Writing Workshops Los Angeles offers courses and one-on-one instruction to those interested in honing their fiction, nonfiction, and poetry writing skills. Workshops are held in the home of the course instructor, or, occasionally, in the home of one of the students. In our classes, work is discussed from a craft perspective, and we delve deeply into the techniques of story, character, language, structure, and so on. At Writing Workshops Los Angeles, we value aesthetic daring, and we strive to read student manuscripts with both our highest standards and an open mind. Classes are small, and always fun, and there are refreshments (wine, sparkling water), and sometimes even gourmet cheeses and tasty snacks, to keep us going.
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About Our Instructors:
Writing Workshops Los Angeles was founded by Edan Lepucki. Ms. Lepucki holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and she has taught at the University of Iowa, Oberlin College, the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, Vroman’s Bookstore’s Education Program, and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She has published short fiction in McSweeney’s, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Narrative Magazine, FiveChapters, and the Los Angeles Review, among other publications, and she’s a staff writer for The Millions. She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Ucross Foundation, and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. The winner of the 2009 James D. Phelan Award, she has published a novella, If You’re Not Yet Like Me. Her first novel, California, is forthcoming in 2014 from Little, Brown.
Edan Lepucki
Chris Daley currently teaches creative nonfiction for WWLA at the mixed level, intermediate, and advanced levels. Her students’ personal essays have appeared in publications such as Salon, The Rumpus, Guru Magazine, and Eclectica. Memoirs workshopped in her classes have won their authors a PEN Emerging Voices fellowship and an award from the Los Angeles Book Festival. She has worked as a writing instructor for several universities in New York and Los Angeles, including the California Institute of Technology, Brooklyn College (CUNY), and Loyola Marymount University. Chris reviews fiction and nonfiction, primarily focusing on music and Los Angeles history, for the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Review of Books. As a professional editor, she has worked on novels, nonfiction manuscripts, dissertations, book proposals, screenplays, and marketing materials. She has a Ph.D. in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Chris Daley
Elline Lipkin is a scholar and poet who has worked as an editor for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and journals. Her collection of poetry The Errant Thread was chosen by Eavan Boland to receive the Kore Press First Book Award and was published in 2006. Her second book, Girls’ Studies, a work of nonfiction, was published by Seal Press in 2009. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Salon.com and other contemporary sources, and she is widely published as a poet. A former resident at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Contemporary Arts, and Dorland, Lipkin has taught creative writing to students of all ages, and she’s been a speaker at the Napa Valley Writers Conference and the Writer-in-Residence at the Paper & Book Intensive.
Elline Lipkin
Adam Cushman’s stories have appeared in over two dozen literary journals including The St. Petersburg Review, The Mississippi Review, and Pindeldyboz. His first novel Cut will be released by Black Mountain Press in December 2013. He has two screenplays in development, and is the editor of a forthcoming collection of fictional movie reviews entitled Critically Acclaimed. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and is Co-President of Red 14 Films, a high-end book trailer company. He teaches fiction writing at UCLA Extension and edits a column of fake movie reviews called “Sleeper Celluloid” on www.tropmag.com.
Adam Cushman
Seth Fischer has been writing since he was five, when he hijacked his mom’s old Commodore 64 and began writing her an adventure novel called The Adventures of John Smith. His more recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pank, Guernica, Swink, Gertrude, and other literary journals. He is a contributing editor at The Rumpus and the founding editor of The Splinter Generation, and his work has been noted by Andrew Sullivan, Publisher’s Weekly, Canongate Publishing, Poets and Writers, the Utne Reader, BoingBoing, among others. He also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, where he now teaches and tutors. He was recently awarded awarded a Jentel Artist Residency, where he will work on his novel and a collection of essays. Fischer’s essay “Notes from a Unicorn” will be featured in the forthcoming anthology Best Sex Writing 2013: The State of Today’s Sexual Culture and will be listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2013. He is a contributor to BuzzFeed LGBT.
Seth Fischer
Amelia Morris holds an M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and authors the food blog, Bon Appétempt. Her blog and writing have appeared on saveur.com, bonappetit.com, Gourmet Live, Refinery 29, Los Angeles Times, Elle Girl Korea, McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes, and American Public Media’s The Splendid Table. Her piece, “Serious Food: In the Kitchen with Grandma” won Best Culinary Essay in Saveur Magazine’s 2011 Food Blog Awards. In 2012, Bon Appétempt won the Best Food Humor Blog category. She also has a day job and is at work on a Bon Appétempt book.
Amelia Morris
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the novel The Art of Disappearing, which was published in 2009 by St. Martin’s Press. A former professional squash player, she now works as a ghostwriter. Her short fiction has appeared in H.O.W. Journal and Canteen and she has contributed to The Rumpus and the Huffington Post book section. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in Fantastic Man, Time Out New York, House & Garden, Maxim, Minx, and BABY. She was the 2009 James Merrill House Writer in Residence. She has a BA from Harvard College in English and Classical Greek with a focus on dramatic literature and a MFA from Bennington College in fiction. Her second novel, Visitation Street, will be published in August 2013 by Ecco / HarperCollins.
Ivy Pochoda
Cecil Castellucci’s novels for young adults include First Day on Earth, Rose Sees Red, Beige, The Queen of Cool, and Boy Proof, and a picture book, Grandma’s Gloves. She also won the Shuster Award for the graphic novels The PLAIN Janes and Janes in Love, illustrated by Jim Rugg, which were the launch titles for DC Comics Minx line. Her books have been on American Library Assocation’s Best Book for Young Adults, Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Great Graphic Novels for Teens lists, the NYPL Books for the Teen Age and the Amelia Bloomer list. Upcoming books include a hybrid prose/ graphic novel The Year of the Beasts. For more information go here.
Cecil Castellucci
Margaret Wappler wrote about arts and culture for the Los Angeles Times for seven years, and has also published features and criticism in Rolling Stone, the Believer, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, Time Out Chicago, JANE Magazine and several other publications. Her fiction has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Black Clock, Facsimile, Public Fiction, and was recently anthologized in Joyland Retro. In 2011, on the same bill as Ann Beattie, she read from her novel in progress as part of the New American Writing series at the Hammer Museum. She’s led writing workshops for children and adults, including disadvantaged youth in the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago. She holds a BA from Columbia College and an MFA in Critical Studies from the California Institute of the Arts.
Margaret Wappler
Shannan Rouss is the author of the short story collection, Easy for You, published by Simon & Schuster in 2010. Her story “Dog People” was selected for publication on the Storyville App in 2011. Shannan has an MFA from New York University, where she received a teaching fellowship from the school’s Expository Writing Program. She was a staff writer at Self, and her writing has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Nylon and Ladies Home Journal. Since 2011, she has been the executive editor at Glo.msn.com. When she’s not writing or editing articles on sibling rivalry, cohabitation, and “psychics as the new therapists,” she’s working on a novel about mail-order brides, philosophical counseling and the digital afterlife.
Shannan Rouss
Neelanjana Banerjee’s short stories, poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, The Liner, The Rumpus, Virginia Quarterly Online, World Literature Today, The Literary Review, Nimrod, and anthologies like Breaking the Bow: Speculative Stories Inspired by the Ramayana (Zubaan Books, 2012) and Desilicious: Sexy, Subversive, South Asian (Arsenal Press, 2003), among other places. She co-edited the award-winning Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (University of Arkansas Press, 2010). She received her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, and has been awarded writing residencies from Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. Her journalism about literature and culture can be seen at Colorlines, Fiction Writers Review, HTML Giant, Hyphen, Word Riot, and other places around World Wide Web. She is the Media Director for Kaya Press, and a teaching artist with The HeArt Project. She lives in Silverlake and is working on her first novel. Visit her on-line here.
Neelanjana Banerjee
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Social Media Coordinator:
Catie Disabato studied undergraduate creative writing at Oberlin College. She blogs and writes book reviews for Full Stop and has written essays for This Recording and The Millions. Her short fiction was recently featured on Joyland. She is working on her first novel and spends too much time on Twitter and Tumblr.
Catie Disabato
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Teachers At Large:
Leslie Parry holds a BFA from New York University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa, the Iowa Arts Summer Program, Vroman’s Bookstore’s Education Program, and was a featured speaker at the Midwest Literary Festival. Her fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and The Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories 2011. She is currently at work on a novel.
Leslie Parry
Mary Guterson is the author of the novels We Are All Fine Here (Putnam, 2005; an Indie Next pick), and Gone To The Dogs (St. Martin’s, 2009; a Target Breakout selection). Her short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including literary journals, anthologies, magazines, blogs, and websites. A former commentator for Seattle’s NPR affiliate (KUOW-FM 94.9), she also appeared as a recurring guest on that station’s weekly satirical news show “Rewind.” She is a core member of Seattle 7 Writers, a group of nine published authors who create and participate in fundraising events in support of literacy programs. A volunteer in Los Angeles with 826LA and the Afghan Women Writers Project, she is currently at work on her third novel.
Mary Guterson
Adam Kaplan has an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Columbia University. He just completed his first short story collection, Camp Lessons, and his novel Rats That Will Eat You will be completed in 2012. Adam has taught introduction to fiction at Columbia University, was a guest poetry lecturer for the Long Island public school system, and spent three years teaching creative writing to at risk youth in the social service system in San Francisco.
Adam Kaplan
Sherri L. Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent most of her childhood reading books. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she has worked in movies, animation, comic books and construction. Sherri is the author of four award-winning novels—Lucy the Giant, Sparrow, Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet and the California Book Awards Gold Medalist Flygirl,
which the Washington Post named a best book of the year. Her next novel, Orleans, set in a post-catastrophe New Orleans, hits shelves in early 2013. For more information visit www.sherrilsmith.com.
Sherri L. Smith