Courses

Creativity comes naturally to us from childhood, but “real life” often gets in the way, with its critical voices and practical concerns squashing the impulse to put our ideas on paper and make art. Even if you can’t remember the last time you wrote anything beyond an email, text, or grocery list, the seeds of creativity are still inside you and need only a little coaxing to flourish again. Writing just a little every day not only takes away the anxiety of the blank page, but it also makes you more observant, more in touch with your surroundings as well as your imagination, and happier as a result. Every weekday for five weeks, you will receive a prompt, from which you should freewrite for 30–60 minutes (or whatever you can spare). These daily prompts will encourage you to sustain a creative flow while trying new techniques in creative nonfiction, fiction, and simple poetic forms. This course is for those who want to write without inhibition and have fun without an evaluative component. If you choose, you may post your writing in a thread to give and receive peer feedback and submit one 500-word piece each week for gentle instructor feedback. We will forge a creative community and find the quality of heightened awareness that comes from using creative writing as a way of being more present in the world.