Radical Revision: A Generative Workshop

Maybe you dread revising—the labor of picking over words and syntax, the violence of “murdering your darlings.” But what if, instead of acting as the strict schoolmarm, disciplining your lively-but-unrefined young draft, you used that draft as a seed to grow a surprising new version of what Michael Cunningham calls your “cathedral made of fire,” the book or story or essay or poetry collection you long to complete?

Designed for you and your project that is stuck, tired, overworked, underworked, or just in need of fresh air, this generative workshop promises “re-vision” in its boldest, most generous sense: revision as seeing all over again. Through a series of generative exercises, you’ll be invited to rediscover your project’s sense of purpose, uncover its hidden corners, and find sources of new energy in the material you already have. We’ll address revision at scales small and large, from the sentence to the book, using hands-on prompts, readings, and conversation tailored to your project’s needs.

Bring your work-in-progress (any genre, any length), your courage, and your vision.

Helen Betya Rubinstein is a writer and writing coach whose creative nonfiction and fiction have been published in venues like Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, and The Paris Review Daily, and whose criticism has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, LA Review of Books, and Jewish Currents. In 2022, her work was honored with fellowships from the Mastheads and the Watermill Center; previously, she received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and many others. Her essays on rethinking the writing workshop and on what your draft is trying to tell you are widely taught and shared, and her book Feels Like Trouble: Transgressive Takes on Writing, Teaching, and Publishing is forthcoming from the University of New Orleans Press. Alongside an active coaching practice, she teaches writing at The New School.