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Taking a Second Look at First Drafts
Taking a Second Look at First Drafts with Chaya Grossberg
Four Tuesdays, January 7-28, 5:30-7pm**
Cost: $100-$200 sliding scale*
Do you have a writing project you are working on or have abandoned and need inspiration and community to look at it with fresh eyes? This writing and revision workshop is for writers of any experience level who want to revisit a piece of writing and explore it from different angles, perhaps being surprised by what you find! In this class, you’ll have the chance to play with and explore ideas, images and characters in a low-pressure process to become more intimate with your written work and what stories it wants to tell. Poetry/fiction and non-fiction content is all welcome. This workshop is screen free (unless you need an accommodation), so please bring a hand written or printed copy of one or two pages of your draft you would like to start exploring to the first session.
To register, email programs@nohoarts.org or call the Center at 413-584-7327. Please include your name, address, and telephone contact. Course fees are payable in advance by check to “NCFA” and can be mailed to the Northampton Center for the Arts, PO Box 366, Northampton MA 01061, or by Paypal here.
*Payments on the upper end of the scale help support our commitment to sliding scale rates, as well as our low teacher/participant ratio. Financial aid is available through our Community Fund.
**If classes are cancelled due to winter weather, they will be made up on the first two Tuesdays in February at the same time. We recommend holding these dates open just in case!
Chaya Grossberg has been writing poetry, stories, and non-fiction since she was a child and has been actively blogging for over a decade. She has facilitated creative writing groups and workshops for over 20 years for teenagers and adults, for writers, aspiring writers at various levels, and for trauma survivors and those seeking healing. She has published poetry books, a memoir, and other writings and led writing groups, classes and open mics, from coast to coast, including NYC, SF and here in Western Mass. Chaya has been writing daily for 25 years.
Poetry Breakthrough 2025
Poetry Breakthrough 2025
Three Wednesday workshops, April 2, 9, and 16, 7:00-9:00pm
Cost: $35-$65 sliding scale* per workshop, Register for one or all three!
Are you creating consistently compelling drafts? Satisfied with your revision process? Comfortable with your ability to share your work publicly? If not, this is your chance to become a poetry triple threat! This series is for poets who want more from their practice. If it’s time to make a bigger commitment to your writing life, increase your current output, and improve your ability to share your work, these intensives are for you! Register for one or all three!
April 2: I FEEL A DRAFT: CLOSE READING AND EXTREME REVISION
This workshop supports participants in turning drafts into poems. We will explore our satisfactions and dissatisfactions with our writing practice. We will discuss and demonstrate close reading, and how this affects revision. We will also discuss steps to achieving finished poems and collections. Each participant will offer one poem to the group for workshopping.
April 9: YOUR WRITING OBSESSION: CONSTRAINT AND VULNERABILITY
This workshop support participants in creating or honing their process for success. Writing can leave us in a dilemma between public exposure and personal vulnerability. This workshop will explore constraints we put on ourselves that can either promote or hinder our creativity. Also, we will practice generative exercises that help us acclimate to discomfort, and produce work that connects deeply with readers.
April 16: GOING PUBLIC: PUBLISHING AND PERFORMING
This workshop support participants in valuing their writing. If you are brave enough to share your writing, how do you deal with the fickleness and competition inherent in the industry? What can you do to make your submissions and presentations more compelling? Each participant will perform a short reading and receive feedback. Limited to 8 participants.
To register, email programs@nohoarts.org (preferred) or call the Center at 413-584-7327. Please include your name, address, and telephone contact. Course fees are payable in advance by check to “NCFA” and can be mailed to the Northampton Center for the Arts, PO Box 366, Northampton MA 01061, or by Paypal here.
*Payments on the upper end of the scale help support our commitment to sliding scale rates, as well as our low teacher/participant ratio. Financial aid is available through our Community Fund.
Michael Favala Goldman is an award-winning poet, jazz clarinetist, and translator of Danish literature. Michael’s eight books of original poetry include Small Sovereign, which took first place at the 2022 Los Angeles Book Festival. Among his seventeen translated books is Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, which made the New York Times Best Books of the Century as book three of The Copenhagen Trilogy. His work has appeared in scores of publications including The New Yorker, Rattle, and The Harvard Review. He has been running poetry critique groups since 2018. https://michaelfavalagoldman.com/
Poetry Critique Meet-up - Online
Poetry Critique Meet-up
Saturday, December 21, 1:00-3:30pm
Sunday, December 22, 1:00-3:30pm
Saturday, Jan 11, 1:00-3:30pm
Sunday, Jan 12, 1:00-3:30pm
COST: BY DONATION*, SUGGESTED SLIDING SCALE $25-$40. No one turned away for lack of funds, Limited to five participants. Register early!
Poetry Critique Meet-up is a twice-monthly chance for poets to give and receive immediate constructive feedback on their poems by everyone in attendance. Learn what is working in your poems, and what may need revision. Contribute your observations to other poets. Be fascinated by the breadth of the written word. Moderated by translator and poet Michael Favala Goldman. New dates are added throughout the year!
Please register in advance through Straw Dog Writers Guild! Please pay through the Center for the Arts via Paypal here, via Venmo @Northampton-CenterForTheArts, or by mailing a check made out to NCFA to PO Box 366, Northampton, MA 01061. Please note Poetry Meet-up in the memo line.
These workshops are held in memory of Eli Daniel Nemetz Todd, and made possible by donations to NCFA in Eli’s honor.
For questions about the meet-ups, please email: hammerandhorn@gmail.com.
Michael Favala Goldman is author of five poetry collections and translator of sixteen books. His work has appeared in scores of publications such as The New Yorker, The Harvard Review, and Rattle Magazine. https://michaelfavalagoldman.com/
Michael’s blog about the Poetry Critique Meet-up: http://strawdogwriters.org/blog/poetry-meet-up
* Donations on the upper end of the scale help support our continued commitment to accessibility, including offering sliding scale models and out Community Fund.