Workshop of Pure Critique with Peter Bricklebank (via Zoom)

Whether writing in a garret, ivory tower, pandemic lockdown or a fever pitch of blind faith, at some point writers need a hothouse workshop environment in which to appraise and develop their work. Each week in Pure Critique, we’ll read and comment on a manuscript from 2-3 class participants (everyone gets to present at least twice) and ask what works, what seems less effective, and why, as well as what one might try.

Participants test chapters or extracts from their novels and memoirs or short stories and essays, or sometimes curious chimeric hybrids as their draft searches for form. What you will find in this class is a forum for ongoing, astute feedback that will help you keep working. We’ll discuss whatever issues of writing may come up—perhaps whether a metaphor works or you even need one, the question of research, the efficacy of dialogue, scene, narrative chronology, diction (is…