This course will be housed in a private site, which means that once the term is over you will continue to have access its material for the lifetime of the course. Writing in Unknown Shapes is not, however, an “on-demand” course, as we’ll be moving through the curriculum together. Each week I will share a video lecture and a collection of writing/journal prompts which align with our focus. There will also be a weekly discussion in our private Discord channel, and you’ll have the opportunity to submit questions for office hours. Office hours questions will be due by the end of the day each Friday, with a recorded office hours video released on (or before) Sunday. The video lectures will be closed-captioned (AI generated which I will do my best to edit!).

Beginning with the Autumn 2022 session, there will be several optional live events associated with the course! However, these are bonus events; all lectures and course materials will be available asynchronously.

Tuition can be paid as a one-time payment of $555, two payments of $278, or five payments of $111.

This course covers a fair amount of material, but I also try to be cognizant of the work and life constraints you are probably also negotiating. In terms of your commitment in participating in this course, I estimate that you’d need at least three hours a week to really follow the weekly content in real time, or a minimum of an hour and a half to do the bare minimum (of just watching the lectures and checking in on Discord). I’d personally probably need longer than three hours to absorb the content and apply it to my project—but you can always go back into any of the lectures when you’re ready to digest it, even after the course is finished. (And by the way, if you have a hectic week and fall behind, you won’t be “locked out” of the following weeks’ modules.)

Anyways, here’s an estimate and breakdown of time required for each element of the course:

• An hour for the video lectures, which will total approximately 45 to 60 minutes each week (sometimes they might be a little less or more; there might be an occasional “bonus” video that delves deeper into a particular topic). I’m going to see if I can figure out also uploading the lectures as just an audio file you could listen to podcast-style while you go about other business, too.

• An hour to engage with some of the journal and writing prompts (which would be easy to break up into pieces); this would be on top of other writing you might do, but also could be folded into it.

• At least 15 minutes to pop into Discord and see what’s going on (probably longer if you want to engage with your cohort more fully)

• Office hours videos will range in length according to the number of questions submitted, but will be at max 60 minutes (usually shorter), and is more of a bonus resource for you more than something you’re expected to watch

• Doing any reading related to lectures is optional, and could add another half-hour (or hours!) of engagement, depending on your inclination and availability

Some kind of participation in the Discord channel on a weekly basis is very encouraged! It is also the channel I’ll be using to post announcements.

Previous students of this class have said getting to hear about other students’ projects, thinking, and questions through Discord was an important part of the course for them. It’s also one of the more regular “accountability” measures of the container of this course. With that said, if the Discord thing is a deal-breaker for you, it’s ok. You’ll need to introduce yourself to stay in the server, but after that point you can just let me know you’ll be sitting it out.

There won’t be assigned reading, but I will sometimes talk about some books and other forms of writing in the lectures. I try to discuss these texts in a way that makes sense even if you haven’t read them, and whenever possible, I’ll include links to published writing available at no cost. However, when you enroll in the course you’ll have access to our syllabus which lists some books I’ll reference in the lecture, in case you’d like to have them on hand as a reference.

You will have indefinite access to these materials. I plan to keep offering this course—and in the event that my own life circumstance changes, I will continue to host this material. However, in the event that I do need to close this course up, you will be given ample notice, so you can save anything you want to save. (I’d aim for six months or more.) I also can’t account for unforeseen events (such as the unlikely but possible demise of the internet or etc)—y’know, that kind of thing. But you can expect multiple years of course access, at a minimum.

This course will be most beneficial to those who have an interest in creative or unconventional forms of writing—and especially those who are actively thinking about or working on a writing project—but there is no specific prerequisite for the course in terms of training or courses taken. Previous students of Writing in Unknown Shapes have both not taken a writing class since high school and have MFAs/MSs and/or PhDs. I have tried to distill (and make accessible) the most significant lessons I’ve learned through my own studies, as well as provide the tools I’ve picked up as someone who has taken on very ambitious writing projects without actually having the technical or craft-specific training to match them. The course is structured to provide the kinds of tools and frameworks that aren’t necessarily available in genre-focused writing courses (whether those are academic genres or creative ones), rather than assuming you already know them.

If you’re just looking for some basic tools for doing argumentative or college-level writing, this is probably not the best course for you, because it’s not going to focus on that kind of linear writing. That would probably be my main caution, but otherwise please feel free to join! And if you have any specific questions about your own situation, don’t hesitate to get in touch.