Join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Virtual Summer Writing Retreat from 10 am – 12 pm EDT on Saturday July 25 and August 1 for Rita Banerjee’s Summer Writing Retreat series “Emotion & Suspense in Theatre, Poetry, and (Non)Fiction.”
Register for the July 25 session by July 24, 11 am EDT on cww.submittable.com and register for the August 1 session by July 31, 11 am EDT on cww.submittable.com!
Course Information:
Emotion & Suspense in Theatre, Poetry, and (Non)Fiction
Plato argues that human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. And before staging Kalidasa’s The Recognition of Śākuntalā, the director challenges his actress-lover: “As though in a painting, the entire audience has had their emotion colored through your melody. So now—what shall we perform to sustain the mood?” In this class, we will explore how creating vivid emotional worlds between characters and within storylines can build suspense, sustain drama, and lure the reader deeper in. Whether you’re currently working on a short story, novel, screenplay, theatrical play, lyrical essay, memoir, or narrative poem this class will help you craft a unique emotional landscape
1. Class 1 – Saturday, July 25, 10 am – 12 pm EDT online
Class seminar and writing session on rasa theory.
2. Class 2 – Saturday, August 1, 10 am – 12 pm EDT online
Workshop and sharing of writing featuring students’ rasa theory exercises.
About Rita Banerjee:
Rita Banerjee is the Director of the MFA in Writing & Publishing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and Creative Executive Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. She’s the author of several books including CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, 2018), the poetry collection Echo in Four Beats (FLP, 2018), which was nominated for the 2019 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize at the Academy of American Poets, the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps (SPR, 2016), and the poetry chapbook Cracklers at Night (FLP, 2010). She is the co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre (2021), a documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France. Her work also appears in PANK, Nat. Brut., Poets & Writers, Academy of American Poets, Vermont Public Radio, The Nervous Breakdown, Hunger Mountain, and elsewhere.
How to Register:
Students can sign-up individually for each class for $100 per class, or join the whole 2-part series for $200.
To register for class, please send in a short 1-5 page writing sample, 2 professional references, and a cover letter conveying your interest and a short bio of who you are as an author and where you are with you creative writing. This information will help our writing faculty get to know you as a writer and your writing goals.
Writers of all genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting, and film) are welcome to participate in Rita Banerjee’s online courses.
To join our Virtual Summer Writing Retreat, you will need access to broadband internet and a working video-camera and microphone on your computer. All classes will be taught on either Google Hangouts or Zoom. Invitations to class URLS will be sent out to all registered users before our classes begin, and instructors may share reading materials for class with registered students via Dropbox or Google Drive.
Register for the July 25 session by July 24, 11 am EDT on cww.submittable.com and register for the August 1 session by July 31, 11 am EDT on cww.submittable.com!
More info at cambridgewritersworkshop.org
Rita Banerjee 