Application and Eligibility: The application process is simple. Send me a sample of your work, via e-mail... just a few pages (PDF or Word) to give me a sense of your style, etc. Let me know what you're working on, where you would like to take your practice as a writer. If you have a sense of your own strengths and weakness which you'd like to share briefly, that would help. If you'd prefer to chat by phone in this regard, so much the better.I started Kent's course with a vague concept for a novel. Eight weeks later I had completed great character descriptions, a tight story outline, a short synopsis, my first two chapters were outlined and most importantly I knew exactly what my story was about. Kent's comments were magical and he found beauty and depth in my writing I couldn't see. His feedback encouraged me to keep working on my story and I frequently refer back to his notes and I continue to find inspiration in them. Hasmi Fergusson, Screenwriter/Novelist, Calgary, Alberta
Kent Stetson's course blesses the author's process with lucidity. You come away clearer, sharper, sorted, inspired. His training sessions rely on interactive growth. Progress is student-generated. The results are character-generated. One secret is a soothing, intense focus. It rocks each of his weekly international class meetings in friendly, safe momentum. Stetson structures each of those sessions with a concise discussion of an issue. Then he turns an unfailingly patient ear to the work being produced in real-time by the group. The humour keeping it all afloat is the kind that can only be earned by a prolific teacher who is publishing and producing award-winning work of his own. Stetson is the real thing. And this is the course I recommend to you if you've done your dabbling and you're ready to write. Porter Anderson, BA, MA, MFA (Porter Anderson is a former critic for the Village Voice, NYC, CNN Anchor/Producer, and fellow of the National Critics Institute of the USA).In the 1/2 hour writing exercises we construct five characters . . . Protagonist, Antagonist, secondary P and A and The Fifth Business, the character/force Robertson Davies described as the wild card, the disruptive external force who, along with the antagonist forces change upon the protagonist. We'll assess all characters from spiritual, physical emotional and intellectual perspectives.
After a creative dry spell lasting a few years, this course has helped reawaken my writing. Not only do I have the material I generated during the course but my head (and my notepad) is now filled with ideas and for the first time in a long time I am writing regularly again. Kent teaches craft- he gives solid technique, but it's far from the dry and and lackluster rules and shortcuts that some writing teachers try to pass off as craft. He combines heart and compassion and humour and geniue knowledge in a unique way that pulls your work out from within you. Writer Jonathan Steward, Montreal.Throughout, we respond to and comment on each other's work using a series of listening exercises I developed at McGill, Concordia and The National Theatre School of Canada. These exercises have been further refined in my workshops in France and across Canada to the point where respectful, precise assessment from your peers becomes a great positive force providing terrific insight and potential for improvement.
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