#PenToPaper 2024: Be a Good Steward of Your Story
Stewardship is the careful management of something entrusted to one’s care. We may be stewards of the land, stewards of language, of culture. As writers, we are stewards of our story.
Brené Brown gives us an excellent representation of how we practice story stewardship with others when she writes:
Story stewardship means honoring the sacred nature of story—the ones we share and the ones we hear—and knowing that … we have something valuable that we should treat with respect and care. We are good stewards of the stories we tell by trusting them to people who have earned the right to hear them, and telling them only when we are ready. We are good stewards of the stories we hear by listening, being curious, affirming, and believing people when they tell us how they experienced something.*
This year in #PenToPaper, we will explore what it means to be stewards of the stories we write. Fiction or non, we honor the story we are trying to tell when we explore the curiosity that led us to the story, when we cultivate a rich setting, and when we listen — to the characters, to memory, to our peers in their observations and suggestions.
Each online course in this #PenToPaper series runs for six weeks and provides an opportunity for writers to explore different aspects of craft, generate new material, and to work on revisions.
The primary format is asynchronous, with live online meetings biweekly.
Working asynchronous, writers will post their stories or essays in discussion boards and receive feedback from their peers as well as the instructor. When we meet live, writers will have an opportunity to read their work aloud, another productive way to understand — and edit — your story.
Fees for each session run at $200. That’s around $33 a week, less than $5 a day, and exactly $0 for great feedback and fun!
Register for one course or sign up for all four.
Session 1: Finding Your Story
Feb 3 to Mar 23, 2024
Exploring community and connection, the art of play, and the gift of failure, and discovering story in the tangible.
Session 3: Honoring Relationships
Jun 15 to Jul 27, 2024
Bucking expectations and mining relations between characters and environment, and between author and story.
Session 2: Exploring the Exterior
Apr 13 to May 25, 2024
Setting the tone through scene, shaping the landscape outside and in by defining the boundaries of space and place.
Session 4: Revising and Submitting
Sept 21 to Nov 2
Taking inventory of strengths and weaknesses, revising in layers, and paving the way for submissions.
*From The Practice of Story Stewardship, brenebrown.com, December 5, 2021
