716 The KNACK: Part Two
Class | Registration opens 8/10/2026 11:00 AM
Last fall, Sharlene (S.E.) introduced students to practices in The Artist’s Way and other texts to generate elements of creative writing useful in both story and poetry writing. The KNACK: Part Two continues with more exercises to produce kernels and springboards to get to your deeper concerns and express them. Beyond internal structures and a little more on editing, students will discuss blank verse, genres and patterns, as well as look at the short story. The class discussion and student requests will shape in-class exercises and out-of-session drafting to suit individual objectives as class proceeds.
You do not need to have taken last fall’s course to enjoy this one; writers of prose and poetry are equally welcome.
Participants are expected to have computer literacy/access and email. Please bring a notebook or pad from which you can tear out pages and keep with notes; there will be lots of writing.
Sharlene (S.E.) Gilman
SHARLENE (S. E.) GILMAN’s poetry has appeared in Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, an anthology from PSU Press, as well as in Meat for Tea, Word Fountain, and other small press magazines since the 1970s. Her short fiction is included in Common Bonds: Stories by and About Modern Texas Women, Permafrost, Hawaiian Review, Stone Drum, Oxford Magazine, Modern Words, and others. She writes occasionally in The Daily Item weekend column “Forward Thinking.” S. E. has taught writing and literacy tutoring in a variety of contexts – in universities, community settings, at a correctional institution and on reservations. Native to Galveston, Texas, she has lived in Austin, Texas; Concord, N.H.; Davis, Calif.; and now Central Pennsylvania.