discuss how to explore our obsessions on the page, without falling prey to self-absorption or sentiment. We’ll start by looking at the work of folks such as Joan Didion, George Saunders, and others, and then generate some work in class by confessing to our own obsessions. Check your in-hibitions at the door.

FiCTiON

One session | Friday, May 3 | 10 am–2 pmGeneral: $450 | Member: $405

MUlTiGeNRe

moRgAn pARkER

mIn jIn LEE

STEVE ALmonD

One session | Monday, May 20 | 6–9 pmGeneral: $110 | Member: $99

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how To mAkE youR ChARACTERS SnAp, CRACkLE, AnD pop

Ever read (or write) a story where the hero or heroine just doesn’t seem to pop? I have. Like a thousand times. This intensive (but fun-filled!) seminar will investi-gate why some characters leap off the page, while others just sit there. We’ll look at the work of Joyce Carol Oates, Sylvia Plath, Jane Austen, and others in an effort to examine all the untapped ways that authors can create layered, multi-dimensional characters. And we’ll work on an in-class exercise to bring the lesson home.

my houSE buT noT my houSE: SuRREALIST poETRy & ThE ImAgInATIon What we love most about our dreams is also what can make them frightening: they’re of our making, but out of our control. Surrealism aims to access the parts of us that build the imaginative landscapes we visit in our dreams, and turn those parts loose on our waking lives, and our writing. In this course, we’ll explore the many functions of the mind’s eye—the imagination—in poetry. The Surrealists played rigorous games to generate their work—so we will, too.

RE-CognITIon AnD RE-VISIon: puShIng ThE bounDARIES of youR poEmS Writers often draw a hard line between writing and revising. While the first is an act of joyful inspiration, the second is generally viewed as drudging perspiration. In this class, you’ll learn to infuse revision with the creative energy of your early drafts by focusing the revision process on specific elements of poetry such as tone, metaphor, imagery, form, and sound. This straightforward, pragmatic workshop will be most helpful to writers currently working on drafts of existing poems.

wRITIng hybRID foRmS

The nontraditional texts of writers Claudia Rankine and Maggie Nelson brought new readers to poetry. But are these works poetry? How do we define genre, showcase our critical observations, champion our individual lyric? In this class, we will blur the lines between genres, commandeering creative license in order to deconstruct form—examining the texts of Nelson, Rankine, and contemporary writers from the Pacific Northwest—through a mixture of critical reading and independent writing.

haikU iNTeNsive Often misrepresented or only partially understood, the heart of haiku contains many lessons for poets in its compacted form: image, metaphor, enjambment, at-tention, word choice, and silence. We will survey the history and core principles while reading ancient and contemporary examples. Multiple haiku will be written and workshopped throughout the class. By the end you will be equipped to incor-porate the powerful discipline of haiku into your life, using it to hone your poetic practice and increase your daily awareness.

FiC

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jaNaka sTUCkY

One sessionTuesday, April 23

1–4 pmGeneral: $89 | Member: $80.10

sTeve alMONd

One sessionTuesday, May 21

1–4 pmGeneral: $110 | Member: $99

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laURa eve eNGel

One sessionWednesday, April 3


jessiCa jaCObs & NiCkOle bROwN

One sessionSaturday, April 6


shaYla lawsON

One sessionSaturday, April 20

10 am–1 pmGeneral: $89 | Member: $80.10

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bREAkIng ThE LInE

This class will experiment with the assumption that poems are defined by the unit of the line (even when they are written in prose). By this logic, in order to get close to poems, we must familiarize ourselves with lines—how they work, how they break, how they reveal aspects of sentences that might otherwise be obscured. We will read poems (old and new) for their uses of the line, and practice writing and breaking lines through generative exercises.

puTTIng ThE STRAngE In youR SToRy

A man made famous for playing a vampire on TV is haunted by a real ghost; some-thing is wrong at a contemporary boarding school that feels like it’s stuck in the Victorian era; a giant man swims upstream in an ice-cold river. The unusual is thriving in contemporary storytelling. Is art imitating our strange times? We will look at work from writers such as Kelly Link, Helen Oyeyemi, and Yoko Ogawa, and consider how the strange can get us closer to the truth. Expect to begin a new story.

poEmS fRom poEmS In this intensely generative workshop we’ll deep-dive into our obsessive subjects, taking risks and experimenting to find the most vibrant and innovative language possible for our own work. Using a current poem-in-progress as a starting point, we’ll work (and play) to expand our ideas of what might be possible in poems. Where does the language come alive? How can we generate fresh heat and intensi-ty to animate our work? How might one poem seed an entire series or sequence of poems constellating around a single (central) subject? Please bring a recent poem or two that feel promising but unfinished and come ready to expand and explore.

DESIgn CRITICISm AS InSIghT AnD poTEnTIAL All Levels | This workshop will seek a new approach to design criticism—one with less judgment and more insight. Writers will learn to develop narratives that open up alternative ways of understanding and relating to the designed world, from buildings to works of industrial art. No prior design or architecture experience required. Come with an interest in understanding and writing about the designed world around you. This class has a lunch break.

ARCADE produces a publication and programs inspired by the myriad forces and disciplines that shape design. ARCADE’s mission is to reinforce the principle that thoughtful design at every scale of human endeavor improves our quality of life.

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jessiCa laseR & ROb sChleGel

One sessionSaturday, May 18


laURa sCOTT

One sessionSunday, May 19


debORah laNdaU

One sessionThursday, May 23


aYad RahMaNi

Two sessionsSaturday–Sunday, June 1–2

10 am–2:30 pmGeneral: $235 | Member: $211.50

*This class is presented in partnership with ARCADE.

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FICTION

fICTIon I Whether you’re looking to write stories or a novel, this course will introduce three key elements of fiction: character, plot, and landscape. Alongside published exam-ples and writing prompts in and out of class, you will write a short story and learn the basics of the workshop model.

fICTIon III

This class will build upon craft learned in Fiction I and II. Students can expect advanced readings, regular workshops, and feedback from their classmates and instructor. We’ll look at each other’s drafts with an eye to properly balance the elements of story, such as plot, character, voice, and pacing, into a well-structured, thematically resonant whole that keeps the reader turning the pages. As time al-lows, we’ll also examine published work that inspires and instructs.

fICTIon III onLInE

This class will build upon craft learned in Fiction I and II. Students can expect advanced readings, regular workshops, and feedback from their

classmates and instructor. This course takes place online through our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

hERE & ThERE, ThEn & now: TImE TRAVEL & ALTERnATE REALITIES All Levels | From the known to the speculative, from the sublime to the outland-ish, we will investigate the mechanics of great sci-fi and fantasy writing. Along the way we will discuss work from Octavia E. Butler, Mark Twain, Vandana Singh, and other examples of time travel and the shaping of alternate realities from The Time Traveler’s Almanac. Expect to generate new work and receive feedback on one story or chapter.

Feel confident in progressing through your writing in one of our tiered classes. Each course is designed to equip you with the appropriate tools, skills, and an understanding of the diverse voices at work in each genre. You may self-select into classes based on where you feel comfortable, and you are welcome to take classes as many times as you would like.

TieRed Classes

GeNeRal

FICTION

alex MadisON

Six sessionsMondays, May 6–June 17

[No class May 27]5–7 pm

General: $295 | Member: $265.50

CaRa diaCONOFF

Ten sessionsThursdays, April 18–June 20

5–7 pmGeneral: $460 | Member: $414

PeTeR MOUNTFORd

Ten sessionsThursdays, April 18–June 20

OnlineGeneral: $460 | Member: $414

bj NebleTT

Six sessionsTuesdays, April 16–May 21


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aNCa sziláGYi

Eight sessions Wednesdays, April 24–June 12

OnlineGeneral: $375 | Member: $337.50

wRITIng SoCIETAL ConfLICT

Advanced | In fiction, we have the central conflict and then we have the conflict that the reader brings to your story. A character’s conflict or opposition might drive the story forward, but the conflicts the reader has been socialized into—patriarchal culture, white supremacy, homophobia—can affect how they read or experience it. As writers we can employ these expectations and socializations to reveal how systems of power manipulate characters. We will begin by building simple interpersonal conflicts and then work out toward the situational conflict at hand.

SuSpEnSEfuL wRITIng

Introductory | Why are some books impossible to put down? It’s simple: “When an important outcome is unknown, people can hardly think of anything else.” It’s that yearning to turn the pages in order to find out what happens next. Suspense is what makes great stories so absorbing, and it’s why your favorite show is so ridiculously bingeable. We’ll explore extremely practical methods for writing suspensefully, and we’ll learn how to make scenes that leave the reader burning to turn pages.

mEmoRy & ImAgInATIon

All Levels | “Our memories . . . remain coiled within us, ready to spring and inform our lives with immediacy and our thoughts with urgency,” writes

Rikki Ducornet in The Deep Zoo. In this generative class, we’ll write from prompts based on memory and the senses, attempting to tap into our own “deep zoos”—touchstones of the imagination that we return to with curiosity and fearlessness and which we may transform into fiction. Ducornet, Borges, and Ackerman, among others, will offer insight into the process. The first five weeks will be devoted to dis-cussion and writing short pieces from prompts. In the last three weeks, students will workshop one longer piece. This class takes place online via our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

mAkIng A SCEnE

Introductory / Intermediate | In life, we try to avoid making messes—but stories love disaster. Good writers get characters to “make a scene”—and carry that tension all the way through a story. In this class, we’ll use the format of the “single-scene story” to study the shape and drama of fiction. Reading samples from contemporary authors, you’ll learn how to break apart, study, and write your own effective scenes—whether as stand-alone stories or as part of a longer project.

A TALE of whALE: READIng moby dick

All Levels | E.L. Doctorow once remarked in a lecture for the Library of Congress that American literature begins not with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as Ernest Hemingway claimed, but with Moby Dick. Whether you’ve reeled in Herman Melville’s literary leviathan already or want to test your sea legs reading it for the first time, this six-week passage is for you. We’ll consume the beast in equal parts, one each week, giving ourselves ample time to savor its stylistic ingenuity, psychological depth, and moral vision.

CORiNNe MaNNiNG

Six sessions Wednesdays, April 17–May 22

7:10–9:10 pmGeneral: $295 | Member: $265.50

jOshUa MaRie wilkiNsON

Eight sessionsWednesdays, April 17–June 5


sUsaN MeYeRs

Two sessions Saturday–Sunday, April 27–28


jeFF eNCke

Six sessionsSaturdays, May 4–June 8


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FICTION

woRLDbuILDIng In SpECuLATIVE fICTIon Intermediate / Advanced | Whether you’re writing a cyberpunk masterpiece or an intergalactic space opera, worldbuilding is essential to your project. In this class, we’ll examine the physical, emotional, and sociocultural aspects of worldbuilding and how they affect character and plot. In-class exercises will help students refine the world they’re creating and bring it to life.

ThE SToRy IS SmARTER: fACIng ThE hARD woRk of REVISIon

Intermediate / Advanced | Maybe the hardest thing a writer has to learn is how to get out of the way of a story. In this workshop, we’ll practice a form of laser-focused close reading to reveal subliminal designs and subconscious content, illuminating aspects of revision that often feel most elusive: how to clarify thematic arguments or attend to our characters’ emotional labor. Along the way, we’ll pick up a few pointers in stories by T.C. Boyle, Yiyun Li, Jamel Brinkley, and Deborah Eisenberg.

DEEp REVISIon

Intermediate / Advanced | Have you already completed a rough draft or a substan-tial chunk of a novel? In this class, we’ll begin the deep revision process with an overview, examining themes and exploring structure, then focus on the dynamics of each scene or chapter, the shape of each paragraph and the efficacy of each sen-tence. Along the way, we’ll discuss publication strategies. Students will leave class with a clearly defined strategy for completion.

LAyIng ThE gRounDwoRk foR youR young ADuLT oR mIDDLE-gRADE noVEL

Intermediate / Advanced | Are you a plotter who wants to broaden your toolbox and add character development to your prep? Or a pantser who

wants a stronger foundation to build on? In this class, set yourself up for draft-ing greatness by exploring different pre-writing techniques to develop characters, worlds, and plots. Brainstorm with classmates and instructor as you develop your ideas. Come to class with a project in its early stages or a manuscript that needs a massive overhaul and leave ready to dive into productive drafting. This class takes place online via our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

NOvels

YOUNG adUlT

GeNeRal

RUTh jOFFRe

Six sessionsMondays, May 6–June 17

[No class May 27] 7:10–9:10 pm


eRiC MCMillaN

Six sessions Mondays, May 6–June 17

[No class May 27]7:10–9:10 pm


waveRlY FiTzGeRald

Six sessionsWednesdays, May 1–June 5


jOY MCCUllOUGh

Six sessionsThursdays, May 16–June 20

OnlineGeneral: $295 | Member: $265.50

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NONFIC

TION

CREATIVE nonfICTIon IThis class will help you decide the best way to tell the nonfiction story you want to tell. We will figure out the topic of our pieces, and how to most effectively explore those topics through points of view, scene, reflection, and form. Using generative writing, reading, and an introduction to the workshop model, we will begin to in-vestigate our own personal stories. Students will generate 15–20 pages, which will be shared in workshop and will receive extensive instructor feedback.

CREATIVE nonfICTIon III onLInE This class will build upon craft learned in Creative Nonfiction I & II with a special focus on structure and shifts in time. We will investigate both

traditional and nontraditional formats as well as “true” storytelling. Students will read intensively and can expect weekly prompts, exercises, and workshops with significant instructor feedback. Students will be required to submit one essay to the class for critique. This course takes place online through our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

CREATIVE nonfICTIon III

Together we will explore a range of essay/memoir forms, with an emphasis on the lyrical, fragmented, and braided. We will ask: What topics have you been avoiding, and how can experimentation help you access your most essential material? We will write and share from in-class prompts; discuss craft; workshop drafts; and read Hodson, Williams, Washuta, Vuong, Chee, and more. Ultimately we will push ourselves to look inward and outward; to revise and take risks; and to hold our-selves accountable to our goals.

ThE ART of AuTobIogRAphICAL wRITIng

Introductory / Intermediate | Whether you’re writing a memoir, a long essay, or flash nonfiction, this class is for you. We’ll read and discuss examples of autobi-ographical literature, discuss elements of craft (e.g. tension, chronology, vivid de-scription, point-of-view), and celebrate the artistic possibilities of writing one’s life. Authors will include Jeanette Winterson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jo Ann Beard, and Jesse Stuart. With in-class writing exercises and instructor guidance, you’ll find a structure for your narratives and a conduit for your imagination.


GeNeRal

TieRed Classes

NONFICTION

beTh slaTTeRY

Six sessions Thursdays, April 18–May 23


NiCOle haRdY

Ten sessions Mondays, April 15–June 17


aNNe liU kellOR

Ten sessions Thursdays, April 18–June 20

7:10–9:10 pmGeneral: $460 | Member: $414

jaNée baUGheR

One sessionSunday, April 7


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NONFICTION

DAy job To DREAm job: wRITIng foR A LIVIng

Introductory / Intermediate | Discover how to implement strategies for a nonfic-tion writing career. Using in-class exercises and assignments, we’ll study markets, come up with ideas, learn how to interview, write to specifications, and generate lots of business. Assignments will be tailored according to previous experience and personal interest, and will include essays, op-eds, copy and ghostwriting, shorts/FOBs, and articles.

ShApEShIfTIng: wRITIng & READIng AbouT mIxED RACE ExpERIEnCES All Levels | As mixed-race people, it is often hard to know where we belong. In conversations around race, our perspectives often get overlooked or we may feel pressure to “pick a side.” This class will hold space for multiracial people to write and share freely about our experiences and evolving identities. We will read work by writers such as Robin DiAngelo, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Jesmyn Ward, Elissa Washuta, Roxane Gay, Claudia Rankine, Lacy Johnson, Eula Biss, Jeff Chang, and Debby Irving who write about racism, whiteness, privilege, micro-aggressions, and nonbinary thinking. We’ll freewrite extensively from prompts about how our awareness of race has permeated our lives, and optionally submit work for instructor/peer feedback. Extensive readings, homework, and personal reflection required.

InCoRpoRATIng RESEARCh AnD DATA InTo nonfICTIon

Intermediate | During this course, students with experience in creative nonfiction will further explore the genre by reading work that incorporates research. Students will share work while discussing assigned texts (e.g., John McPhee, Amy Leach, Ta-Nehisi Coates). We will look at methods, resources, citations, and compelling ways to add quantitative data to stories. Students will produce several short essays culminating in a final longer piece of writing incorporating research.

TELLIng LIfE SToRIES

Introductory / Intermediate | So you want to tell your story—but how? Is memoir your best option, or are you more interested in a personal

essay? This class offers you the chance to try out a number of different genres in creative nonfiction—from memoir to lyricism, nature writing to travel writing—as you develop your own voice. You’ll read contemporary authors—including David Sedaris, Eula Biss, Annie Dillard, and David Foster Wallace—and try out several short, exploratory assignments in nonfiction. This class takes place online via our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

GeNeRal

lORa shiNN

Eight sessions Tuesdays, April 16–June 4


aNNe liU kellOR

Seven sessions Sundays, April 28–June 16

[No class May 26]1–4 pm


keviN O’ROURke

Four sessionsMondays, April 29–May 20


sUsaN MeYeRs

Eight sessionsTuesdays, April 30–June 18

Online General: $375 | Member: $337.50

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NONFIC

TION

fInDIng youR SToRy

All Levels | Many writers experience a longing to write about their own lives but little idea of where to begin, of where to dig to unearth the stories you know are there somewhere. Together, we will drill down and find those stories. The class will include some lecture and discussion, but the bulk of the session will be spent on writing prompts. Bring your laptop or pen and paper and your willingness to write and discover.

RESEARChIng AnD wRITIng TRuE CRImE Introductory | Whether a 50-year-old case or a present-day one, writing about crime is different than any other genre. As Agatha Christie said, the crime is the end of the story. An author must learn why it happened and how it affected the community. This class will address how to obtain documents, research cold cases, find sources, and conduct sensitive interviews. It will also cover the market, from books to podcasts to television and films, and how to break into the genre.

unLEAShIng ThE hEALIng powER of pERSonAL nARRATIVE

Introductory / Intermediate | In this hands-on workshop, New York Times best-selling memoir author Ingrid Ricks shares her own healing and empowerment journey, including writing lessons learned, to help you unleash the power of per-sonal narrative for yourself. First, you will learn how to identify and structure the personal story you need to tell; then, you’ll bring it to life through six different in-class writing assignments. There will be a lunch break from 12–1 pm.

ThE poLITICAL ESSAy

All Levels | Craft that chapter in your memoir where the personal meets the polit-ical, that op-ed you have the authority to write, or that cultural critique for a liter-ary journal. Learning from James Baldwin, Rebecca Solnit, Arundhati Roy, Lindy West, George Orwell, Mindy Kaling, and others, we will generate essays that tap into your own rage or your biting wit. Expect to leave with at least one strong essay and a pitch for an editor.

ThE moST pERSonAL ESSAy

All Levels | We’ll study, write, and workshop short essays that delve deeply into first-person point of view, focusing on structure, narrative voice, and scene in order to cultivate vulnerability without self-indulgence, pathos without sentimentality, sharing without oversharing. Students will receive one-on-one editorial advice as well as critique from fellow students as they prepare essays to submit for publication.

essaYs

TheO NesTOR

One session Sunday, May 19


RebeCCa MORRis Four sessions

Wednesdays, May 29–June 19 7:10–9:10 pm


iNGRid RiCks

One sessionSaturday, June 8


sONORa jha

Ten sessions Tuesdays, April 9–June 11

7:10–9:10 pmGeneral: $460 | Member: $414

NiCOle haRdY

Eight sessions Sundays, April 28–June 23

[No class June 2] 10 am–12 pm


12

NONFICTION

kICk-STARTIng ThE mEmoIR

Introductory / Intermediate | This is a popular class with proven results, aimed at those who want to write a memoir or have begun one and are stalled. Each week re-quires an essay of 300 words providing essential building blocks for memoir. These essays are read aloud and critiqued in class; they are also critiqued in writing by the instructor. Weekly reading assignments from two helpful guidebooks ( Judith Bar-rington, William Zinsser) provide memoir insights and inspiration. A convivial class atmosphere is encouraged and highly valued.

SCEnE LAb foR mEmoIR

All Levels | We will cover scene-writing best practices for memoir as we study suc-cessful scenes in published memoirs. The majority of time, however, will be spent figuring out how to improve the so-so scenes in your draft that are falling flat or failing to move the reader. Come prepared to work on scenes in progress, and write and revise at least one new piece.

mEmoIR InTEnSIVE

Introductory / Intermediate | Spend three days diving into the memoir. The inten-sive will include lecture, discussion, writing prompts, brainstorming activities de-signed to get to the heart of your work as a writer, and workshops of participants’ writing. Lecture/discussion topics will include: voice and vision, inviting the read-er into the work, narrative arc, thematic drive, collage techniques, scene-building, the publication process, and how to make the most of your writing time. There will be an hour-long lunch break each session.

MeMOiR

jOhN dOUGlas MaRshall



NiCOle haRdY

Four sessions Sundays, April 28–May 19


TheO NesTOR

Three sessionsFriday–Sunday, June 14–16

10 am–5 pmGeneral: $420 | Member: $378

March 15 » The Metamorphosis

May 24 » Stranger in a Strange Land

Benjamin Percy • Vanessa Hua • Keetje Kuipers

Domingo Martinez • Terese Marie Mailhot • Rebecca Brown

new works on theme

with music by Bryan John Appleby

with music by SassyBlack

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MULTIGENRE

ThE ART of ThE SEnTEnCE, ThE ART of ThE pARAgRAph

All Levels | Great writers vary the structure of their sentences, using particular forms to intensify meaning and deepen emotion. This hands-on course in develop-ing virtuoso skills in sentencing and paragraphing is designed for writers interested in revising several short works or a book-in-progress. We’ll scrutinize brilliant sen-tences and paragraphs and deepen our craft by writing our own. Bring a notebook to write in and the required text: The Writer’s Portable Mentor, Second Edition.

SEVEn kEyS To unLoCkIng youR SToRy All Levels | Whether you’re just dipping a toe into the waters of your story (fiction or memoir) or you’re stuck rowing around in circles, these seven keys to integrating character development, plot, and structure will enable you to navigate your way to the other shore. It’s all about creating a road map you can follow and refer to when you’re not exactly sure where your book is headed. We’ll look at examples of the keys in successful novels and movies, and then use writing prompts and exercises to create the basic tenets of your story-world. Bring a fresh notebook and favorite pen to start (or continue) working with a process journal.

ThE ART of ThE InTERVIEw

Introductory / Intermediate | Interviewing is an essential skill for all writers, whether writing a story, novel, or nonfiction piece. This class will teach you how to conduct a great interview: How do you set it up? How do you prepare? Should you use a tape recorder or take notes? How do you edit the finished product? The in-structor will reveal secrets about turning mediocre interviews into great ones. In ad-dition to learning interviewing techniques, participants will interview each other.

DIVIng InTo ThE unConSCIouS

All Levels | Struggling with writer’s block? Or other obstacles that distract from your writing, like the fear of turning up something unpleasant? Instead of turning away, we will turn toward our barriers and learn to write into the dark. We will discuss the how-tos of this kind of deep writing, especially how to simultaneously develop your characters’ best and worst selves.

DynAmIC DIALoguE: ThE ART of SubTExT Introductory / Intermediate | Do you want to liven up your dialogue? It might sur-prise you to learn that the most important things aren’t necessarily what’s said, but what’s not. This class introduces you to the art of subtext: those implied messages that give invisible life to the things we say. Through writing exercises and sample stories by authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Charles Baxter, and Karen Russell, you’ll learn to master the most important element of dynamic dialogue: what’s left unsaid.

PROse

PRisCilla lONG



jeNNiFeR haUPT

Four sessions Saturdays, April 27–May 18


NiChOlas O’CONNell

One session Saturday, May 4


GlORia keMPTON

One session Saturday, May 25


sUsaN MeYeRs One session

Saturday, June 8 1–5 pm


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InTRoDuCTIon To CREATIVE wRITIng

Introductory | If you’ve never taken a creative writing class but are curious about the basics, this course is for you. Through reading, discussion, and exercises, we will investigate multiple genres—fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry—and students will leave with a firm understanding of the building blocks of craft and a clearer picture of where they want to take their writing. Students will receive supportive instructor feedback.

ThE AnATomy of A SEnTEnCE

All Levels | We will find, read, examine, diagram, imitate, and draft great sentences. We’ll start small, identifying sentence parts and practicing varied constructions, then go big, combining sentences to produce vibrant paragraphs. Sentence-specific workshops will use close reading to fine-tune prose to its most perfect beat. No project needed—use the exercises from this class to get your creativity flowing or simply explore your love of language. Useful for all writers in all genres. No grammar expertise needed.

LET’S mAkE A LExICon: CoLLECTIng woRDS

“To use language well is to use it particularly: precision of utterance as both a form of lyricism and a species of attention.” —Robert Macfarlane

All Levels | How do we get there? In The Writer’s Portable Mentor, Priscilla Long says, “For most virtuoso writers, collecting words is a definite, specific, regular habit.” Let’s create lexicons tailored to our work. Drawing on Long’s lexicon prac-tice and others, we’ll engage with familiar and unexpected sources, and put our words to work with generative prompts.

ThE wRITER’S noTEbook

All Levels | Keeping a notebook is an important part of a writer’s toolkit. It’s a place to work out creative ideas, practice writing styles, and tap into your in-ner muse. The contents may be a springboard for poems, stories, essays, and full-length books. Through discussion and writing prompts, you’ll learn how to ef-fectively use a journal and discover ways to transform your notebook entries into publishable, compelling work. Suggested reading: Writers and Their Notebooks.

nARRATIVE RECLAmATIon: uSIng SToRIES To hEAL

All Levels | This class is dedicated to the role of storytelling in finding relief from distress. Students in this course will learn how storytelling can be used for per-sonal and communal reclamation, including the confrontation of historical pain. Students will understand the role of personal storytelling in counteracting the impact of trauma, and gain storytelling skills they can use for their own empow-erment. This course will include a discussion component and the development of a new piece.

POeTRY & PROse

beTh slaTTeRY

Eight sessions Thursdays, April 18–June 6


TaRa aTkiNsON



saMaNTha UPdeGRave

Four sessions Saturdays, April 20–May 11


diaNa Raab



zaiN shaMOON



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MULTIG

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oRDERIng ThE SToRm: oRgAnIzIng book mAnuSCRIpTS

Intermediate | This class addresses questions that poets and writers ask as they as-semble chapbooks, sequences, and collections of poems, short stories, or essays: Should order be imposed, emerge from within, be trial-and-error—or all three? How much should the author think about the reader? Should book manuscripts embody a narrative arc, develop a lyric sequence, or seek resolution? How to in-vite the reader in? How to conclude? We will read sample collections and practice hands-on organization of our own manuscripts.

whERE To START

Introductory | Are you full of great ideas, but lost when it comes to putting them on the page? In this class, students will set goals for their writing, outline action plans to meet them, and generate new work in a supportive environment. For in-spiration and guidance, we will pull from Anne Lamott, Walter Mosley, and Ross White. Whether you’re developing your practice and finding your voice or looking to explore publishing opportunities and receive feedback on new work, this class will help you get your writing life off the ground.

wRITIng LIfE

All Levels | Life is truly bizarre, and the more familiar we are with this bizarreness, the richer our writing will be. Taught by a writer—not a biologist—this class will look at the ways contemporary scientists have written about the origin, develop-ments, and characteristics of life itself. For inspiration, we turn to idea and works of Lynn Margulis, Bonnie Bassler, and Carl Woese. The class will produce original work for poets and writers by examining some of the deepest and most fascinating thoughts about the interconnected system of things that move, dream, make deci-sions, and reproduce on a thin layer of this rocky planet.

wRITIng ShoRT: ThE ART of fLASh AnD pRoSE poEmS All Levels | Novels are glorious. So is writing that tells a tiny story, shares a small but shattering true experience, and/or reveals the beauty (or horror or boredom) of a single moment. Welcome to the world of flash, which can be hyperrealistic, hyper-fantastical, and anywhere in between. This workshop will engage you with on-the-spot in-class writing exercises, fun homework, and inspiring readings. You’ll have a bundle of tools and a bouquet of pieces you can revise or send out.

gETTIng unSTuCk

All Levels | Looking for practical methods and techniques for overcoming obsta-cles to creativity? In this course we will discuss tricks for writing poetry, nonfic-tion, and fiction. Together we’ll examine the kinds of blocks all of us encounter in our work, and we will explore ways to leap over them. Using exercises to develop action, depth, perspective, lyricism, and voice, we’ll renew our awareness and con-fidence as writers.

CaROlYNe wRiGhT

Six sessions Tuesdays, April 30–June 11



aMbeR FlaMe

Six sessions Sundays, May 5–June 16



ChaRles MUdede

Six sessions Mondays, May 6–June 17



sTePhaNie baRbe haMMeR & saMaNTha UPdeGRave

Four sessions Thursdays, May 9–30


jOshUa MaRie wilkiNsON

Four sessions Tuesdays, May 14–June 4


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foLLow ThE ThREAD: buILDIng A mAnuSCRIpT Intermediate / Advanced | This generative workshop will help you develop work along a through-line or theme to build a manuscript. Come with a selection of work to tie together and a theme to develop through further writing; prompts will be provided to help you spark inspiration. Students should be open to peer feedback, be prepared to both generate and revise work, and expect to leave with a general skeleton for a manuscript.

SpEAk ThE TRuTh: wRITE LIkE A kID

Intermediate | We will be guided by our inner children to inspire writing that sees the world through rose-colored glasses—and simultaneously speaks unfiltered truth. Using “kid” supplies like crayons, stickers, children’s books, cartoons, and games, we will remind ourselves that we are still capable of joyfulness, vulnerabili-ty, and unconditional love. We will use that state of mind to write poetry and prose that reflects that child within us, now living in the adult world.

gRAphIC humoR

All Levels | Two experienced, allegedly funny cartoonists will guide you through the process of creating a wide range of humorous comics, from New-Yorker-style gag cartoons to page-long stories, rants, and satire. We’ll examine work—from sub-tle to slapstick to surreal—of some of the medium’s funniest artists and writers en route to generating material for a class anthology comic book. While prior draw-ing/cartooning experience may be helpful, it isn’t absolutely essential; however, be prepared to collaborate and share work.

GRaPhiC

POeTRY & PROse

aMbeR FlaMe Four sessions

Sundays, June 2–23 3:30–5:30 pm


aNasTaCia-ReNee

One session Saturday, June 8


david laskY & GReG sTUMP

Six sessionsSaturdays, April 13–May 18


writers on writingspring 2019

March 19 | Andre Dubus IIIon Building Characters

May 2 | Min Jin Leeon Having Faith

May 21 | Steve Almondon Rendering the Interior Life

learn more at hugohouse.org

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POETRY

poETRy IWhether a beginning poet or lover of the art, this class will introduce you to the beauty and complexity of writing and reading poetry, as well as the basics of the workshop model. We will look to image, metaphor, sound, lineation, and structure to write our own poems.

poETRy III

The purpose of the workshop is to build on Poetry I and II by developing your writing skills and your perspectives on poetry. We will workshop student poems, based on assignments that cover a wide range of techniques and themes. Close readings of contemporary poetry will serve as examples for assignments, and we will devote one session to learning how to publish your work.

poETRy III onLInE

This class will build upon craft learned in Poetry I and II. Students can expect close readings of mentor texts from a wide range of contemporary

poets, advanced forms and prompts, discussions of poetic techniques and work-shops of participants’ poems. We will also explore craft issues, advanced generative techniques like poetic sequences and research, as well as different approaches to revision and publishing, all with an eye towards strengthening your poetic practice and building a strong body of work. This course takes place online through our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

ThE woRDS To SAy IT: poEmS on ILLnESS, TRAumA & hEALIng All Levels | By focusing on the craft of writing, we can transform persnal experience into art. Readings will include Rafael Campo, Nick Flynn, Gregory Orr, Jane Kenyon, Lucia Perillo, Susan Sontag, Lucille Clifton, Anatole Broyard, and Kevin Young, among others. Each week we will read, discuss, and write from in-class prompts. After the first class, students may bring a piece of their own writing to workshop for feedback. The last class will be devoted to student writings.

POETRY

GeNeRal


TieRed Classes

sieRRa NelsONSix sessions

Saturdays, April 6–May 18 [No class May 11]


evelYNN YUeN Ten sessions

Wednesdays, April 17–June 197:10–9:10 pm


qUeNTON bakeR

Ten sessions Fridays, April 19–June 21


sUzaNNe edisON



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TRAnSLATIng poETRy

All Levels | Writing poetry is itself a kind of translation—your observations are transformed into words and music. Nothing illuminates that process like reading multiple English translations of the same poem. Every difference between them makes the translator’s hand visible: What choices did they make? And how is the poem changed? Students will try their hand at translation using The Poem Itself, a book that provides all the raw materials to assemble an English version of a poem written in another language, and handouts provided by the instructor. No knowl-edge of another language required.

ADVAnCED poETRy woRkShop Advanced | The aim of this poetry workshop will be to help the students, regardless of age or previous experience, work toward writing the best poems they can write. The instructor will offer examples from poetry of the past and present and will ask the students to bring some examples from their own reading, but the main work will be critiquing each other’s poems. The instructor will try to help reinforce the connections between sound, rhythm, and meaning and will make a number of sug-gestions about working methods, revision, and self-criticism.

you'RE hungRy, LET'S EAT! A DETouR InTo fooD poETRy Intermediate | We will examine our literary food love languages and their layers as they relate to culture, coming-of-age, and community. We will create poetry centered on food, with social justice, commentary, romance, and the idea of “family” as side dishes. All participants will write, draft, and polish four pieces of “food poetry.” We’ll have a mid-class potluck and communal poetry prompt. Participants must have some knowledge of poetry and/or have written or published poems.

wRITIng wITh SouTh ASIAn qAwwALIS All Levels | South Asian qawwalis are a form of ecstatic Sufi devotional music whose purpose is to evoke oneness with the divine. The beauty of qawwali is that it’s an incredibly syncretic form—many different languages, moods, and tones make their way in, leading to a form of ecstatic engagement. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Sabri Brothers, and others were acclaimed exponents. In this class, we’ll listen to qawwalis, tinker with what makes the form so powerful, and do our own writing alongside this incredibly powerful music and verse.

youR TuRn: ThE VoLTA AnD EnDIng poEmS

Intermediate | The volta, or the “turning point” of a poem, is a central moment of surprise—moving the reader in a new direction to end a poem. How does a volta operate in contemporary verse? What kinds of voltas are possible in a poem? Lead-ing toward a conversation about how to end our poems, we will draw upon voltas from poets like Eduardo C. Corral, Natalie Diaz, and Monica Sok. Participants should bring in at least two poems written prior to our session.

GeNeRal

shaRON bRYaN

Eight sessionsThursdays, April 18–June 6


david waGONeR Ten sessions

Sundays, April 28–June 30 10 am–12 pm


aNasTaCia-ReNee Six sessions

Thursdays, May 2–June 6 5–7 pm


shaNkaR NaRaYaN One session

Saturday, May 18 1–5 pm


jaNe wONG Two sessions

Saturday–Sunday, June 1–2 1–4 pm


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G LIFE

jekeva PhilliPs Two sessions

Saturday–Sunday, May 18–19 10 am–1 pm


ThE fInAnCES of SELf-pubLIShIng Intermediate | Self-publishing is easier than ever—but it isn’t cheap. When you become your own publisher, you take on all the costs associated with

publication: hiring editors and designers, getting industry reviews, planning book launches and book tours. This course will cover the finances of self-publishing, explain the types of expenses you can expect as a first-time publisher, and discuss ways to keep your costs low while still creating a professional-quality book. This class takes place online via our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

how To DEVELop A wRITIng pRACTICE Introductory / Intermediate | Successful writers understand that writing is not just an art—it’s also a practice. If you’re having trouble finding time

to write or feel like you lack the motivation to complete your writing projects, this class is for you. Students will learn how to track their creative energy throughout the day, analyze their schedules to set aside time for writing, use measurable goals to maximize productivity while writing, and discuss how to remain committed to their writing practice long-term. This class takes place online via our partners at Wet Ink, and classes can be done at your own pace throughout the week.

“ThE VoICE”: poETRy EDITIon

All Levels | It goes without saying that poets and writers are not actors. However, when you step onto the stage for readings you’ve got to present your work with the same precision, intention, and gusto as any other performer. Students will learn how to perform pieces rather than just read them. We will examine the speaker of the poem, the rhythm and meter of the work, as well as other influencing factors, and use them to create unique performances. Not only will you learn to engage your audience, you will walk away with vocal health techniques and warm-ups that you can do at home or before performances. Please bring one poem to workshop.

“ThE VoICE”: fICTIon EDITIon

All Levels | It goes without saying that writers are not actors. However, when you step onto the stage for readings you’ve got to present your work with the same precision, intention, and gusto as any other performer. Students will learn how to turn prose into a powerful performance. We will explore how to create subtext and paint characters with your voice using the Laban technique. Not only will you learn to engage your audience, you will walk away with vocal health techniques and warm-ups that you can do at home or before performances. Please bring a two-page excerpt with at least one page of dialogue to class.

THE WRITING LIFE GeNeRal

NiCOle diekeR

Two sessions Thursdays, April 18–25


NiCOle diekeR Four sessions

Tuesdays, April 30–May 21 Online


jekeva PhilliPs

Two sessions Saturday–Sunday, May 4–5


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jOe PONePiNTO

Six sessions Saturdays, May 4–June 8


fInDIng An AgEnT: RESouRCES AnD STRATEgIES

All Levels | The average literary agency receives about 50 to 100 or more queries on a daily basis. This class will offer advanced strategies to help writers break through the avalanche of queries and get their manuscripts requested. We’ll use resources to identify and evaluate agencies and agents in hands-on scenarios, and determine where best to submit. Students will learn how to prepare a variety of materials such as query letters, synopses, manuscript samples, book proposals, and more.

pubLIShIng InTEnSIVE

Intermediate / Advanced | This daylong intensive seminar will provide a compre-hensive overview of the publishing business and opportunities for writers of mem-oir, adult fiction, and young adult fiction. This class is intended for students who already have some familiarity with the publishing business (e.g., you already know the difference between agents and publicists and acquisition editors, you know what the word “platform” means, etc.). Students will have the opportunity to pitch their books to small groups and workshop their synopses from a marketing stand-point.

GeNeRal

BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR MORE CLASSES.. .

We’re adding classes all the time, so be sure to check our online catalog or subscribe to our eNewsletter to get the most up-to-date information on course listings.

kaReN FiNNeYFROCk, PeTeR MOUNTFORd

& TheO NesTOR

One session Sunday, June 2

10 am–6 pmGeneral: $200 | Member: $180

DO YOU NEED MORE WRITING TIME?

Write HereWrite Now

ALL DAY — SUNDAY, APRIL 14 — TICKETS AT HUGOHOUSE.ORG

WRITERS CONFERENCE • 6 WRITING LESSONS • MANUSCRIPT CONSULTATIONS • 4.5 HOURS OF DEDICATED WRITING •

KEYNOTE SPEAKER CHARLES JOHNSON • EMCEE GARTH STEIN

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URCES

wRiTeRs-iN-ResideNCe

MaNUsCRiPT CONsUlTaNTs

Receive writing guidance and advice from one of our writers-in-residence, free of charge. Writers-in-residence are available for appointments through June 15, 2019. For more information, visit hugohouse.org, or write to one of our residents at the emails below.

Amber Flame is a writer, composer, and performer whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, Vermont Studio Center, and YEFE NOF. Flame’s original work has been published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Winter Tangerine, The Dialogist, Split This Rock, Black Heart Magazine, Sundress Publications, FreezeRay, Redivider, and more. A 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee, Jack Straw Writer, and recipient of the CityArtist grant from Seattle’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Amber Flame’s first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, was recently published through Write Bloody Press. To schedule an appointment, email [email protected]

Kristen Millares Young is the author of Subduction, forthcoming from Red Hen Press in spring 2020. An essayist and journalist, her work has been featured by the Guardian, the New York Times, Crosscut, Hobart, Moss, City Arts Magazine, Pacifica Literary Review, KUOW 94.9-FM, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Miami Herald, the Buenos Aires Herald, and Time magazine. Her personal essays are anthologized in Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter & Booze (Sasquatch Books), a New York Times New & Notable Book, and Latina Outsiders: Remaking Latina Identity (forthcoming from Routledge). She teaches at Hugo House, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, and the Seattle Public Library. Kristen serves as board chair of InvestigateWest, a nonprofit news studio she cofounded in the Pacific Northwest.To schedule an appointment, email [email protected]

Connect with one of our manuscript consultants—all experienced teachers and writers—to receive one-on-one guidance for your works-in-progress; applying for awards, residencies, or MFA programs; submitting to agents, magazines, or publishers; or other writerly concerns. Select consultants are also available for line and copyediting services. To see the full list of consultants and services offered, visit bit.ly/manuscriptconsultants.

wRiTe wiTh hUGO hOUse

Looking for ongoing inspiration, feedback, and ways to connect with other writers? Attend one of our free drop-in writing circles, presented in partnership with the Seattle Public Library. Bring something you’re working on, or just come ready to write. You will have the opportunity to share your work and get feedback—but only if you want to (no pressure). You can also use this time to increase productivity on your current work-in-progress, surrounded by fellow writers. Write with Hugo House sessions take place at select Seattle Public Library branches and Hugo House. For location and schedule information, visit bit.ly/WriteHugoHouse.

PROSE

POETRY

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SAnastacia-Renee is a writer, workshop facilitator and multivalent performance artist. Author of three books: Forget It (Black Radish Books, 2017), (v.) (Gramma Press, 2017), and Answer(Me) (Winged City Chapbooks, Argus Press, 2017).

Steve Almond is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candy-freak (Harvest Books, 2004) and Against Football (Melville House, 2015). His short stories have been anthologized widely, and his essays and reviews have ap-peared in the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and elsewhere.

Tara Atkinson is the author of Bedtime Stories (Alice Blue, 2012) and Boyfriends (Instant Future, 2017) and her shorter work has appeared in Hobart, City Arts Magazine, Fanzine, the Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She cofounded the independent literature festival, APRIL.

Quenton Baker is a poet and educator from Seattle. He is the recipient of a James W. Ray Venture Project award from Artist Trust and the author of This Glittering Republic (Willow Books, 2016).

Janée J. Baugher is the author of two ekphrastic poetry collections, The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach, 2013) and Coordi-nates of Yes (Ahadada Books, 2010). She has taught creative writing since 1999 and is currently a poetry reader for Boulevard magazine.

Nickole Brown is the author of Sister, reissued by Sibling Rivalry in 2018. Fanny Says came out from BOA in 2015, and most recently, a chapbook of poems, To Those Who Were Our First Gods, won the 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize. She lives in Asheville, NC.

Sharon Bryan’s most recent book is Sharp Stars (BOA Editions, 2009). She edited Where We Stand: Women Poets on Literary Tradition (W.W. Norton & Co., 1994), and Planet on the Table: Poets on the Reading Life (Sarabande Books, 2003). She has taught in two dozen writing programs around the country.

Cara Diaconoff is the author of Unmarriageable Daughters: Stories (Lewis-Clark Press, 2008) and a novel, I’ ll Be a Stranger to You (Outpost19, 2011). She has taught creative writing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas; Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.; and many other places.

Nicole Dieker is a freelance writer, the editor of The Billfold, and the host of the Writing & Money podcast.

Suzanne Edison’s poetry can be found in The Moth Eaten World (Finishing Line Press, 2014); Bullets into Bells; What Rough Beast; Bombay Gin; the Naugatuck River Review; JAMA; and forthcoming in About Place journal, among other places.

Jeff Encke has taught reading courses at Hugo House since 2004. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Black Warrior Review, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Fence, Kenyon Review Online, Salt Hill, and elsewhere.

Laura Eve Engel is the author of Things That Go (Octopus Books, 2018). The recipient of fellowships from the Provincetown FAWC, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and the Wurlitzer Foundation, her work can be found in Best American Poetry, the Nation, and elsewhere.

Karen Finneyfrock is the author of the young adult novel The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door (Speak, 2013) and Ceremony for the Choking Ghost (Write Bloody, 2010). She is a former writer-in-residence at Hugo House and teaches for the Writers-in-the-Schools program.

Waverly Fitzgerald has published nine novels and self-published one nonfiction book. She has been awarded a Jack Straw fellowship, an Artist Trust grant, and residencies at Hedgebrook and the Whiteley Center.

Amber Flame is an artist whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, and Vermont Studio Center. Flame is Hugo House’s poet-in-residence, and is just one magic trick away from growing her unicorn horn.

Stephanie Barbe Hammer is a novelist, poet, and short story writer. An award-winning college professor, she teaches teachers how to teach and loves teaching (almost) as much as writing.

Nicole Hardy’s memoir, Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin (Hachette, 2013), was a Washington State Book Award finalist. Her nonfiction has been adapted for radio and the stage, and noted in 2012’s Best American Essays. She earned her MFA at Bennington College.

Jennifer Haupt’s essays have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, the Rumpus, Spirituality & Health, the Sun, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, was pub-lished in April 2018 by Central Avenue Publishing. She is currently working on a memoir/fiction hybrid based in Haiti.

Jessica Jacobs is the author of Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going (Four Way Books, 2019). Her debut, Pelvis with Distance, won the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

Sonora Jha is a professor of journalism at Seattle University. Formerly a journalist in India and Singapore, her recent political essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, and the Globalist.

Ruth Joffre is the author of the story collection Night Beast (Black Cat, 2018). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Masters Review, Lightspeed, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, Nashville Review, Copper Nickel, PANK, and elsewhere.

Anne Liu Kellor has received support from Hedgebrook, Jack Straw, and 4Cul-ture. Her manuscript, Heart Radical, was selected by Cheryl Strayed as first runner-up in Kore Press’s memoir contest. Anne’s work explores themes of language, connection, paradox, and belonging.

Gloria Kempton is an online and Seattle writing coach, the author of eleven books, an instructor with Writer’s Digest University and Writers On the Net, and an instructor to incarcerated veterans at the Regional Justice Center. Deborah Landau is the author of four collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, the Paris Review, the Best American Poetry, and the New York Times. In 2016 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches in and directs the creative writing program at NYU.

Jessica Laser is the author of Sergei Kuzmich from All Sides (Letter Machine Editions, 2019). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is currently pursu-ing a doctorate in English literature at UC Berkeley.

David Lasky has been writing and drawing comics for the last 25 years.

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SHe coauthored the graphic novel Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song (Abrams ComicArts, 2012), which won comics’ Eisner Award.

Shayla Lawson is the author of three hybrid poetry collections—A Speed Edu-cation in Human Being (Sawyer House, 2013), Pantone (Miel Books, 2016), and I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean (Sat-urnalia Books, 2018)—and a forthcoming collection of essays from Harper Perennial. She is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo Artist Colony, and serves as director of creative writing at Amherst College.

Min Jin Lee is a recipient of fellowships in Fiction from the Guggenheim Founda-tion (2018) and the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard (2018–2019). Her novel Pachinko (Grand Central, 2017) was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, a runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and winner of the Medici Book Club Prize. Her writings have appeared in the New Yorker, NPR’s Selected Shorts, One Story, New York Times Magazine, the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, and Wall Street Journal, among others.

Priscilla Long is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, creative nonfiction, science, fiction, and history, and a long-time inde-pendent teacher of writing. She is author of six books, including The Writer’s Por-table Mentor, Second Edition (University of New Mexico Press, 2018).

Alex Madison’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Indiana Review, Witness, Salon, Bitch Media, the Rumpus, City Arts, and elsewhere. She is a part-time high school teacher, a WITS instructor, and a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Corinne Manning is a writer, editor, and performer whose reviews have appeared in Bomb, Electric Literature, and Vol 1 Brooklyn. Corinne founded the James Franco Review, a project on visibility and reimagining the publishing process.

John Douglas Marshall’s Reconciliation Road (University of Washington Press, 2000) is an award-winning memoir of a cross-country trip. He was book critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and did face-to-face interviews with many prominent memoirists, including Nora Ephron, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Karr, and Joan Didion.

Joy McCullough’s debut young adult novel Blood Water Paint (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2018) has earned honors including the National Book Award longlist, finalist for the ALA Morris Award, a Publishers Weekly Flying Start, and four starred reviews.

Eric McMillan’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in One Story, Iowa Review, New England Review, Gulf Coast, and Witness. An Iraq War veteran, he’s the winner of this year’s Jeff Sharlet Memorial Prize and a former Hugo House fellow.

Susan V. Meyers’s first novel, Failing the Trapeze (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2014), won the Nilsen Award, and she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and several artists’ residencies. She directs Seattle University’s creative writing program.

Rebecca Morris is the New York Times bestselling author of several true crime books, including If I Can’t Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children (St. Martin’s Press, 2014). She ap-pears frequently on TV as a crime expert.

Peter Mountford’s novel A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism (Mariner Books, 2011) won a 2012 Washington State Book Award. His second novel, The Dismal Science, was published by Tin House Books in 2014. A former Hugo House writer-in-residence, he is currently on faculty at Sierra Nevada College’s low-residency MFA program.

Charles Mudede is a Zimbabwean-born filmmaker and writer. His films, Police Beat and Zoo, premiered at Sundance—Zoo at Cannes. Mudede, who is an editor for The Stranger, has contributed to the New York Times, LA Weekly, Village Voice, and e-flux.

Shankar Narayan explores identity, power, mythology, and technology in a world where bodies are flung across borders. A Kundiman, Hugo House, Flyway, Paper Nautilus, and 4Culture awardee, Shankar loves his mirror homes of Cascadia and Delhi.

BJ Neblett is the author of four books and dozens of short stories, including the groundbreaking Planet Alt-Sete-Nine (Brighton Publishing, 2018) contem-porary fantasy novel; the time-traveling Elysian Dreams (Brighton Publishing, 2011), and Ice Cream Camelot (Brighton

Publishing, 2013), which has been called the perfect ’60s memoir.

Sierra Nelson’s books include The Lachrymose Report (Poetry Northwest Editions, 2018) and I Take Back the Sponge Cake (Rose Metal Press, 2012). Nelson earned her MFA in poetry from UW in 2002. She is Seattle’s Cephalopod Appreciation Society president and teach-es in Seattle, Friday Harbor, and Rome.

Theo Nestor is the author of Writing is My Drink (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008). Nestor has taught the memoir certificate course for the UW’s professional & con-tinuing education program since 2006.

Nicholas O’Connell is the author of the novel The Storms of Denali (Univer-sity of Alaska Press, 2012) and three non-fiction books. He contributes to Outside, Condé Nast Traveler, Food & Wine, and the New York Times. He teaches for www.thewritersworkshop.net, among other places.

Kevin O’Rourke works in book publishing in Seattle. He studied art at Kenyon and writing at Minnesota. His first book of nonfiction, As If Seen at an Angle, was published by Tinderbox Editions in 2018. His writing is currently supported by 4Culture.

Morgan Parker is the author of There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé (Tin House Books, 2017) and Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night (Switchback Books, 2015). Her work has appeared in Tin House, the Paris Review, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Po-etry in the Age of Hip-Hop, Best American Poetry 2016, the New York Times, and the Nation. She is the recipient of a 2017 NEA Literature Fellowship, winner of a 2016 Pushcart Prize, and a Cave Canem graduate fellow.

Jekeva Phillips is editor-in-chief of Word Lit Zine, director of Bibliophilia Storytelling Festival, host of Z-Sides—a literary TV show, manager of Lit Crawl, an improviser, an aerialist, and a novelist plugging away at her first book.

Joe Ponepinto’s novel, Mr. Neutron, was published by 7.13 Books in March 2018. His short stories have appeared in dozens of literary journals in the US and abroad. Joe was the founding publisher and fiction editor of Tahoma Literary Review.

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SDiana Raab is a memoirist, poet, essayist, blogger, and speaker. Diana began keeping a notebook at the age of ten. She’s an award-winning author of ten books, including Writing for Bliss (Loving Heal-ing Press, 2017) and Writing for Bliss: A Companion Journal (Loving Healing Press, 2019).

Ayad Rahmani is a professor of architecture at Washington State University. He is the author of two books and currently serves as the architecture critic for the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, writing on issues related to culture and architecture.

Ingrid Ricks is an author, book coach, and the founder of Write It Out Loud. Her memoirs include the NYT bestseller Hip-pie Boy (Berkley, 2011) and Focus (RC Strategies Group, 2012), a memoir about her journey with a blinding eye disease.

Rob Schlegel’s third poetry collection, In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps, won the 2018 Iowa Poetry Prize. He coedits The Catenary Press, and teaches at Whitman College. He lives online at robschlegel.com.

Laura Lampton Scott’s work has ap-peared in publications including Michigan Quarterly Review, Tin House Online, and Notre Dame Review. She served as senior associate editor for the oral history Lavil: Life, Love, and Death in Port-au-Prince. She’s a MacDowell Colony fellow.

Zain Shamoon completed his PhD in human development and family studies in 2017. He is a mental health professional and spoken word artist. In 2015, he launched the Narratives of Pain project. Currently, he is a professor at Antioch University Seattle.

Lora Shinn has worked as an editor at Alaska Airlines Beyond, and writes for a wide variety of publications, including The Seattle Times, AFAR, Sunset, Redbook, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Poets & Writers.

Beth Slattery is a writer, editor, and writing coach whose work has appeared in Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies and Southern Women’s Review. Before moving to Seattle, she taught creative writing for eighteen years at Indiana University East.

Janaka Stucky is a mystic poet and founding editor of the press Black Ocean. He is the author of The Truth Is We Are

Perfect (Third Man Books, 2015), Your Name Is The Only Freedom (Brave Men Press, 2009), The World Will Deny It For You (Ahsahta Press, 2012), and his latest book, Ascend Ascend (Third Man Books, 2019). He is also a National Haiku Champion.

Greg Stump’s work in comics includes the weekly strip Dwarf Attack and the acclaimed comic book series Urban Hipster (Alternative Comics). A longtime contributor to The Stranger and the Comics Journal, he recently debuted his first graphic novel, Disillusioned Illusions (Fantagraphics, 2016).

Anca L. Szilágyi’s debut novel is Daughters of the Air (Lanternfish Press, 2017), which the Seattle Review of Books called “a creation of unearthly talents.” Her writing appears in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lilith magazine, and Confrontation, among others.

Samantha Updegrave writes non-fiction. Her work appears in JMWW, Atticus Review, Seattle’s Child, Bitch, the Rumpus, and others. She cofounded The Looseleaf Reading series, an evening of music and storytelling by emerging and established women and nonbinary writers.

David Wagoner has published seven-teen books of poems and ten novels. He is professor emeritus at the University of Washington and was writer-in-residence (2005–2008) at Hugo House.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the au-thor or editor of thirteen books. He’ll be the 2019 scholar-in-residence at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Jane Wong’s poems can be found in Best American Poetry 2015, American Poetry Review, AGNI, Poetry, and others. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of Over-pour (Action Books, 2016) and teaches at WWU.

Carolyne Wright’s new book is This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2017). She has sixteen earlier books and anthologies of poetry, essays, and translation; in 2018 she held an Instituto Sacatar residency fellowship in Brazil.

Evelynn Yuen received her MFA in poetry from Cornell University, and her BA in philosophy and English from the University of Washington. She is at work on a book about light and a book about trans poetics.

upComIng EVEnTS

March 8Lit Jam: A Night of Words & Music

March 9Mixed Bag: A Comedy & Music Show

March 14Mother Country: Irina Reyn

March 15Hugo Literary Series: The Metamorphosis

March 16 Seconds, Anyone? The Pain (& Pleasure) of Second Books

March 19Word Works: Andre Dubus III on Building Characters

March 20Poetry of the Uncanny: GennaRose Nethercott & Sierra Nelson

March 22 The Intimacy of Distance: Matthew Zapruder & Catherine Barnett

March 26 Poems of Legacy & Transformation: Monica Youn & Shankar Narayan

March 31Literary Friendship: Erica Jong & Kim Dower

April 2Graywolf Press at 45: Fiona McCrae

April 4Magical Negro: Morgan Parker

April 13From Zine to Lit Scene: Steve Hughes & Jekeva Phillips

April 14Write Here, Write Now!

April 18I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean: Shayla Lawson with Jane Wong

April 23 The Sacred & the Profane:Janaka Stucky & Sarah Galvin

May 2 Word Works: Min Jin Lee on Having Faith

May 11Mixed Bag: A Comedy & Music Show

May 21Word Works: Steve Almond on Rendering the Interior Life

May 24Hugo Literary Series: Stranger in a Strange Land

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CREDITS AND TRANSFERSIf you need to cancel your registration for a class, the following refund schedule applies:

• 3 days or more before a class, a class credit or transfer will be issued less a $15 fee. Refunds will be issued less a $35 fee.

• 48 hours or fewer before the class starts, no refund is available.

REFUNDSHugo House cannot provide refunds, transfers, or makeup sessions for classes a student might miss. If Hugo House has to cancel a class, you will receive a full refund.

SCHOLARSHIPSNeed-based scholarships are available every quarter. Applications will be due March 15, and scholarship applicants will be notified March 25. Visithugohouse.org/classes for more information and to apply.

QUESTIONS?If you want to know more about a class or Hugo House policies, email us at [email protected] or call (206) 322-7030. We are here to help!

FIND US ON CAPITOL HILLUnless otherwise noted, classes take place at Hugo House. We are located on Capitol Hill at 1634 Eleventh Ave.

Our new location is a short walk from the Capitol Hill light rail station, and within a half-mile of many buses, including routes 10, 11, 43, and 49. Walking, biking, and public transportation are the best ways to reach us as parking in the Capitol Hill neighborhood can be difficult.

If you are driving, an affordable pay parking lot is available two-and-a-half blocks from Hugo House, at the Greek Orthodox Church at 13th and Howell, or at Seattle Central College’s Harvard Garage at 1609 Harvard Avenue. Street parking is also available but not guaranteed.

At Hugo House, we offer creative writing courses in a wide range of writing styles and experiences. Whether you’re writing your first poem or have a few novels behind you, Hugo House offers a class to help you become a better writer.

Our classes are taught by published writers and experienced teachers. Our students come from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences. What they all have in common is a love of words.

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writing Spring 2019 classes - Hugo House · plore, and discuss how he has written more than twenty books in forty years—all while being constitutionally incapable of writing or