Attending Workshops In-Person

If you register to attend in-person, your workshop(s) will be held at Thurber Center (91 Jefferson Avenue, Columbus, OH 43215), next door to Thurber House. There is free parking on Jefferson Avenue and in our back parking lot, accessible off N. 11th Street.

ABOUT

A gripping or quiet scene in a story can be equally compelling. As a writer, getting that moment onto the page, however, can be frustrating. Should you “show” or “tell” what happens? Is the scenic moment witnessed by—or felt by—your narrator (memoir) or your character (fiction)? In this workshop, with a nod to author Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and The Story, we’ll explore several ways in which effective scene-making uses both showing and telling. We’ll discuss how/when to choose one method and not the other, explore fascinating scenes by several authors, and have fun generating our own vivid scenes. By workshop’s end, you’ll have several tools for making a scene to help you move your story forward—or to get started on one!

INSTRUCTOR

Lisa Lopez Snyder is an essayist and short story writer. Her pieces have been featured in 34th Parallel, Adelaide, The Raleigh Review, The Summerset Review, The Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, and other publications. Her essay, “In Transit,” won The Chattahoochee Review’s 2011 Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction and she was named the 2015 Carl Sandburg Writer-in-Residence. She received her MFA in creative writing at the University of South Carolina and went on to teach first-year writing at Dartmouth College. She is currently working on a memoir-in-essays about being a paper girl in Huber Heights, Ohio.

ABOUT

Looking for your next career step (or side hustle)? Want to try your hand at freelance writing? Learn how to generate income from selling articles to publications that will pay you—without any of the dreaded marketing required to sell books. Workshop instructor Kathryn Haueisen has sold over 100 freelance articles to print and online publications. During our two hours together, we’ll discuss the benefits of freelance writing, finding potential markets, pitching appropriate queries, and submitting professional articles. Boost your writing income and expand your publication resume!

Instructor

Kathryn Haueisen spends her retirement days researching and writing about historical encounters among different cultures and people making beneficial contributions to our global village. She's used her degree in journalism from Bowling Green State to publish seven books and over 100 articles. She writes from Reynoldsburg, Ohio.

ABOUT

Let’s get writing! This workshop will focus on writing essays and short stories of 600 words or less. Starting a long form project like a novel can feel overwhelming—why not get your creative juices flowing and a consistent writing practice established with something shorter? Having a limited word count can force you to carefully choose words, ruthlessly edit your work, and craft your short piece to perfection—all while keeping the elements that emotionally move the reader. We’ll talk about tools and techniques for taking your short piece from start to finish, including how to perceptively draw inspiration from your surroundings, effectively give your work “space” to let the story percolate, and more. An in-class exercise will focus on creating a story from a photograph, quote, or newspaper snippet.

INSTRUCTOR

Author Beth Armstrong’s memoir Voices From The Ape House was published in March of 2020 by Trillium/Ohio State University Press. Since early 2023, she has been a monthly columnist for the Clintonville Spotlight newspaper. Her essays have appeared in The Columbus Dispatch and 614 Magazine. Prior to becoming a writer, she was a gorilla keeper and the first conservation coordinator for the Columbus Zoo. Those years spent observing animal behaviors taught her the power of quietly watching the world, with many of those moments becoming the basis for her essays and stories. Beth believes that every person has a story to tell, that stories have the power to change the world, and that stories can alter people’s perspectives by creating space for empathy to grow and thrive. Beth earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from OSU while working full-time at the zoo. Beth has given numerous lectures at international conferences about captive gorilla behaviors and husbandry, as well as the zoo community’s conservation efforts and commitment.

ABOUT

In a world increasingly dominated by AI, how can a human writer possibly compete? For one thing, human beings possess something AI can never replicate: our powerful, quirky, and authentically creative minds. This generative workshop will utilize prompts, play, and reflective practice to unlock the magic of our imagination and ingenuity. We'll explore poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction as we discuss how to establish and maintain a sustainable, daily creative writing practice. Should AI be part of your writing process? We’ll talk about that a little bit too.

Note: this workshop is mainly focused on cultivating your creativity, not AI—although parts of the workshop will touch on AI.

INSTRUCTOR

Heather Frese’s debut novel, The Baddest Girl on the Planet, won the Lee Smith Novel Prize. Her second novel, The Saddest Girl on the Beach, released in 2024. Her work has been published widely, earning notable mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Essays. She received her master’s degree from Ohio University and her M.F.A. from West Virginia University. Coastal North Carolina is her longtime love and source of inspiration, her writing deeply influenced by the wild magic and history of the Outer Banks. She currently writes, edits, and teaches in Raleigh, North Carolina.

ABOUT

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to successfully build a new world for fiction—whether it's a totally fantastical universe or simply a fictional town in our own world. During the class, participants will collaborate to create a setting by adding elements to a map, then answer a series of questions to flesh out the rules and customs of this invented place. Finally, everyone will write a short exercise about a character living in the setting and (if desired) share their story with the group. Participants will walk away brimming with new ideas, tools, and techniques for creating their own fictional worlds.

INSTRUCTOR

Mar Romasco-Moore is the author of the novels Deadstream, I Am the Ghost in Your House, Krazyland, and Some Kind of Animal, as well as Ghostographs, an interconnected collection of flash fiction inspired by vintage photographs. Their stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Fireside, DIAGRAM, Hobart, Interfictions, Kaleidotrope, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and the anthology Women Destroy Science Fiction. They received an MFA from Southern Illinois University and currently teach writing at Columbus College of Art and Design.

ABOUT

In this 90-minute class, Andrew will provide an overview of his path to publication, including his experience successfully pitching nonfiction books, novels, and short stories. He'll discuss being a traditionally published author with a university press and two New York City publishers, as well as the process of obtaining and working with an agent. He'll outline tips for writing, revising, pitching, manuscript acceptance, publisher edits, pre-publication marketing, and publication itself. Following his presentation, he'll open the floor to questions on any and all aspects of writing, editing, and pursuing publication, with a goal of serving as a resource for writers in the early stages of their creative ventures.

INSTRUCTOR

Crime novelist Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the author of more than a dozen books, including the critically acclaimed new thriller The Mailman and the Shamus Award-nominated Andy Hayes private eye series. Andrew edited the anthology Columbus Noir and has written and published more than 50 short mystery and sci-fi stories. Andrew's nonfiction book, No Winners Here Tonight, is the definitive history of the Ohio death penalty.

ABOUT

Whether it’s Falstaff, Bigger Thomas, Forrest Gump, or a Colson Whitehead or Sally Rooney protagonist, when readers have deep feelings about a character, it enriches the reader’s experience. (For workshop instructor Bob Balmer, the main character of Cold Mountain was so real, so alive, so fraught with humanity, and so desperate that he couldn’t stop turning the pages to see if he’d make it home.) In this workshop, you’ll learn to create characters who are compelling, who seem real, and who embody an aspect of humanity that the reader will identify with and root for (or against). Instructional material will be delivered using PowerPoint, lecture, discussion, writing exercises, and pair share. We’ll talk about round vs. flat characters, the contradictions that come with being human, using real people (including yourself) as templates for characters, how to use “flat” characters to give insight into the main characters, and how to add depth to your characters with unique personality, appearance, and ethical details.

INSTRUCTOR

Bob Balmer is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Smithsonian, Golf Illustrated, ZYZZYVA, The Oregonian, The Seattle Times, Oregon Coast Magazine, The Guide, and other print media. His work has aired on MarketPlace, The Savvy Traveler, and Oregon Public Radio and Television. Bob is a retired teacher, and for the past seven years has facilitated writing workshops on the West Coast.

Thank you to our major arts supporters:

The Harry C. Moores Foundation