Fishtrap’s Yearlong Writers Workshop
Is this the year to complete your manuscript?
Is this the year to finish that book?
Is this the year to tell your story?
Fishtrap’s Yearlong Writers Workshop is a 13-month intensive distance-learning program that focuses on one-on-one instruction to help you reach your goals as a writer. During the year, students work closely with their instructor exchanging monthly packets of writing for review and improvement. With each packet, the writer moves closer toward the development of a full-length manuscript.
What makes Fishtrap’s Yearlong program unique from other distance learning programs is how it begins and concludes with a week of in-person instruction at the annual Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers. Summer Fishtrap is a weeklong writers’ conference featuring workshops, craft talks, readings, conversations, and opportunities to connect with the unique community of writers. The Yearlong program is modeled after low residency MFA programs at about half the cost. So if you don’t need a degree but want high-quality sustained support for your writing, this program could be the perfect fit for you. Learn more about the upcoming Yearlong Writers Workshop and how to apply here.
NOTE on COVID-19: Summer Fishtrap is traditionally held in the inspiring setting of Wallowa Lake, but due to health and safety risks has been converted to a virtual experience for 2021. (More information here.)
2021-2022 Fishtrap Yearlong Writers Workshop with Sharma Shields
A Year of Firsts: Progressing from the First Lines of a Novel to a First Full Manuscript and Beyond
“Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It’s perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.” ― Jane Smiley
Join us for a year of firsts in a workshop that encourages kindness to oneself and to our fellow writers, held in a nurturing, non-competitive, generative environment where we understand that every first draft is both flawed and necessary.
We’ll begin the year studying and discussing our favorite first lines and chapters to our most beloved reads, guiding us toward entry points in our own narratives. As we develop our first chapters we’ll discuss arc, tone, tension, and pacing, taking note of surprising new avenues we might discover about our plot or characters as we carve our way forward. Moving into the middle of the work, we’ll work together to keep the story fresh and engaging, revisiting what we’ve written for both inspiration and to address any unresolved issues. When we finalize our first drafts, we’ll celebrate this major accomplishment, and then we’ll roll up our shirtsleeves and prepare for the real fun: Initial edits on a better, fuller, more publishable second draft.
Sharma Shields is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster, and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra. Sharma’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Electric Lit, Catapult, Slice, Slate, Fairy Tale Review, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and elsewhere and have garnered such prizes as the 2020 PNBA Award, 2016 Washington State Book Award,
the Autumn House Fiction Prize, the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor, a Grant for Artist Projects from Artist Trust, and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Washington and her MFA from the University of Montana. Sharma runs a small press, Scablands Books, and is a contributing editor for Moss. A current employee of Wishing Tree Books in Spokane, Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State. She lives with her husband (writer and graphic novelist Simeon Mills) and their two children.
Learn more at: sharmashields.com
The 2021-2022 Yearlong Writers Workshop with Sharma Shields
Tuition
$7,250 or $6,750 if paid in full by July 12, 2021
A $558 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your spot in the class.
Tuition is due in monthly payments of $558 starting July 12, 2021.
Tuition Includes
- Registration and Workshop instruction for the 2021 and 2022 Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers. Dates: July 12-18, 2021 (Virtual) and July 11-17, 2022.
- All individual monthly instruction during the Yearlong Writers’ Workshop course.
Tuition does NOT include
- Lodging or meals for the 2021 and 2022 Weeklong Summer Fishtrap Gatherings
- Transportation to or from Summer Fishtrap
- Materials and postage expenses
- Communications expenses
Click here for info on the 2022-2023 Yearlong Writers Workshop.