Our first-ever Write Together session in January was such a wonderful experience that I’ve decided to offer it every January and June. The experience of writing together in silence, each in our little Zoom boxes, was simultaneously comforting and freeing. Was it the energy of knowing we were all writing together? The structure of a guided prompt and a time limit? The knowledge that we were writing for ourselves, but in community?

It was a beautiful challenge to design the Write Together session: Seven days in a row, one hour in the morning and another hour in the evening, each with a different reading and different, guided prompt. Our spring session will feature the same format, with different readings and different prompts each time.

Some participants used each prompt to explore new forms and new material, others adapted the prompts to works in progress, still others leapt off the proverbial creative writing cliff and went where the muse took them. Here are a few responses:

I loved your class and got so much out of it. It was wonderful to write together twice a day for a week! It felt like a rare and fortunate thing to be able to do, and the poems were inspiring and powerful. Thank you!

I am soooooo grateful that you did it–this was a wonderful (and very generative) experience for me, and I will come back to these readings and prompts often–as well as continue to work on the pieces I started.

Thank you for this wonderful Write Together opportunity. I can’t begin to say how meaningful it was for me on so many levels. 

It re-energized me and got me back into a routine. I find that I need that momentum and structure to get into a groove.

I absolutely loved it.  Loved having two sessions (per day) and I’d love to do the workshop again.

I loved this class.  It was such a unique format, and so low-pressure, in terms of “performance” … it was also oddly comforting to know there was no expectation of turning in an assignment.  I could just follow the muse down whatever rabbit hole it went down, fearlessly. 

If you’re interested, I’d love to see you in our June session. Here are all the details.

Write Together: June 10-17, 2023, 10-11 am CT and 7-8 pm CT every day (note time zone)

In the second offering of our Write Together session, we’ll convene in our Zoom Room for one-hour sessions twice-daily (drop in for one or both a day, or whatever suits your schedule). Each hour includes a brief reading and continues with a 30- to 45-minute guided prompt related to the theme of the day. Each session is designed to wake up the magical inner writer who lives within us all.

Each prompt and reading will be recorded separately, so if you miss one, you’ll still be able to view it.

The Write Together session was inspired by my own yearly practice of a week devoted solely to generating new ideas, having fun, and playing around with cool new prompts. You won’t have to take a week off work or your daily routine –unless of course you want to–but you will have fourteen hour-long opportunities to write in a focused, intensive, exhilarating way in a room full of others doing the same thing. Limited to 30. Come have fun and see what you come up with!

Fee: $200, payable via Venmo to @Alison-McGhee-1, Zelle to alisonmcghee@gmail.com, Paypal to alison_mcghee@hotmail.com (use the “send to a friend” option), or by personal check. I also offer two $100 half-price scholarships; if you’d like one, just let me know and it’s yours, no questions asked. Please email me with any questions.

Bonus: Weekly writing prompts will be emailed to you every Friday for one month after class.