We are pleased to announce two writing courses this fall:
Writing Romantic Stories with Vanessa Zoltan & Dana Schwartz and Writing Memoir, Telling Your Story in Eight Weeks with Vanessa Zoltan and Micaela Blei
PLEASE NOTE: All writing workshop participants should receive Zoom information immediately upon payment from the email address programs@notsorryproductions.com. If you have any other questions ahead of our first class on Sunday, October 6th, please email the course TA Norah Murphy at norah@notsorryproductions.com.
Writing Romantic Stories with Vanessa Zoltan & Dana Schwartz
November is “National Novel Writing Month” and we believe in the power of writing something without worrying about its quality and deeply engaging in imagination while in community during this time.
In “Writing Romantic Stories” we will spend the month of October learning about the beats and best practices of romantic story writing. Then we will spend one month writing 50,000 words as that blessed “bad first draft” of a novel. It will be four weeks of instruction and small group work and then four weeks of writing using the pomodoro method, some encouragement and small group check-ins.
For the last two years we have led classes about writing Romance-- stories about people falling in love and finding a happily ever after. This year we will be writing romantic stories-- where the happily ever after is not guaranteed.
Romantic stories can be small to operatic -- but they are where we explore how we feel about human connection. And like real life, in romantic fiction, you don’t know what will be thrown in your way and you don’t know how it will end. After all, even the truest love stories end eventually.
The details, writing romantic stories:
Tuition:
$450 Early Bird Tuition (Before August 1st)
$500 Standard Tuition (August 1st - October 4th)
Storytelling Bundle: If you wish to purchase both the Writing Romantic Stories Workshop and Memoir Writing Workshop, you can do so here.
$675 Early Bird Bundle Tuition (Before August 1st) or
$750 Standard Bundle Tuition (August 1st - October 4th)
Dates: Sundays, October 6th - November 24th from 11:30AM - 1:00PM EST
Recording: Class meetings will be recorded for asynchronous viewing, but the course is best experienced if participants attend each session live.
Scholarships: If you wish to participate but cannot do so without a scholarship, please submit your application here. We will begin offering partial scholarships in mid-August, so expect to hear from our team via email at programs@notsorryproductions.com.
Prep work or pre-reqs: None! The instructors have assignments ready for you when you arrive.
Writing Memoir, Telling Your Story in Eight Weeks with Vanessa Zoltan & Micaela Blei
November is “National Novel Writing Month” and we believe in the power of writing something without worrying about its quality and deeply engaging in imagination while in community during this time. We also believe that writing about ourselves is sometimes how we get to know ourselves.
In, “Writing Memoir” we will spend the month of October reflecting on different styles of memoirs, selecting a form and choosing stories from our lives that we want to tell. We will think about, “who is our audience?”, “why are we telling these stories, vs. other stories” and discuss the difference between writing for audio vs. writing to be read.
Then we will spend one month writing 50,000 words as that blessed “bad first draft” of our memoirs. It will be four weeks of instruction and small group work and then four weeks of writing using the pomodoro method, some encouragement and small group check-ins.
The details, Writing Memoir:
Tuition:
$450 Early Bird Tuition (Before August 1st)
$500 Standard Tuition (August 1st - October 4th)
Storytelling Bundle: If you wish to purchase both the Writing Romantic Stories Workshop and Memoir Writing Workshop, you can do so here.
$675 Early Bird Bundle Tuition (Before August 1st) or
$750 Standard Bundle Tuition (August 1st - October 4th)
Dates: Sundays, October 6th - October 27th from 2:00PM - 3:30PM EST and Sundays, November 3rd - November 24th from 11:30AM - 1:00PM EST
Recording: Class meetings will be recorded for asynchronous viewing, but the course is best experienced if participants attend each session live.
Scholarships: If you wish to participate but cannot do so without a scholarship, please submit your application here. We will begin offering partial scholarships in mid-August, so expect to hear from our team via email at programs@notsorryproductions.com.
Prep work or pre-reqs: None! The instructors have assignments ready for you when you arrive.
Faculty bios:
Vanessa Zoltan - Lead Instructor
Vanessa Zoltan is the CEO of Not Sorry Productions. She has her BA from Washington University in St. Louis in English and Creative Writing. She also has her Master's of Divinity from Harvard. She averages two Romance novels a week during her Romance spells. She hosted and co-created the first season of Hot & Bothered, which was all about writing Romance novels.
Her favorite romance trope is Marriage of Convenience, and during this class, she’ll be working on her story which is Friends to Lovers--her other favorite trope.
Micaela Blei - Memoir Instructor
Micaela Blei, PhD, is a storyteller, story editor and educator who lives in Portland, Maine. As a two-time Moth GrandSLAM champion storyteller and the former (founding) Director of Education at The Moth, she has over a decade of experience working with individuals, organizations and communities to shape and share the important stories of their lives. Her acclaimed workshops are invitations to reflection, spaces for discovery, and most of all— fun. Her own stories have appeared on The Moth Radio Hour, WGBH’s Stories from the Stage and live on sold-out storytelling stages nationwide. Her audio memoir, "You Will Not Recognize Your Life," is forthcoming from Audible Originals in Summer 2024. She has a BA in Literature from Yale University and a PhD in Education from New York University. You can see her stories and learn more about Micaela at micaelablei.com.
Dana Schwartz - Romantic Stories Instructor
Dana Schwartz is the author of five books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller, Anatomy: A Love Story. She is also the host and creator of the iHeartRadio history podcast Noble Blood, where she explores the stories of some of history’s most fascinating royals.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two cats, and she spends most of her time baking and learning strange facts about history.
Norah Murphy - Teaching Assistant
Norah is the teaching assistant for "What Matters." She received her BA in English from Harvard College, and her M.Phil in Irish Writing from Trinity College Dublin. She was previously an intern on Hot & Bothered, and she now works in publishing. When she’s not reading for work, she’s reading for pleasure and finding excuses to bake cake.
What to expect from Not Sorry Virtual Classes:
These writing workshops have capacity for an unlimited number of registrations. This means that each course might be 150+ people. With that being said, our instructors will make use of regular small group time, with breakout rooms of 5-10 participants in size.
Recordings: Meeting recordings will be emailed to all registered participants before Tuesday at 6:00PM EST and available for six months following the course end date (November 24th).
Immediately after registering, you should receive an email from programs@notsorryproductions.com with the Zoom link and some other basic information for the course. You will also receive another email within 72 hours of the course beginning from the course TA. Please check your spam folder first if you do not think you have received these emails!
Advanced Revision Track:
December 3, 2023 to January 21, 2024. 12-1:30pm ET.
So, you’ve written a first draft of a Romance novel, now what? After our amazing course last year came to a close, we heard from so many of you that you craved guidance about how to shape your project into a more fully realized book. This year, over eight weeks and six class sessions, our small group of fifteen participants will dive into the craft of revision.
In the first half of the course, we will discuss specific strategies to tackle the amorphous adventure of revising a book. We’ll read essays from famous writers with tips about how to revise, look at examples from novels we love, and break down the craft elements of what makes a story work. Then, you will have a two week break over the holidays to get cracking on the changes you envision (and rest, relax, and ring in the new year.) When we return together in 2024, we will have a combination of small group work and writing exercises that will help us with the final push of your first pass shaping the novel into its newly evolved state.
If you choose to join us for the full journey from October until the end of January, we hope that you’ll finish the course series with a full draft of a Romance novel with a clear view towards your aims for the project and how to get there. You’ll have learned new skills for drafting, revising, and conceptualizing large projects and gained a sense of community in the often isolating endeavor of novel writing.
The details:
Tuition: $500. The course will be capped at 15 participants. Unfortunately, we are not able to offer scholarships at this time.
Dates: Sundays starting at 12PM EST starting December 3rd and ending January 21st. Classes will be 90 minutes. We’ll have a two week holiday break in the middle of the course, taking December 24th (Christmas Eve) and December 31st (New Years Eve) off, so there will be six sessions over eight weeks.
Recording: Classes will not be recorded given the small group nature of the work we’ll be doing, so do your best to make sure you can attend our sessions live before registering.
Prep work or pre-reqs: Having attended or viewed the first eight sessions of the NaNoWriMo course and coming with a full first draft to start revising!
Experience: You do not have to consider yourself a writer, let alone an “advanced” one, to join this course. The only qualification necessary is a desire and commitment to polish up your manuscript after working so hard on it over the last few weeks.