Litquake Year-Round

$105

Researching that sprawling nonfiction book project, but finding yourself bogged down in the narrative?

Every great nonfiction book, from biography to academic tome to travelogue to memoir, needs the same arc, the same tension found in great fiction. But how to unearth the through-lines of your masterpiece? Back by popular demand is Litquake's Master Class Mixer with two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient, T.J. Stiles. Called “a superb researcher” by the Washington Post, Stiles recently won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History for Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America. He is also the winner of the 2010 Pulitzer for Biography and the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. A Guggenheim fellow, he has taught creative nonfiction at Columbia.

Classes are limited to just 15 students, lasts for three hours, and concludes with a reception for the author.

For each Master Class Mixer, we reserve the right to cancel at any time and issue a full refund or credit to a later class. If you are unable to attend your class, please email info@litquake.org at least seven days prior to receive a refund or credit, minus a $25 service charge. 

$105

Natalie Baszile won accolades for her debut novel Queen Sugar (which became a runaway New York Times bestseller and launched a hit TV show of the same name) for painting a vivid picture of the world of modern-day sugar cane farmers in Louisiana. O magazine called Queen Sugar “a sensory experience, a tableau vivant that Baszile skillfully paints in a palette simultaneously subtle and bold.” Creating a fictional world that sweeps the reader away is a skill all writers wish they had! Want to learn her secrets? Come to this class. Natalie Baszile has an MA in African American Studies from UCLA and earned an MFA at the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.

$105

Writing about loss, death, and traumatic events can be healing. But the books can be a bummer for readers unless the material is alchemized with style and skill. In this workshop, Katy Butler, known for her bestselling memoir Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, about caring for her dying parents, will show you how to find the upward arcs in your story and transform the "straw" of ordinary memory into the "gold" of a narrative that can electrify readers. Knocking on Heaven's Door was a major bestseller, named a Notable Book by The New York Times, a Buzz Book by Independent Booksellers Assoc., and one of the year’s Ten Best Memoirs by Publishers Weekly.

Classes are limited to just 15 students, lasts for three hours, and concludes with a reception for the author.

For each Master Class Mixer, we reserve the right to cancel at any time and issue a full refund or credit to a later class. If you are unable to attend your class, please email info@litquake.org at least seven days prior to receive a refund or credit, minus a $25 service charge.

$105

Not content with being worshipped as a minor god for his online presence as Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice columnist and co-founder of The Toast, a melange of feminist, parodic rewrites of classic literature, Daniel Mallory Ortberg made the leap to the printed page in 2014 with the wildly popular Texts from Jane Eyre, followed this year by The Merry Spinster – listed by many publications as one of the most anticipated books of the year. Litquake is thrilled to have Daniel teaching his first master class mixer, which will coach writers on moving from writing online to writing a book. Ortberg was included in the 2015 Forbes 30 under 30 list in the media category.  

$105

This fiction workshop will encourage you to make a mess—to let your writing unspool in unpredictable, organic ways; to welcome what surprises and disturbs you; to harness wildness without domesticating its energies. We will create from a (chaotic) sense of mission, discovery, and relentless curiosity. And we will learn how to do this consistently enough to make a lasting, vivid difference in our work.

Cristina García is the author of seven critically-acclaimed novels, including the recently-released Here in Berlin, King of Cuba, Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, and The Lady Matador’s Hotel. Her work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into 14 languages. A recipient of both a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant, Garcia has taught writing in dozens of locations, including Mills College, UCLA, USC, Hunter College and more. Of her fiction, Michiko Kakutani of The New York Timessays, "[García] is blessed with a poet’s ear for language, a historian’s fascination with the past, and a musician’s intuitive understanding of the ebb and flow of emotion.”

One of the biggest obstacles any writer faces is finishing the first draft of a novel. As Joyce Carol Oates said, "Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor." Enter Grant Faulkner, exec director of NaNoWriMo, the organization that has generated thousands of first-time novels, and created one of the most effective approaches to writing a first draft. Get ready to leap to new creative heights!

In this session, Faulkner (also the author of Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo), will provide a crash course in novel writing and a framework to finish your novel in 2019. He'll discuss the power of diving in, banishing one's inner editor, and taking creative risks. He'll also talk about the often disregarded keys behind every great work: setting an audacious goal and a deadline, tracking your daily progress, and connecting with others in a creative community.

This is your year to finish the novel of your dreams. Come with laptop or notepad prepared to write--with abandon!