24PearlStreet Workshops
ASYNCHRONOUS with LIVE elements
In this workshop, we will work all week on turning your unfinished essay, your idea for an essay, or your good but not good enough essay into a kick-ass essay. A kick-ass essay takes your personal story and makes it universal. It makes the reader laugh or cry or both. And it sticks with the reader long after they’ve finished it. Together we will read examples of such essays by Jonathan Lethem, Jo-Ann Beard and others and discuss what makes them so powerful. And we will work on your essay with the goal of making it sing.
Optional LIVE elements: two Zoom conferences–one at the start of the week and one at the end.
Biography
Ann Hood is the bestselling author of fourteen novels, including The Knitting Circle, The Obituary Writer, and The Book That Matters Most; and four memoirs. Her memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief was a NYT Editor’s Choice and was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. Her essays and stories have appeared in many publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Travel and Leisure, Food and Wine, National Geographic Traveler, and The Paris Review. She has won two Pushcart Prizes, two Best American Food Writing Awards, and a Best American Travel Writing and Best American Spiritual Writing Award. Her most recent book is FLY GIRL, a memoir about her time as a TWA flight attendant during the Golden Age of flying.