Writing Rage

Saturdays: Feb 21 - Mar 13
12 - 2:30 p.m. EST

Led by MEGAN STIELSTRA
with guest authors Dan Sinker, Maggie Smith, Ashley C. Ford, & Carmen Maria Machado

$420

We’re writing in a time of collective rage. There’s an endless loop of desperate news cycles, an escalating risk to our bodies and our communities, an aching planet, and through it all, each of us is moving deeply personal mountains that no one else can see.

How do we show up to the page when it feels like the world is on fire? How do we find language for the fury, the fear, the grief, the gutpunch, the thing we can’t put down? The writer Lidia Yuknavitch says our bodies can’t possibly hold everything we’ve been given to carry—but the page can.

In this four-session course led by acclaimed essayist (and former axe-thrower) Megan Stielstra, we’ll spotlight different ways to channel this raw, raging emotion into skillful prose, examining the tools and techniques that other luminary writers— Carmen Maria Machado, Maggie Smith, Ashley C. Ford, and Dan Sinker—have used to wrestle with such demons into personal essays. In addition to these weekly author conversations, we’ll engage in activities to get our experiences out of the body and into the page, encouraging risk and discovery and examining literary craft in new ways. How much distance is needed between the experience and the writing? How can craft—tone, place, character, scene-building, research—help us crack down the walls we put up for ourselves around the rage we really want to write about? And how can our rage propel us—a positive release into art and change?

This is a generative/discussion-based class, so there is no workshop component, but there will be opportunities to ask questions and talk through challenges in what you’re working on. Storytellers in all genres are welcome. Need to jumpstart an ongoing project? Need to finalize a manuscript for submission/publication? Need to get this story out of your body so you don’t have to carry it anymore? Let’s make it happen.

In this course, students can expect to:

• Hone a set of new craft tools for transferring rage from the body to the page

• Learn to identify, hone, and wield rage as a creative force 

• Engage with renowned authors in the rage writing canon

• Generate new work through prompted, in-class writing exercises and guided work to do on your own throughout the week 

About the Instructors

Details

This course will take place on Zoom on Saturdays February 21 - March 13 from 12 to 2:30 p.m. EST. Participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the course as well as a recording of the course afterward, which will be available for two months.

After you take a course with Off Assignment, you’ll be invited into our private writing community for alumni on Slack. It includes channels for publication opportunities, reading recommendations, meet-ups, and more—not to mention literary companionship that outlasts the course itself.

There is a 10% cancellation fee if you cancel your enrollment more than 1 week before the start of the course. No refund will be given if cancelling within less than a week of the course start date (or after the course has begun).

Please email courses@offassignment.com with any questions.

FAQs →

Financial Aid

The full price for this course is $420, with early bird pricing at $370 available until November 25.

A limited number of scholarships for this course are available. Please fill out this form by January 31, and we’ll get back to you within a week after the deadline. (Please hold off on registering until you have received a scholarship update.)

Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses that delve deep into a specific writing topic by harnessing the expertise and craft tactics of a renowned writer in a particular niche, plus four celebrated authors. Participating writers gain a wealth of advanced techniques while benefiting from a cohesive community of disciplined writers.