Write Away!

Your story is yours--it's probably the only thing that is all yours--and you have the right to use it in any way you wish, to bend it into fiction, to transmute it into poetry, or serve it up as memoir. But before you can decide which way to shape your writing, you have to get into the habit of writing freely, reaching deep into the reservoir that is yours alone.

You have to find a way to turn off the editor or inner critic, those voices that are always ready to whisper in your ear and shut you down. The world is so fast to criticize that I like to focus on pleasure and encouragement in my workshops. In my experience, there is so much under the surface, waiting to be accessed. With a bit of navigational guidance and prompting, most students are able to locate and mine their own rich vein of material.

Instructor: Lynn Lauber, fiction writer, essayist, and teacher, has published the autobiographical fiction books, White Girls and 21 Sugar Street, and a memoir/writing book, Listen to Me: Writing Life into Meaning, all with W. W. Norton. Ms. Lauber's short stories and essays have been anthologized and have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times and the Boston Globe. She has taught writing classes at UCLA online, as well as private groups, for over 20 years.