How does a writer broach the topic of motherhood—an experience as large as life itself, and as personal as the deepest flesh of our physical selves? How do we write toward the ineffability of maternal love, transformation, rage, sacrifice, and ecstasy?

This seminar aspires to give you the conversations, community, craft, and courage needed to approach your work as a writer, and to invoke the kaleidoscopic array of experiences in motherhood—conception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, parenting.

In this four-session, generative seminar, we’ll look at both fictional and nonfictional writing that centers the mothering experience, examining portraits of the mother as divine, as animalistic, as fairy tale. Additionally, we’ll read work that frames motherhood as essential labor and helps us imagine radical possibilities for our work. Every session features the writing of a different guest author—Angela Garbes, Louisa Hall, Sabrina Orah Mark, and Erika Morillo—whose wide-ranging texts illuminate new ways to approach the rich, acutely personal realm of motherhood. 

Students will have the chance to pose questions directly to guest authors, and to experiment with writing prompts derived from or inspired by each of the four guest writers. By the end of the course, students can expect to complete a draft of some piece of writing about motherhood–whether a chapter, essay, or story–catalyzed both by our weekly writing assignments and probing conversations.  

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This course will take place on Zoom on Tuesdays June 4-25 from 8 to 10 p.m. EST. Participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the course as well as a recording of the course afterwards. We cannot offer refunds once the course has begun. Please email courses@offassignment.com with any questions.

A limited number of scholarships may be available for this course; please send a brief statement outlining how and why a scholarship would impact your ability to attend to courses@offassignment.com by May 10 and we’ll get back to you by May 17.

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Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses on in-depth writing topics that harness the perspectives and craft tactics of a lead instructor plus celebrated guest lecturers, such that participating writers gain a wealth of input while benefiting from the cohesive leadership of one renowned writer in a particular niche of nonfiction.