NEW !
12-Week Writers Workshop:
Crafting the Power of Personal Essays
presented by
Journalist and Author
Maggie Downs, M.F.A.
All writers carefully craft words to draw in a reader. The reader needs to care about the topic. And most importantly, keep reading.
To engage your audience, your writing needs to express and 
reveal a larger meaning, a theme, a deeper truth beyond the details of plot and character.
Finding your voice? It is unique, yet can be molded to fit the story, changed to serve the subject. A skill to be crafted.
Creative non-fiction, memoir writing, blogs, magazine articles or your personal essay to an editor will require your skill to project an experience, to engage the reader.
This Personal Essay Writing workshop is a collaboration of the Palm Springs Writers Guild in partnership with PEN U.S.A.'s Pen in the Community.
PEN in the Community was developed from PEN Center USA's long-running program, PEN in the Classroom. Since 1995, PEN in the Classroom proudly published the written work of thousands of talented youth and adults. Other PEN in the Classroom programs have included The Literary Journal Program and The Bridge Program.
This event has sold out.
Workshop Details:
- Start Date: Monday, March 9, 2015
- Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
- Place: Westfield Mall, Pace Classroom #1, Palm Desert, CA
- 2-hours per week for 12-weeks. Interactive workshop will encourage committed writers to focus and improve creative skills through the medium of personal essays.
- The maximum workshop capacity is 18 people. Mandatory attendance. PSWG MEMBERS ONLY.
- Attendees will work as a group and one-on-one with the instructor.
- Participants will be expected to participate in discussions, complete in-session writing assignments.
- Homework and creative writing projects may also be assigned. Reading aloud and interactive discussion are part of the workshop format.
Published! Attendees will be required to finalize two personal essays by the end of the 12-weeks. The classroom essays will be a published, bound and distributed in a PEN Center anthology as part of the the PEN in the Community program.
PEN in the Community Public Reading: To help facilitate writers work to reach the public audience, the final part of the workshop will have participants give a public reading of their work. Date, Time & Place to be determined. Anthology copies are distributed to friends and family at the public reading.
Workshop Instructor: Maggie Downs, M.F.A.
Ohio-native and Palm Springs resident Maggie Downs is an award-winning journalist and columnist, appearing in the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, column, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Desert Sun, USA Today, Eating Well, The Rumpus and The Write Life. Her literary writing has been featured on the Rumpus, Punchnel's and The Write Life. Her short fiction "The Frequent Flier", won the Eaton Science Fiction Short Story Prize in 2013. She is a graduate of UCR Palm Desert's low-residency MFA Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.
This event has sold out.
- Members: $120.00
- ONLINE Registration and prepayment is required to confirm your seat.
- Sorry! No door sales.
- Online payment is available and is immediate.
- Water & light snack included.
- Members must login to enable discounted rate.
- Online credit card payment is preferred..
- PSWG is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Tax ID #43-2093738.
- Cancellation Policy requires a 72-hour prior notice for full refund less credit card fees.
Contact person for this workshop:
Diana Miller-Castells: President.PSWG@gmail.com
