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SUMMARY:Lunch & Learn with QWF
DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, April 7\, 2026\, 12:00–1:00 pm ETOpen to all—register for Zoom link\n\n\n\nLooking to learn more about QWF\, what we do\, and how we can help you as a writer? \n\n\n\nJoin us for a Lunch & Learn with QWF! \n\n\n\nIn this quarterly online orientation session\, we provide a deep dive into our many programs and services and how we can help you in your writing journey. Whether you’re new to QWF\, want to learn about a particular program\, or simply want to meet the team\, we welcome you to join us. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRiley Palanca (Membership Services Coordinator) will discuss QWF programs and services for emerging and aspiring writers\, including our mentorship program\, Shut Up & Write writing sessions\, and writing workshops. \n\n\n\nLori Schubert (Executive Director) will explain QWF programs and services for more established writers\, including the Writers in the Community program\, the Hire a Writer Directory\, and the QWF Awards. \n\n\n\nJohn Wickham (Communications Officer) will provide a brief tour of the website\, highlighting sections and resources that are particularly useful to QWF members. \n\n\n\nFree and open to all. We hope to see you there! \n\n\n\nTo get the Zoom link: Fill out the registration form. You’ll receive the Zoom link by email shortly thereafter. \n\n\n\nIf you have trouble registering or joining the meeting\, contact John at john@qwf.org. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLunch & Learn with QWF is our quarterly orientation series to welcome new members and provide an overview of QWF’s activities. The next one after April 7 will be in July. Learn more about our Lunch & Learn series. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREGISTER NOW
URL:https://qwf.org/event/lunch-learn-with-qwf-apr-2026/
LOCATION:Online – Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link
CATEGORIES:Lunch & Learn,QWF Events,Webinar
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T174500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T194500
DTSTAMP:20260411T143049
CREATED:20251211T190000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251211T190725Z
UID:10004704-1775583900-1775591100@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Being There: Research for Writers
DESCRIPTION:How do you get that “being there” feeling? How much do you need to know about a particular time and place you’re after before launching yourself into a writing project? And what are the differing needs for fiction and nonfiction writers? \n\n\n\nThe objective in this workshop is two-fold: finding out what you need to bring your project to completion\, and listening to what you are discovering and letting your discoveries guide you. The art of the accident\, the coincidence\, changing on the fly\, is very much part of the research process. \n\n\n\nA quick note for potential participants: Is this workshop for fiction or nonfiction writers? Both. I have reported as a journalist from the same zones of conflict I later used in a novel\, and getting the necessary information on events there was the same for both types of writing. As a novelist\, I was free to mix and match and fantasize about what I had found\, whereas as a journalist\, I was bound by the facts. \n\n\n\nThis is how the workshop will proceed\, respecting the needs of the participants\, of course. We will bring in our research issues\, resolved or not\, pending or not\, real or imagined (“what if I wanted to know this?”). We’ll then turn to the work of learning what we want to know\, and how. Always with the question in mind: why? Why do we want to know such-and-such? How will it fit into the story we need to tell? How can we avoid over-researching\, or failing to assimilate our research into our writing? \n\n\n\nWe’ll pay special attention to the moral aspects of turning over stones when writing about friends\, family\, people we are or have been intimate with. We’ll look into topics very much on page 1 of people’s work\, like PTSD\, family violence\, etc. And no workshop can be carried out without looking at the technological advances (such as the Global Investigative Journalism Network) that allow us to gaze upon a landscape or a battlefield from the comfort of our living rooms. \n\n\n\nParticipants should bring in their own work to the group\, but also examples from other books and articles they feel provided the “being there” feeling. As a group\, we will create a community of fellow writers that will hopefully outlive this short workshop.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/being-there-research-for-writers/2026-04-07/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T174500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T194500
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CREATED:20251211T190728Z
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SUMMARY:Crafting a Compelling Personal Essay
DESCRIPTION:The personal essay sits at the crossroads of memory\, imagination\, and reflection. It is a form that invites vulnerability and experimentation\, asking writers to turn the lens inward while reaching outward toward readers. This ten-week workshop explores the craft of creative nonfiction through readings\, discussion\, and guided writing exercises. Together\, we’ll study a wide range of contemporary essayists and thinkers such as Sheila Heti\, Alicia Elliott\, Maggie Nelson\, James Baldwin\, Leslie Jamison\, and Joan Didion\, whose work challenges and expands our understanding of form\, voice\, structure\, and truth-telling. \n\n\n\nEach week\, participants will write in response to prompts designed to help them develop their voice\, experiment with structure\, and explore the ethical and emotional complexities of writing about real lives (our own and others’). We will discuss fragments and braids\, confession and restraint\, intimacy and distance\, always returning to the central question: how do we shape lived experience into compelling art? \n\n\n\nBy the end of the workshop\, participants will have generated several essay fragments and drafts\, gained tools for revision\, and deepened their understanding of the essay as both a personal and public act. Writers will leave with at least one essay draft they can continue to refine beyond the course. No prior experience is required—just a willingness to read closely\, write bravely\, and share generously. \n\n\n\nWeek 1 — What Is a Personal Essay? \n\n\n\nTheme: Truth\, memory\, and the boundaries of nonfiction.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nSarah Manguso\, The Two Kinds of Decay (selections)\n\n\n\nJoan Didion\, “On Keeping a Notebook”\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nIntroductions & course goals\n\n\n\nDiscuss “truth” vs. “fact” in essay\n\n\n\nPrompt: Write a short scene from memory\, then annotate where memory fails\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Write a 600–800-word vignette about a formative memory. \n\n\n\nWeek 2 — Memory and Fragment \n\n\n\nTheme: Shaping nonlinear memory.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nSheila Heti\, Motherhood (fragmented passages)\n\n\n\nMaggie Nelson\, Bluets (selections)\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nDiscussion: how fragment builds resonance\n\n\n\nExercise: Write three fragmentary takes on the same memory\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Develop a mosaic-style essay (1\,000 words). \n\n\n\nWeek 3 — Intimacy and Confession \n\n\n\nTheme: The essayist’s voice and vulnerability.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nAlicia Elliott\, “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” (title essay)\n\n\n\nLeslie Jamison\, The Empathy Exams (title essay excerpt)\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nConfessional vs. performative honesty\n\n\n\nPrompt: Write a letter to someone you cannot send it to\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Expand into a 1\,200-word letter-essay. \n\n\n\nWeek 4 — Deepening Voice\, Tone & Emotional Register \n\n\n\nTheme: How voice\, tone\, and emotional distance shape the personal essay.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nZadie Smith\, “Fail Better”\n\n\n\nKatherena Vermette\, selected interviews on writing community\, trauma\, and point of view\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nDiscuss tonal shifts: intimacy\, distance\, authority\, hesitance\n\n\n\nExercise: Rewrite a paragraph in three distinct tonal registers (tender\, analytical\, ironic)\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Revise your Week 3 letter-essay with purposeful tonal modulation. \n\n\n\nWeek 5 — Structure and Form \n\n\n\nTheme: Chronology\, braiding\, and experimentation.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nSarah Manguso replaced here to avoid repetition →NEW reading:\n\nJenny Offill\, Dept. of Speculation (fragmented passages on structure)\n\n\n\n\n\nEula Biss\, “Time and Distance Overcome”\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nDiscuss braiding personal + cultural history\n\n\n\nExercise: Write a short braided passage (memory + outside text/reference)\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Draft a braided essay (1\,200–1\,500 words). \n\n\n\nWeek 6 — The Self as Character \n\n\n\nTheme: Distance between narrator and narrated self.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nSheila Heti\, How Should a Person Be? (essayistic passages)\n\n\n\nJames Baldwin\, “Notes of a Native Son” (opening sections)\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nCompare Baldwin’s authority with Heti’s uncertainty\n\n\n\nPrompt: Write a scene twice — once from the past self’s POV\, once from the present self’s POV\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Develop one version into a polished essay draft. \n\n\n\nWeek 7 — Risk\, Ethics\, and Responsibility \n\n\n\nTheme: Writing what feels dangerous; truth vs. harm.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nKatherena Vermette\, interview excerpts on writing community\, family\, trauma\n\n\n\nAlexander Chee\, “The Autobiography of My Novel”\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nDebate: what’s “too much” to share?\n\n\n\nWorkshop 2–3 student essays\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Revise draft based on feedback. \n\n\n\nWeek 8 — Revision and Compression \n\n\n\nTheme: Re-seeing\, cutting\, deepening.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nJenny Offill\, Dept. of Speculation (compression and brevity passages)\n\n\n\nJoan Didion\, “Goodbye to All That”\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nRevision strategies (How to “write coldly”)\n\n\n\nPrompt: Take a draft and cut it to 70% length without losing essence\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Prepare a near-final essay draft (1\,500–2\,000 words). \n\n\n\nWeek 9 — Workshop Intensive & Thematic Excavation \n\n\n\nTheme: Deep structural and thematic revision.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nNone — focus on student manuscripts.\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nHalf-class workshop\n\n\n\nIdentifying the essay’s “governing question”\n\n\n\nDiscuss strategies for expansion vs. contraction\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Revise based on workshop + draft your artistic statement. \n\n\n\nWeek 10 — Final Workshop & Publication Paths \n\n\n\nTheme: Reflection and sharing.Readings: \n\n\n\n\nNone — focus on participant work.\n\n\n\n\nIn-Class: \n\n\n\n\nFinal peer workshop\n\n\n\nDiscuss venues for publishing personal essays (journals\, anthologies\, online mags)\n\n\n\nClosing: Write a brief artistic statement on your personal essay practice\n\n\n\n\nHomework: Submit final essay + artistic statement. \n\n\n\nBy the end\, students will have:\n\n\n\nA stronger sense of their essayistic voice and relationship to truth. \n\n\n\nA good command of how to craft a compelling personal essay. \n\n\n\nExperience with both traditional and experimental essay forms.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/crafting-a-compelling-personal-essay/2026-04-07/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260407T220000
DTSTAMP:20260411T143049
CREATED:20251211T190727Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251211T190727Z
UID:10004722-1775592000-1775599200@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Creative Play for Writers (Online)
DESCRIPTION:This workshop is designed for writers from any genre but artists from other mediums are welcome to join. \n\n\n\nYou can’t use up creativity. The more you use\, the more you have.~ Maya Angelou \n\n\n\nMany writers have other creative outlets. Maya Angelou danced. D.H. Lawrence painted. Miranda July makes films. Creativity thrives across disciplines and when writers tap into other art forms\, surprising things can happen on the page. \n\n\n\nCreative Play for Writers is an online exploratory workshop that uses visual art\, music\, movement\, film\, and more to spark new writing. Each session invites you to engage with a different form of creative expression—not to master it\, but to play with it—and discover how it can fuel your storytelling. \n\n\n\nYou’ll respond to rich\, sensory prompts\, collaborate with others\, and experiment freely\, both during the Zoom sessions and with set exercises in between classes. Whether you’re feeling stuck\, looking for new inspiration\, or simply aiming to reconnect with the joy of making things\, this workshop offers a playful and supportive online space to expand your creative practice. \n\n\n\nWe will explore exercises and readings from Syllabus by Lynda Barry\, Workbook by Steven Heighton\, and The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad. We will also touch on the ideas and art of Rebecca Belmore and Elizabeth Zvonar\, among others\, as inspiration. Weekly exercises and homework will be given.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/creative-play-for-writers-online/2026-04-07/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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