Fall courses ~ Welcome to Creative Writing, Personal Stories and Intensive Creative Writing ~ offered online and in-person

Welcome to Creative Writing

10 weeks of discovering your creative side

Online: 
(On Zoom and available wherever there's Internet)

Tuesday afternoons, 1 – 3 p.m.
September 28 – December 7, 2021 {no class Oct 26}

This is your chance to take up writing in a warm, supportive environment. This course will open the door to writing short stories and writing dialogue, writing in first person and writing in third person, writing just for fun and writing all kinds of things. 

You’ll get a shot of inspiration every week and an assignment to keep you going till the next class. Best of all, this class will provide a zero-pressure, totally safe setting, where your words will grow and flower.

Fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Writing Personal Stories

9 weeks of sharing and writing

Online (on Zoom and available wherever there's Internet): Monday afternoons, 12:45 – 2:45 p.m.
Sept 27 – Dec 13, 2021 {no class Oct 11 or Oct 25}

In-Person: Wednesday evenings, 6:45 – 8:45 p.m.
Sept 29 – Nov 24, 2021
St. Elizabeth’s Church, 5324 Bromley Rd, Burlington, Ontario. Map here. – Still space in this class.
As we're meeting in-person, all participants should be fully vaccinated, we'll keep the class small and intimate, and we'll observe any public health rules still effect – masks or whatever. And given the unpredictable nature of the Pandemic, it’s possible this course will have to revert to being online.

If you've ever considered writing your personal stories, this course is for you. We’ll look at memoirs, travel writing, personal essays, family history ~ personal stories of all kinds. Plus, of course, we’ll work on creativity and writing technique and have fun doing it. 

Whether you want to write a book or just get your thoughts down on paper, this weekly course will get you going. We'll reveal the tricks and conventions of telling true stories, and we’ll show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Weekly writing exercises and friendly feedback from the instructor will help you move forward on this writing adventure. Whether you want to write for your family and friends or for a wider public, don't miss this course.

For the in-person, Tuesday afternoon class, we'll have Jennifer M. Smith, author of Green Ghost, Blue Ocean for our guest speaker. The guest speaker for the online, Monday afternoon class will be Sue Williams, author of Ready to Come About. More details here.

Fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Intensive Creative Writing

12 weeks of growth as a writer

Online ~ 3 different sessions: 
(On Zoom and available wherever there's Internet)

Tuesday evenings,  6:30 – 8:45
Sept 14 – Dec 7, 2021 {no class Oct 26} – still room in this session

Thursday afternoons, 12:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Sept 23 – Dec 16, 2021 {no class Oct 21}

Friday mornings, 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Sept 17 – Dec 10, 2021 {no class Oct 22}

Intensive Creative Writing isn't for beginners; it's for people who have been writing for a while or who have done a course or two before and are working on their own projects. You’ll be asked to bring in five pieces of your writing for detailed feedback, including three long pieces. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on. 

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures addressing the needs of the group, and in addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

Fee: $229.20 + hst = $259

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Instructor Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published.   

Read reviews of Brian's various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.