Conversations and Connections: Practical Advice on Writing, DC 2019

This generative workshop will help participants dig deeper into their ideas for personal essays to identify what they have to say about a topic that's fresh, new, and exciting. Through a series of brief exercises, participants will write their way into the fiery core of an experience they feel compelled to write about, stripping away layers of cliche and tired tropes until they find the thing that only they can say. We'll also talk more generally about how to know when your idea is moving a conversation forward, and when you're repeating ideas that are already out there.

This be useful for is anyone who writes (or wants to write) personal essays. This will be useful because one of the biggest challenges of personal essay writing is finding a fresh and exciting angle through which to explore universal experiences so that editors (and readers) feel like they're getting something brand new.