Classes & Workshops
“Every course I have taken at NOWW has been on point! The teachers all share a passion for creativity! Inspiring indeed.”Isabella Christodoulou on NOWW Teachers
writing for children:
from Story to Submission
(All Levels, In-person)
Instructor: Michelle Dumont
Genre: Children’s Literature Ages 0 – 8
Number of Sessions: 4
Meets: 6-8 PM CT
Dates: Mondays, June 17 – July 8
Where: NOCCA Foundation
Cost: $200 /$185 before June 5, 2024
Take your children’s storytelling skills to the next level with our immersive 4-session workshop series.
Delve deeper into the art of writing for children as each session explores key topics. Learn advanced techniques for crafting relatable characters, constructing stories that captivate young readers, and enhancing narratives with vibrant illustrations.
Also gain valuable insights into the publishing process, including the roles of agents, publishers, self-publishing, and the query process.
Optional Add-On: Additionally, you will have the opportunity to submit your work for a written critique (maximum 1000 words) by Michelle within one week of class completion for an additional fee of $50 dollars.
Michelle Dumont
Michelle Dumont’s first children’s book, “The Mardi Gras Tail,” was released in January 2022 (Susan Schadt Press) and quickly became a beloved addition to the collection of children’s carnival season titles in New Orleans. Following this success, she published a second book, “An Alphabet Tail,” (Susan Schadt Press, 2022) and is currently working on the third book in the series.
Michelle is passionate about helping others find their voices and share their stories. Based on her professional experience in healthcare, she firmly believes that children’s literature not only fosters a love of reading but also establishes the groundwork for a healthier adulthood.
Structuring memoirs and novels
(All Levels, In-person)
Instructor: Anya Groner
Genre: Prose
Number of Sessions: 1
Meets: 6-8:30 PM CT
Dates: Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Where: NOCCA Foundation
Cost: $75/ Early bird until June 5 , 2024: $67
You’re likely working on a booksized project when your ideas feel too big to fit into your head. In this one-off class, we’ll discuss strategies for organizing and structuring large narrative projects like memoirs and novels. For creative thinkers, too much planning can feel constraining, but they don’t have to be. In this class we’ll practice tools for organizing and structuring big projects that still allow room for improvisation or even veering way off course. This workshop is useful for writers at any stage of the writing process, from a kernel of an idea to a full draft.
Optional Add-On for $50: Anya Groner is offering an addition 30-minute coaching session to talk through outlines, structures, book ideas after the class ends.
Anya Groner
Anya Groner’s essays and stories can be read in magazines including The Atlantic, The Oxford American, The New York Times, and Orion Magazine. Her writing has been recognized by Best American Short Stories, Best American Travel Writing and Best American Science Writing and she’s been awarded grants from Studio in the Woods, The Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Louisiana Board of Regents. Currently, she’s at work Plot of Land, a podcast from Monument Lab. In 2017, she helped co-found the New Orleans Writers Workshop, where she continues to teach.
Narrative Voice:craft and choice
(All Levels, In-person)
2Instructor: Allison Alsup
Genre: Prose
Number of Sessions: 2
Meets: 10 AM – 1 PM CT
Dates: Saturday and Sunday, June 29-30
Where: NOCCA Foundation
Cost: $150 /$135 through June 15, 2024
Every story, true or not, begins with a voice. Many readers (and writers) assume that voice is instinctual or a matter of having a good ear or a superlative vocabulary. But voice, like everything else in our writing, is a series of choices. The more we understand the effects of these choices, the more our words will connect with readers. As artists, experimenting with voice not only broadens our range but builds our confidence–and joy–and in our own work.
In this two day interactive workshop, we’ll explore how our initial choices, such as point of view, have consequences for the voice we wish to create. We’ll examine the advantages and limitations that come with each pov. We’ll also look at excerpts from contemporary writers before trying our own hand at custom, guided exercises designed to break us out of our usual comfort zone and boldly experiment. Finally we’ll discuss tried and true strategies for finding variety, range of tone and pacing within a given voice.
Suitable for both fiction and non-fiction writers, this workshop is designed for writers of all levels. Participants can expect to leave with several exploratory starts for further development as well as practical strategies for refining voice within their existing work.
Optional Add-On for $60: Participants have the option to receive written, detailed comments from the instructor. All submissions and comments to be completed post-workshop. Submission max: 2000 words.
Allison alsup
NOWW co-founder Allison Alsup‘s debut novel, Foreign Seed, will be published in June 2024 by Keylight Books. Her stories have won multiple contests and her work appears in the O’Henry Prize Stories 2014 and Best Food Writing 2015. She regularly teaches workshops through NOWW and oversees their developmental editing services. Allison holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Emerson College.
Craft essentials: From principles to the page
(All Levels, In-person)
Instructor: David Armand
Genre: Prose
Number of Sessions: 4
Meets: 1-4 PM CT
Dates: July 9 – 30, 2024
Where: St. Tammany Arts Association
Cost: $260/ Early bird until June 28, 2024: $240
Included in the tuition is a post-workshop written critique from the instructor, one that will offer detailed feedback and suggestions for revision on a sample of the student’s choosing.
david Armand
David Armand was born and raised in Louisiana. He has worked as a drywall hanger, a draftsman, and as a press operator in a flag printing factory. From 2017-2019, he served as Writer-in-Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he currently holds the Leola R. Purcell Endowed Professorship in English. In 2010, he won the George Garrett Fiction Prize for his first novel, The Pugilist’s Wife, which was published by Texas Review Press. He has since published three more novels, three collections of poetry, and a memoir. His latest book, Mirrors, was recently published by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press. Armand is also the 2022 recipient of the Louisiana Writer Award, which is presented annually by the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana, which recognizes outstanding contributions to Louisiana’s literary and intellectual life exemplified by a contemporary Louisiana writer’s body of work. Armand’s next novel, Walk the Night, is forthcoming from Texas Review Press.
Intro to Poetic Form
(All Levels, In-person)
Instructor: Tiana Nobile
Genre: Poetry
Number of Sessions: 1
Meets: 1-4 PM CT
Dates: Saturday, July 13, 2024
Where: NOCCA Foundation
Cost: $75/ Early bird until July 5, 2024: $67
What happens when we consider form as a space for exploration and discovery rather than limitation? In this class, participants will read and write both traditional forms (i.e. sonnet, ghazal) and modern, experimental forms (i.e. erasure, golden shovel). Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the diversity of poetic forms and leave with a handful of new drafts. Potential works to be discussed include poems by A. Van Jordan, Agha Shahid Ali, Harryette Mullen, and Jericho Brown, among others. This course is best suited for writers with some experience studying and writing poetry, however, is open to all who are interested.
Tiana Nobile
Tiana Nobile 문영신 is the author of Cleave (Hub City Press, 2021). She is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The New Republic, Guernica, and Southern Cultures, among others. A founding member of The Starlings Collective, she lives with her family in New Orleans, Louisiana. For more, visit www.tiananobile.com