Writer's Studio
Writer's Studio Workshop
Come study the art of writing in intensive, fun, hands-on workshops with dynamic instructors from Stanford’s writing, literature, and arts programs. Each week focuses on a specific craft element or process, with opportunity to experiment and practice. You’ll leave with an expanded understanding of what your writing can do. Designed for students but open to the whole Stanford community, the workshops are held most Mondays from 6:00-7:30pm when classes are in session at Stanford. Unless otherwise noted, workshops are at the Hume Center, Room 201.
Winter Quarter 2025 Workshop Schedule
Session Date | Description | Facilitator |
---|---|---|
Monday, Jan 27 | Writing Into Birdsong | Kevin DiPirro |
Monday, Feb 3 | Propulsive Dialogue | Tom Freeland |
Monday, Feb 10 | Images to Spur Imagination | Valerie Kinsey |
Monday, Feb 14 | PLAY-Writing: Harnessing Joy in the Creative Process | Megan Calfas |
Monday, March 3 | The Idea of TV Pilots | Adam Tobin |
Writing Into Birdsong
Monday, January 27 with Kevin DiPirro
How does rhythm unlock the energy of a line? How do repeating patterns of stress and unstress make beats, create musicality, create song? In this workshop we will apprentice ourselves to some of the best song-makers on the planet—song-birds—and see what their calls might unlock in us. Following a brief intro to scansion and meter through poet Richard Kenney, we will try our hand at various actual bird-call patterns, including the sparrow, to play deeply with various forms of meters as drivers of our written lines. Often made the terrain of poets and song-makers, the rhythmic gifts of our companion species may enrich the color and texture of whatever kinds of lines we are creating. This workshop will be useful for all wordsmiths—from poets and spoken word artists to short story and script writers.
Kevin DiPirro is a playwright, theater-maker, and deviser who teaches in PWR as advanced lecturer. His plays have appeared in New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Stanford. A Hewlett Fellow for American TheatreMagazine, Kevin’s most recent work, The Songs in My Pocket, a performance walk, was undertaken on Stanford’s campus in the Richard Serra installation, Succession, behind Cantor.
Propulsive Dialogue
Monday, February 3 with Kevin DiPirro
What makes for good dialogue? How can we use dialogue to propel a story forward, without wandering into digression or cliché? This workshop will explore the composition of effective dialogue, drawing on examples from playwriting, journalism, history, and first-person narrative to formulate principles of clear, authentic voice in storytelling. We will experiment with the rhythms of speech, the music of word choice, and the balance of enigma and information that pull listeners forward in their seats to catch the next line.
Tom Freeland received his BFA and MA in Theatre from the University of Colorado and his PhD in Drama from Stanford. He has appeared in a number of professional productions of works by Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht (among others). He also directs, writes and translates plays. Since 2000, he has been a Lecturer in the Oral Communication Program at Stanford.
Images to Spur Imagination
Monday, February 10 with Valerie Kinsey
Images play a central, often organizing role in stories. They can serve as inspiration or a means of developing and deepening your narrative. Images are vehicles that can take your writing in new, exciting directions, propel you from beginning to end. In this workshop, we’ll either seek to launch a brand-new project or breathe fresh life into an ongoing one by introducing or developing a central image. Bring an intriguing image or select from a pile of curated pictures whose stories are waiting to be told.
Valerie Kinsey is a Lecturer in Stanford’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric. Her fiction has appeared in Angel City Review, Adelaide, Arcturus and elsewhere; she also writes personal essays, which have been published in Evening Street Press and Streetlight Magazine. She earned her MFA (creative writing) and PhD (English) at the University of New Mexico. In PWR she teaches Framing Reality: The Rhetoric of Documentaries.
PLAY-Writing: Harnessing Joy in the Creative Process
Monday, February 24 with Megan Calfas
Let's bring the play back into playwriting! By mixing tools from improvisational theater with writing exercises, we'll create dramatic scenes with a renewed sense of joy, spontaneity, and self-trust. We'll also explore practices that can help you break through creative blocks and access your flow state while writing. Join us and let your inner child take the reins for the night! No playwriting experience necessary.
Megan Calfas is a storyteller and educator based in San Francisco. She writes plays, produces podcasts, and performs improvisational theater and live, personal storytelling. She is the Program Coordinator and a Senior Producer for the Stanford Storytelling Project.
The Idea of TV Pilots
Monday, March 3 with Adam Tobin
Some of the most idiosyncratic, challenging, cinematic storytelling is in “television,” a medium that is constantly being redefined. Episodic or serialized, half-hour or hour, commercial or subscriber, ongoing or limited series, streaming or cable or broadcast -- these are all called TV. As the first episode launching a series, a pilot script needs to tell an engaging story, create an original world, channel the writer’s distinctive voice, introduce an ensemble of characters, and provide the possibility for dozens or hundreds of stories to come. This workshop will look at the building blocks of an idea for a television pilot and series and allow students to begin their journey into writing for "television."
Adam Tobin is a Senior Lecturer teaching screenwriting in the Film & Media Studies program in the Department of Art & Art History. He received his MFA in screenwriting from USC School of Cinematic Arts and worked in industry in Los Angeles and New York. He created the comedy series About a Girl and the reality show Best Friend's Date for Viacom's The-N Network, and has advised animation studios including DreamWorks Animation, Aardman Animation, and Twentieth Century Fox/Blue Sky Studios. He also wrote the book and lyrics for She Persisted: the Musical, a New York Times critic's pick, at the Atlantic Theatre Company.