Nisi Shawl is teaching her seminar on dialogue in a 2 week deep dive format. This class focuses on how dialogue works when attempting to write inclusive fiction and how to navigate the tricky skill of rendering dialect on the page. We start at the beginning of April and there are still spots available! Plus, there are scholarships available and sliding scale registration for folks who can afford some, but not all, of the price. Class description below, more details on the website, and you can register down below.

If you’re a person of color or Native writer interested in the class, ping me via email for a discount code before you sign up.

When: April 2 – 15, 2018
Where: Online — Available everywhere and at your own pace
Price: $200

Class Description:

An essential part of creating a character is understanding how that individual speaks or communicates. For writers who are working to create inclusive fiction with characters from races, cultures, and backgrounds different from their own, crafting appropriate dialogue is more than just idealizing and compressing speech to make it seem natural. It may also mean figuring out how to get across the nuances of language, accent, or dialect without Othering or exoticizing characters or the real cultures and identity groups they represent.

We will guide you through this aspect of writing inclusive fiction through lectures, hands-on exercises, and feedback. At the end of class you’ll have a wealth of resources for further study and practice.

Instruction begins Monday, April 2 and ends Sunday, April 15, 2018. The course does not have set meeting times. You can access class material and discussion and participate in class at any time, day or night, from anywhere in the world as long as you have an Internet connection.

This class is capped at 20 students.

If you can afford to pay for part but not all of the class, we have Pay What You Can Afford enrollment. Under this plan you can pay any amount, but we do request that you pay at least $30. To register, please email writingtheother+pwyca@gmail.com with the amount that you can afford (you may also split this into two or more payments).

There are 5 scholarship spots available. If you do not have the financial means to take this class and feel that you will benefit from it, we encourage you to apply. We have a broad definition of financial need that ranges from writers who do not have the money at all to writers who have the funds but can’t afford to use them for a writing class. Please don’t hesitate to apply wherever you exist on that spectrum. (Still not sure whether you should apply? Read this post.) We’ve set aside two scholarship spots specifically for students who identify as POC or Native, though we do not limit the number of scholarships we’ll give to POC or Native applicants.

To apply, send an email to writingtheother+squid@gmail.com with the subject WtO Dialect and Dialogue Scholarship Applicant, and include in the body:

• A brief (300 or fewer words) statement of financial need
• A brief (500 or fewer words) description of a work or works in progress that you hope the class will help you write.
• A writing sample of 1000 or fewer words. This can be an excerpt from a longer work or flash fiction, from something published or unpublished, as long as it represents what you feel is your best work.
• If you identify as a Person of Color, Native American, or First Nations, you may indicate that if you wish (it’s not a requirement).

Deadline: 11:59PM Pacific March 15. We will notify all applicants of their standing on March 25. If you have any questions, please use our contact form to ask!

Find more class details, including required texts, on the Writing the Other website. Or, register below.