WORKSHOPS
Liz taught at the revered Attic Writers Workshop in Portland from 2008-2013. She has guest-taught/lectured at The Muse and the Marketplace in Boston, Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, The South Coast Writers Conference in Oregon, Write on the Sound in Washington, and Willamette Writers and Wordstock in Portland. In addition to guest-lecturing from coast-to-coast, Liz teaches 1-day workshops and short classes in Portland.
Some of her most popular classes include:
PERFECT YOUR FIRST TWO PAGES
How to Keep Your Reader Reading
The first two pages of your story or essay determine whether an agent or editor keeps reading, or sends a rejection. Two pages – that’s all you have to grab their interest! But what makes an editor stop, or keep going? Liz Prato will read the first two pages of your work in class and evaluate what works, and what doesn’t. The good news is, you won’t be left hanging. You’ll learn practical tools for sharpening the critical beginning of your piece, using published examples and classroom discussion. This fun and information-packed class is a rare opportunity to get an intimate look at what makes a piece stand out in the submission pile.
WRITING OUTSIDE THE BOX
All stories and essays are different, so it stands to reason they don’t all require the same structure. Maybe your story is best told through a document (like a birth certificate, or autopsy report), or a PowerPoint presentation, or another work of art, or an owner’s manual, or a series of recipes. In this class, we’ll break out of the standard box and have fun exploring the forms available for telling your best story. The essence of being an artist is exploring not just content, but also form, and this class helps you expand your imaginative boundaries.
SUBMITTING TO LIT JOURNALS
LIKE A PRO
Whether you’re just thinking about sending your writing to literary journals, or you’ve already received a handful of responses, you'll learn the ins and out of how will the sometimes confusing submission process really works. We'll cover researching and targeting markets, formatting work, how to interact with editors, whether to enter contests, decoding vague rejections, and what happens when you get accepted. After this lively 2-hour class, you’ll be ready to charge the world of publishing. (Note: Not for book-length publishing)
“I attended Liz Prato’s mini-workshop on publishing, and it was great. I walked away with reassuring statistics on how many rejections to expect as opposed to acceptances, models for cover letters, an online source for literary journals, & lots of good, practical advice.” ~ Cindy Stewart-Rinier
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MASTER POINT OF VIEW
You, Me, and Everyone We Know
Writers often put more thought into the title of their story than choosing their point of view. But POV controls the intimacy, breadth and depth of your story. In this in-depth presentation, we’ll examine modern examples of how POV works in fiction & nonfiction, from the modern classics of Harper Lee, and Alice Walker to contemporary works from Junot Diaz, Jo Ann Beard and Nick Hornby. This talk will open up new worlds that will transform your writing and revising process.
WHEN SMALL PRESSES
TAKE YOU BIG PLACES
It’s easy to believe that being published by one of the big New York houses is the only path to success. But this path isn’t the right—or only—path for many authors. Small presses can, and want to, take bigger risks, challenging readers with unexpected stories. They often value originality and relationships over marketability and platform. Liz’s first book was published by a small press, and she is Editor at large at another. She shares how chose her presses, and helps you decide if a small press is your path to literary success.
Liz provides sharp developmental editing to help bring your short stories and creative nonfiction to fruition. She gives your piece several in-depth reads and offers constructive feedback on the macro level (structure, plot, characters, etc.) and the micro level (sentences, language). She includes both a written summary and numerous helpful comments on the page, and is happy to answer follow-up questions and continue the conversation about your work. One-on-one editing is an efficient and intimate approach to helping you achieve your writing goals.
Contact Liz
for more information
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