Workshops and Presentations

The following workshops have proved popular with schools, universities, colleges, writing groups, conferences and community centers. Please call to negotiate workshops on other topics, or to plan half-day, full day or weekend programs. All workshops can be offered in conjunction with hands-on writing and critique.   

Love in Good Time
More performances than just author readings, Claire's presentations based upon her daring and engaging memoir have charmed and moved audiences from New Hampshire to Georgia. Claire involves her audience within the first five minutes and uses her work as a starting point for conversation about personal writing. 

Visiting Writer Workshops
Claire has visited numerous classrooms, community centers, book groups, gay groups, seminaries and colleges, both in the US and the UK, to talk about the writing life. These visits can be tailored to the needs of any population, from preteens to seniors, and can include readings and/or writing exercises for participants of all levels and experience

Memoir Writing
These workshops cover all aspects of memoir writing and are suitable for any audience, from senior citizens to young adults. By engaging in writing exercises and group feedback, participants will discover central themes in their life stories and leave with the motivation, information and confidence they need to begin writing.

The Creative Process
This cross genre workshop explores the nature of the creative process and the tenuous balance artists strive to maintain: between discipline and accident, order and chaos, conscious and subconscious, vision and re-vision, feelings and analysis, abstraction and description, humility and ego. This dialogue provides a useful starting point for cross curricular collaboration between artists working in different forms, such as fiction, poetry, dance, graphic art, music and sculpture.

Why You Should Write
This presentation is suitable for any young adult audience. It is designed to encourage and motivate young writers and get them thinking about the role of Art and its importance to human survival. However, it does not shy away from some of the issues that young writers face — most notably a sense of dislocation and difference from their community.

Making Personal Writing Safe
Many teachers are uncertain about how to begin, structure and manage the writing process, since any foray into the personal lives of students involves risk. This workshop offers strategies that will help teachers to encourage honest, passionate writing while maintaining a safe and comfortable classroom.

Book Promotion
This workshop will offer advice on everything from placing reviews, interviews and feature articles, to planning and executing successful readings at a variety of venues. We will view the many stages of book promotion with two questions in mind: Who is your audience? Where will you find them?

How to Get Published
This workshop is a comprehensive guide to the journey towards publication, and covers everything from cover letters to copy write and publishers to postage. Writers are encouraged to bring work they'd like to see published.

Writing Groups That Work
Writing can be fun and rewarding — it can also be lonely and difficult. A good writing group offers a place to share work, get feedback, celebrate success and move beyond disappointment. Members can pool resources and information. However, tactless comments and rudderless discussions can frazzle even the most patient and turn friends into enemies. This workshops offers ways to begin and maintain a lively, productive group in which every member feels heard. 

Queer Literature
What makes literature 'gay'? What special challenges are faced by lesbian, gay and transsexual writers? In this workshop, participants will use the work of contemporary queer writers and their own experience of reading and writing about queer life to build a solid foundation upon which to function as readers and writers.

Yes! You Can Write!!
This series of six workshops is designed for total beginners. Participants will write in every session, in addition to discussing the key elements of the craft. We'll look for ways to help each other along with useful constructive feedback, but our priority will be to keep those pens moving!

Revision
The ability to revise our work depends upon our ability both to see honestly and to craft wisely. A variety of approaches to the revision process will be offered. Writers will employ them to revise a piece of work of their own choosing and then discuss the process. Participants will leave with the tools they need to turn a first draft into a manuscript they're happy with.

How to Craft a Compelling Scene
When Andy Warhol filmed a sleeping friend, he was telling us that life is not always interesting. Part of the writer's job is to craft scenes that grab our interest by choosing the right "slice of pie" and serving it up attractively — as Ayn Rand says, "to show it as if it were happening before the reader's eyes." Participants are invited to bring one scene from a work in progress.  

Creative Nonfiction
This well-established genre is a perfect place for writers to begin their journey, since it employs the rich techniques of fiction and poetry, but is rooted in the realities of our lives. Where does journaling end and creative nonfiction begin? What liberties can we take with the truth? This workshop answers these questions and more.

Writing About Love
Love of family. Love of self. Love of God. Physical love. In one way or another, we find ourselves writing about these topics when we write about our lives, and yet — they're the most difficult things to write about! This workshop explores ways to avoid maudlin mush and mechanical matings. 

Writing Your Erotic Fantasy
Write erotica from start to finish, foreplay to grand climax! Produce work that is fresh and frolicsome! This will be a fun, low impact workshop for writers in all genres and genders. Just bring pen and passion and leave those inhibitions at home!

Choosing Genres
Why do we choose the genres we choose? What makes a poem a poem? What are the special demands and challenges of plays, short stories, novels, even songs and art? This workshop looks at the artistic choices that we make and the reasons we make them.

Contact Claire for current prices.

Be sure to check out Knickersnap, Claire's copy-writing and editorial services website.