creative writing courses umass boston

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33 Best Creative Writing Classes in Boston

Showing 33 courses that match your search.

Teen Summer: Say It Like You Mean It

Whether characters are arguing, bantering, betraying secrets, or confessing their guilt, dialogue can be one of the most challenging parts of writing a scene. In this workshop, we’ll learn about the various ways you can use dialogue in your writing, such as to advance the plot or develop characters.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/teen-summer-say-it-like-y...

Categories: Screenplay, Short Story, Book, Kids, and Nonfiction

Start date:

August, 2024

The Art of Live Storytelling

Ever dreamt of captivating an audience with your storytelling, condensing your writing into a sharp pitch, or confidently speaking in public? This course is designed for you. Uncover the craft of powerful storytelling using the classic "pity, fear, catharsis" framework and contemporary engagement techniques.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/the-art-of-live-storytell...

Categories: Nonfiction, Essay, and Fiction

Prerequisites: For writers age 13 - 18 ONLY.

Writing Experimental Essays

The aim of this class is to open up your writing by embracing this experimentation with form and structure. You’ll learn about the lyric essay—braided, collage, and hermit crab and more.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/writing-experimental-essa...

Categories: Nonfiction and Essay

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Teen Summer: DIY Comic Book Making

You love comics, and graphic novels, and you like to doodle, but perhaps you’ve never finished a multi-page comic story? Or, you are a veteran comics creator and want to draw a new one! Now’s your chance to create a mini-comic during one week this summer.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/teen-summer-diy-comic-boo...

Categories: Book, Short Story, and Nonfiction

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Teen Summer: From Story to Screen: Intro to Screenwriting

In this screenwriting and film workshop, we will learn Aristotle’s poetics, character work, scene writing, and dialogue. Further, we will immerse ourselves in clips from movies and short films and discuss how they relate to our learning techniques.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/teen-summer-from-story-to...

Categories: Kids

Revolutionary Poetics

Because poetry, by definition, is political, even the choice to write apolitical poetry is a political one. In this workshop, we will develop our writing craft while engaging in revolutionary political education, specifically as it relates to the Black Power and Black Arts Movements.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/revolutionary-poetics-su24

Categories: Poetry

Developing Your Personal Essay - Pacific Time!

This workshop is designed for essay writers who are already working on personal essay projects and want to receive feedback in a supportive and constructively critical environment. The class will include workshops of student writing, discussions on the art and craft, and readings of exemplary works in the genre.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/developing-your-personal-...

Categories: Essay and Nonfiction

Teen Summer: August Week of Creative Writing

Whether you’re working towards a novel or writing short stories, poetry, plays or genre-fluid experiments, this is an opportunity to improve your skills and learn about different literary techniques to help your big ideas come to life.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/teen-summer-august-week-o...

Categories: Short Story, Essay, Fiction, Kids, Nonfiction, and Poetry

The Tough Stuff: Strategies for Writing About Pain, Trauma, and Loss

Writing through heartbreak and loss can provide a tool for discovering the insight lurking beneath the pain. Such writing will stir readers’ emotions, even helping process their own pain. Instructor Andrea Meyer will assign readings and writing exercises to help you tell your darkest, scariest, and most gratifying stories.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/seminar/the-tough-stuff-strategies...

Categories: Fiction, Short Story, Book, Essay, and Nonfiction

Prerequisites: At least one act or thirty pages of a screenplay or television pilot completed.

Teen Summer: DreamSpaces, Folklore, and Afrofuturism: World Building through Memory

Have you ever inserted yourself in a memory that wasn’t yours? Woke up with a sense of deja vu you couldn’t shake? In this workshop we will practice entering our DreamSpaces–memory guided planes constructed under fragments of our past present and future–to sharpen world building in our writing.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/teen-summer-dreamspaces-f...

Categories: Short Story, Book, Fiction, and Kids

Intro to the Personal Essay

If you want to learn the art of writing personal essays, but have no idea where to begin (or you need a refresher), this course is for you. Over six weeks, you will learn the essentials of the personal essay and put them into practice by writing your own drafts.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/intro-to-the-personal-ess...

Open all year round

Energize Your Short Fiction

In this intensive six-week course, we will apply some real-life forms of energy (potential, gravitational, elastic, kinetic, electrical, magnetic, nuclear and thermal) to identify which aspects of our fiction are fizzing, and which might need a boost.

Website: https://grubstreet.org/workshop/energize-your-short-ficti...

Categories: Fiction and Short Story

So you’re looking for creative writing classes in Boston

Congrats! By committing to taking a creative writing class in Boston, you’ve taken a big step towards improving your writing skills, and what better place to do it than in The City on a Hill? Some of the world’s most famous authors have come from Boston, including Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, and Louisa May Alcott—and you may be next to join their ranks.

This directory of the best writing courses in Boston is meant to help you locate the right one for yourself.  We’ve included filters for price and genre so that you can quickly sort through the writing classes. And before you commit to any one writing class, consider the following questions:

• Who is the instructor?
• What is the price of the writing course?
• How far away is the writing course in Boston? Is there a remote alternative?
• How long could the course last?

Got any questions about finding the right writing class in Boston for you? Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] . Good luck!

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Creative Writing

English majors, primary or secondary, can declare a Concentration in Creative Writing. (Non-majors may pursue the Letter of Specialization in Creative Writing.)   The Concentration in Creative Writing leads students through a sequence of introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses. All creative writing courses invite students to work in various forms, styles, and modes, and they provide training in the elements of prosody and the craft of storytelling. Working with the UMass English Department’s esteemed creative writing faculty, students:

• Workshop their original stories, novel chapters, poems, and essays
• Study deeply the craft of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction with a focus in one genre
• Learn to read like writers

This concentration prepares students for successful careers as writers and equips them with important skills. Across fields and professions, few qualities are as prized among employers today as creativity and facility with expressive written communication.

Related offerings

Students interested in our Creative Writing may also be interested in these other offerings.

• Bachelor of Arts in English

Develop your capacity for empathy and critical thought in an English program noted for small classes, engaged faculty, and diverse educational opportunities.

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Creative Writing

College of arts & sciences, introduction to creative writing.

Primarily a creative writing workshop, in which students write and revise their own short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and read their peers' work with generosity, providing constructive feedback. Students also learn to read closely the work of literary masters past and present. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Aesthetic Exploration. 4 cr. Tuition: $3180

Summer 2 (July 2-August 8)

Reading and Writing Literary Nonfiction

Prereq: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CAS EN 120 or CAS WR 100 or CAS WR 120) and two previous literature courses or junior or senior standing. This reading and writing seminar explores literary nonfiction, a wide-ranging, sometimes controversial genre in which writers use techniques associated with fiction and poetry to make meaning of lives. How do writers describe their world, especially peoples, places, and things? What are different ways of using personal voice? Each weekly meeting includes discussion of published nonfiction along with writing short exercises, and workshopping writing. The learning goals of this course are to become better readers and more skillful practitioners of the craft of literary nonfiction. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Creativity/Innovation. 4 cr. Tuition: $3180

Summer 1 (May 22-June 26)

Interdisciplinary Studies in Creative Writing: Writer as Illustrator

A workshop-based class, for the artist interested in creative writing, the creative writer interested in art and the history of comics, or any student interested in interdisciplinary studies in humanities. Explores the overlaps between the disciplines of creative writing and illustration, as well as the surprises and difficulties that arise when combining the two. Students write and revise their own creative works, as well as receive feedback from their classmates and professor in the workshop environment. Readings include literary works, comics, and historical articles. 4 cr. Tuition: $3180

Summer 1 (May 21-June 27)

Nadia Colburn

Align your story ®

• About Nadia
• Upcoming Events
• Poetry of Attention: Online Poetry Course
• Write From Your Center 31 Day Mindfulness Writing Course
• Align Your Story
• Writing Coaching
• Online Healing Yoga Workshops and Coaching
• Writing for Healing Trauma – Workshops and Coaching
• I Say the Sky: Book
• The High Shelf: Book
• Selected Poetry
• Selected Essays
• Align Your Story Interview Series
• Featured Interviews and Podcasts
• Free Resources
• Student Login

Hi, I'm Nadia! Writer and Founder of Align Your Story School.

Write your best work and use the power of literature for transformative, compassionate change—individually and collectively..

Bring the power of meditation and writing together with a 15-minute audio recording that guides you in a practice to center and write. Join 30,000+ mindful writers.

I’m Nadia. My work explores the relationship between voice, body, spirit, and action.

I invite students and readers to use the power of literature for transformative, compassionate change—individually and collectively.

"Colburn connects words to earth, body to family, and family to nature. Here, language is sacred; uttering a word, composing a line, writing a stanza is a prayer of joy even if the context is loss; even loss can be an occasion to be grateful. Colburn has given poetry a breath that revives it, that urges others to see deeper and reclaim their humanity. "—Jimmy Santiago Baca

"In poems at once profound and accessible, Nadia Colburn finds splendor and astonishment in a natural world—and a human world—that is deeply troubled yet still majestically beautiful. Both elegy and celebration, I Say the Sky addresses some of the most challenging aspects of human existence, from childhood trauma to environmental devastation, and discovers, in unexpected and clear-sighted ways, wisdom, wonder, and peace.

Colburn's brilliant second book charts a journey to meet the self. From girlhood to parenthood, loss to discovery, in poems that sing, the book explores how meaning is made. Claiming the female voice from silence, the poems find their grounding in the body and achieve rootedness and hope.

I Say the Sky is a meditative and ultimately inspiring book that will be savored by seasoned readers as well as those new to poetry." See more about the book here.

Join the I Say the Sky 7-Day Meditation & Writing Challenge — FREE with book purchase!

In this 7-Day Meditation and Writing Challenge!, we'll be going on a journey inward and exploring the roots of our creative voice and we'll be writing toward the light.  Join me and a community of hundreds of other mindful writers to unlock your creative voice .

For more details on this unique offering, click  below   to explore the transformative practice.

See the schedule of live and virtual book events here .

Nadia Colburn •   Writer, Teacher, Yogi, Activist. 

I’m so glad you’re here!

In my own writing, I explore questions of the body, motherhood, trauma, healing, social and environmental justice, and the power of narrative.

My full-length poetry collection, The High Shelf , was published in the fall of 2019. Chase Twichell wrote of the collection: “Spare, brilliant, and open-hearted, these poems do what we most need art to do in this perilous age: they show how the mind invents both itself and its world, and thus where our responsibility lies. This is a book that will reward both readers of poetry and those seeking insight into suffering and resilience. An exhilarating read.”

My second poetry book, I Say the Sky , was published in early 2024 by  University Press of Kentucky. Jimmy Santiago Baca writes of the book "Colburn connects words to earth, body to family, and family to nature. Here, language is sacred; uttering a word, composing a line, writing a stanza is a prayer of joy even if the context is loss; even loss can be an occasion to be grateful. Colburn has given poetry a breath that revives it, that urges others to see deeper and reclaim their humanity."

I also write creative nonfiction, personal essays and lyric memoir, where I explore the intersection of my personal stories with the larger social, historic, environmental stories around us. 

I’m particularly interested in how the literature we read helps orient us to the world. 

My poetry and prose have won awards and been widely published in more than 80 national publications including  The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, LA Review of Books, Lion’s Roar, Spirituality & Health,  and  Boston Globe Magazine .

I’ve worked with thousands of students and offer in-person creative writing classes in the Boston area, and online writing classes that often bring together meditation, yoga and writing, in-person retreats, and one-on-one coaching.

I've seen again and again that we write our best work when we bring our full selves to our writing and attend to both craft and process, the mind and the body.

I bring together my more traditional academic background with a more holistic, mindful approach. I have a BA from Harvard and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University and have taught literature and creative writing at MIT, Lesley, Stonehill College, and Grub Street. I've offered lectures and retreats at  Harvard Divinity School, Copper Beech Institute, and Mass Poetry Festival, and Omega Institute. I’m the writer-in-residence at Northeastern's Center For Spirituality, Dialogue and Service. I'm also a serious student of Thich Nhat Hanh, a certified yoga teacher, an activist for peace, equity and the environment, and mother of two.

I have a wide variety of programs and can develop programs suited to your individual needs. Please reach out to me with any questions!

Nadia Colburn is truly one of those very great teachers

One-on-One Coaching

Write your best work! Whether you are a beginning writer or a professional writer, whether you are writing for your own personal healing, writing a dissertation, or writing to publish, I will accompany you every step of the way.  From process to product, from first imaginings through the publication process, I will be your guide and companion. I work with only a handful of select clients for one-on-one coaching. See more below and contact me to see if we're a good fit.

ALIGN YOUR STORY SCHOOL

Mindful, embodied writing., a holistic approach to online creative writing courses, online writing classes for poetry, nonfiction, memoir, healing & more..

Students can log in here.  

Align Your Story for Women

A unique online writing class for women with yoga, meditation, close readings, and more to integrate mind, body & spirit. Bring your writing to the next level, trust your voice, and write your best work —with more power and more ease.

***Join the waitlist to be notified when the class reopens here !****

Write From Your Center : The Meditation & Writing Practice 

This mindful writing course is designed for writers and non-writers alike to help you jumpstart your writing, reconnect with your center, and access your deep creativity. Be guided in a transformative writing practice.

Poetry as contemplative Practice. Be more mindful, wake up, read, write, and live more fully. This class will take you deep into the craft and practice of poetry. Learn how to attentively read great poems as a writer and step into your own poetic voice.  Enrollment opens Fall 2024!

Taking Nadia’s class changed my life and I do not exaggerate when I say ​it was how I found my true life, my true self.

At last I discovered a writing mentor, Nadia Colburn, who dares to value both the craft of writing and one’s personal journey of body, mind, spirit and voice.

My Creative Writing Blog

Motherhood, filling in the blanks, omega retreat this fall, & more, wishing for something else…, nadia colburn in conversation with paul hawken, jacqueline suskin and nadia colburn: poetry and the earth, writing, pleasure, and s&x, free workshop: writing as practice, listening to your body: writing, yoga, and a free class, access your creative voice on a deeper level.

Mindful tools for writers: meditations, writing prompts, publishing guides, and more.

Get unlimited access to my free resource library and weekly or bi-weekly emails with reflections, meditation, tips, and more. 

Copyright 2024 Nadia Colburn