What if you had the courage to write freely about the people from your past — both alive and dead — who have played a complicated role in your life’s story? What if you were able to write through your fear of legal repercussions, getting in trouble, betraying your closest confidants or damaging relationships beyond repair? What if you could talk to a writer who has written honestly about their parents, siblings, exes and themselves in the public eye and faced down personal and professional consequences as a result? In this workshop, we will spend each week examining a piece of published writing(s) that BWC Founder Molly Rosen penned for The Cut, featuring a close family member or friend and review if/how the relationship changed because of it. Together we’ll work through the issues that get in the way of you telling the “true” story you want to tell — the good, the bad, the ugly. Weekly free-writes with Teaching Assistant Misha Sumar will help you dive into your memories and generate without overthinking. We will discuss the consequences of writing about real people in real time and examine how other writers have approached these obstacles (Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, Alex Auder, Margo Steines) in their own work. You will leave with a whole new set of hacks that make possible for you to write the impossible on the page.

Each class will be capped at ten people. Our sliding scale options welcome a more diverse participation. If the cost of this course exceeds your financial capacity, please email info@brooklynwriterscollective.com and we will try our best to accommodate — if not this session, than a future one. 

What You’ll Get:

• Weekly free-writes with TA Misha Sumar.

• A syllabus featuring essays, writing prompts, reading + listening recommendations.

• An invitation to the BWC Google Group, a digital community comprised of all students from the past 6 years.

• Access to pre-recorded Brain Break interviews with Molly Rosen Guy and Alex Auder, Margo Steines, Melissa Febos, and more.

• One 30-minute creative ideation session with Molly Rosen Guy.

THURSDAY MORNING WORKSHOPS: 9:30 am - 12:00 pm EST February 13th, 20th, 27th, March 6th

TUESDAY FREE WRITES (optional) meet from 9:00 - 10:00 am EST