Workshops

Workshop Offerings for 2025

“There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as do exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.”

— Jessamyn West 

Winter 2025 Monday Night Creative Writing Workshop Series:

Oct 20 - Dec 1 (no meeting 11/24) 

6 sessions in this series

A fun and generative workshop especially for writers, journalers and artists of poetry, fiction, short story, novel, and screen writing. Do you wish you wrote more? Want to feel a sense of community when you write? Want to start a project or finish a book?

In-person and on zoom - sign up for the 6 wk series

6:30-8 pm Monday nights

 $200

This creative series is the most popular and longest-running workshop I offer.  Craft, technique, and prompts for fiction of all forms. A kick in the butt for your writing life! Waiting for inspiration is also called procrastination.  So don't wait - connect with a community and improve your writing process and practice. Mondays from 6:30 to 8 pm. This series will fill up fast as I keep the size of the group intimate. Sign up by email to tangledrootswriting@gmail.com or call 530-386-3901.

Dear Writers,

As I've mentioned, here are the details for my new submissions workshop series. You can sign up for all three at once, or join a la carte. These workshops are in person and on Zoom, just as the Monday night workshop series works.

This series is a practical workshop where I will present the newest and latest calls for submissions, give insights and strategies for organizing, planning, and tracking your submissions, and help with manuscript preparations. We will work on our research, selection, plans, and prepping the second half of the time together as we gather and submit our work. One take away will be a long term plan for organizing your submissions over the next 6 -12 months, taking a look at project goals and timing them with future open reading periods.

Submission Strategies for Publication Workshop Series: Where, how and when to submit

October 24, Nov 7 & Nov 21

Fridays @ Lunchtime, Noon – 1:30 pm

$35/session

In person and Online

Fall is the season for sending your work out for publication: poetry, short story, personal essay, journalism, book chapters, artist collaborations, mixed-media and hybrid genres. Get the details you need to plan where, how and when to submit. Handouts, tea, and chocolate too.

Work in a supportive community of writers to research the field, prepare your manuscripts, and submit them to a carefully selected field of publications:

·       Contests

·       Literary journals and Magazines

·       Anthologies

·       Calls for submissions

·       Collaborative arts

Discover new opportunities for your writing:

·       reviews

·       translation

·       prose and verse chapbooks (short story and essay)

·       first chapter submissions

·       artist residencies

·       conferences

Submitting work is a part of the business side of being a writer that can at times fall to the wayside as we write and read and imagine. For this reason, I think during the submission season in particular it's super productive to work in an accountability community of writers.

Free Truckee Library Creative Writing Workshop Series: Friday Mornings: 

10:30 am - Noon 

10031 Levon Ave, Truckee, CA 96161

This workshop series offers a creative space for writers of all ages and experience levels to explore new approaches to being creative on the page.  While this series focuses on writing your own story, these workshops include prompts that can lead to any form of writing - poetry, fiction, memoir, even songwriting. Of course, light refreshments are included!

Each workshop is a Friday morning from 10:30 - noon at the Truckee Library 

• August 22

• Sept 5

• Oct 3

• Nov 14

• Dec 12 

Shadows on the snow: writing winter poems (Hybrid workshop)

January 6th & 13th

2 sessions in this series

6-8 pm Monday nights

$75

In this special topic workshop series, we will look at sublime poems that hold the profound and the ordinary, that  find beauty in shadow, connection in cold, and through guiding prompts and discussion of form, we'll generate our own poems. This workshop includes gentle feedback from a professional editor on your writing as well.

 

2024 Workshop Series: Take action now on Literary Submissions and Publication with Guest Authors

Tuesday nights 6-8 pm

I offer this workshop series the beginning of each new year to refresh and revive our submission goals and process. If you took this workshop last year, all the more reason to take it again and pick up right where you left off. If you haven't yet taken it, get started now! We will share the latest news in the world of publishing in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Reassess your goals or set publishing goals for the first time in your writing life. Learn new tips for editing, researching, tracking submissions, publications. Strengthen your professional presence as a writer. Discover conferences and residencies and workshops that will feed your creativity, as well as scholarship and grant opportunities to help finances.

In a supportive community of writers, discuss tips and trends for submitting your work out into the world. Learn where to research resources for finding the best venue for a writing project and how to prepare a manuscript. Bring your specific questions to the workshops. In our optional work sessions, you can research, revise, edit, and prepare manuscripts for submission. If you are ready, push the SUBMIT button! 

$160

You will finish this series with a plan for submissions, work submitted, residencies and opportunities identified, and scholarships applied for! The workshop series will include the latest info:

• where to find the resources you need to get published in all genres

• guidance from an editor

• discussion of your specific questions

• detailed notes for each workshop

• the power of joining a community of writers 

• Literary magazine submissions, chapbooks, and contests for all genres 

• Author Platform - A plank is anything that gets your name, face, or work in front of interested people
  

• Writer residencies, conferences, and workshop opportunities for all genres 

 

Past Workshops 2023:

Poetry in the Garden mini-series Tuesdays, August 22 and 29

Even if you don’t get poetry, you will learn how to play with language and genre in this generative workshop! Write new poems and learn tips for re-entering a poem.

·       Prompts will guide your writing to discover new expression of form and technique.

·       Tea, chocolate, and community.

8/22 and 8/29

5:30-7:00 pm

$25 each night

Downtown Truckee

Hybrid! Book Project Workshop Series

Special Summer Series 2023: 5/16, 6/5, 7/11, 8/22 on Zoom and in person

“Literature is where I go to explore the highest and the lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.” – Salmon Rushdie

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."   - Elmore Leonard

 

In this intimate workshop, the goal is to work with a small, focused group of writers to structure and write a book project. Each session will include information and tools for developing your book project. We will read and write with focus on strengthening your writing skills and exploring meaning in your writing. This workshop is deadline- and goal-oriented to begin a new project or move forward with the next draft. You will get professional feedback for developing the heart of the subject as well as the organization of your project. Learn techniques to creatively unearth what really matters so that your writing stands out as surprising and original to an editor.  Expect  a supportive community, session notes, readings and deadlines to keep you accountable and move your craft of writing and your project forward. This workshop includes a one hour personal coaching session (a $75 dollar value).

 

$200 for three monthly sessions - choose dates from May through August.  One Evening of each month 5:30 - 7:30 pm. Limited to 6 participants. Hybrid (in person and on line). This workshop includes a one hour personal coaching session (a $75 dollar value).

2023 TBA Write a Blog that Stands Out in a Crowd

In this workshop series we will learn techniques to:

·         Find your blog’s purpose

·         Create juicy content

·         Build traffic and community

·         Make time to blog

·         Connect with your audience

·         Techniques to write quality content in less time

·         Develop Purpose and Audience

·         Revitalize a blog

·         Edit your own blog posts

 

One on One Coaching

Take charge of your writing career, a book project, professional communications, or your PhD dissertation by hiring a writing coach. I can help you improve your writing skills and offer support and guidance to reach your deadlines. Call me to talk about your goals.

For Students - Master your Writing Skills and prepare College Application Essays  

One specialty of my coaching is working with elementary and high school students in customized coaching sessions to develop and improve writing skills and a passion for writing. Call me to talk about what would best support your student.