Course Offerings

We encourage all ages and experience levels to register. All of our workshops meet once a week for six consecutive weeks (barring holidays) in our instructors' homes or at other bookish venues around Missoula. In addition to the weekly meetings, our instructors provide two private conferences with each attendee during the session. The price for a six-week workshop is $175.

We also offer Private Consultations and Proofreading Services at a rate of $30/hr. Please contact us if you would like more information about these special offerings.

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Course Descriptions:

Short-Fiction Writing w/ Brian Buckbee

This course follows the classic “workshop” model, where writers distribute their works for peer review. Time will be spent working with story technique and terminology useful for every writer, as well as the how and why we wish to read and write stories in the first place. Attendees will respond to the fictions of our peers as well as published works. In the course of our time together, we will grow comfortable with what may be for some a new way of reading and thinking. Experienced writers will find resources to take their fictions to the next level. Please join us.
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Short-Fiction Writing: Imitations w/ Elizabeth Urschel

As children, we learn through play how to mimic adults at work. This earliest of creative expressions is revisited in the course called “Imitations,” where 406 attendees read short works by great authors, and then attempt to capture those voices in our own writings. Through this process of “trying on hats,” we get to expand our own catalog of voices, and at the same time we learn the machinery behind great works of art.
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Short-Fiction Writing w/ David Cates

Embrace the form! We will look at classic short stories, try to understand the form and how short stories work. We will read and workshop each other's writing as well. This is a class that is geared to be encouraging. Writing is almost always grueling and lonely, and this class will try to help you slay those demons by making it a little less mysterious and a little less lonely.
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Poetry Writing w/ Chris Dombrowski

A few centuries ago, Japanese poet Matsuo Basho gave this advice to writers: "Don't follow in the footsteps of the old masters, but seek what they sought." In this poetry workshop, we'll seek what the old masters soaught (whatever that was!) by studying exemplary (mostly contemporary, but some older) examples from a wide range of traditions, and coupling various approaches to poetry, such as the address and the elegy, with various elements of poetry, such as image and sound. In this particular workshop setting, we won't seek to push a singular aesthetic on the poems we discuss, but will instead try to meet each poem on its own terms, in its own world. We will do our best to help its author hone the poem's diction, syntax, line breaks, and other devices, and thus increase the poem's intensity, impact, and overall "felt life" of the work.
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Writing the Novel w/ David Cates

Agents and editors demand more from first sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, than ever before. Though the scope of the novel is too enormous for a six-week class, that time period is ideal for the perfecting of a novel’s beginning, where the reader’s attention must be captured, a voice must be established, and the “plates” of drama are set spinning. Or think of this course as a way to test anything you have: is it a novel? Does it have potential? Where is this chapter taking the reader, and where might it take the reader?
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Non-Fiction Writing: Craft w/ Jeff Hull

We all write because we want our stories to be heard. Publishing is, of course, the way writing gets read. How do people write publishable work? Do you have a memoir, a travel experience, a vexing issue you want the world to know about? This workshop will focus on the craft of writing non-fiction stories and memoirs for publication. The emphasis will be on conceiving and creating stories with meaning, stories other people will want to read. Learn to incorporate telling details, character development, appropriate dialogue, narrative arc and critical thinking in your writing to form meaningful non-fiction stories that resonate with readers.
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Elements of Screenwriting w/ Catherine Jones

The nuances of screenwriting are obscure and many, and absolutely essential for anyone interested in having their scripts taken to the next level. Not only is this course beneficial to aspiring screenwriters, but the exposed nut-and-bolt elements of screenwriting—dialog, scene, character—are also the oft-hidden backbones of fiction writing, and will inform writers of all types.
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Outdoor/Travel Writing w/ Jeff Hull

We are all travelers on the landscape, and in our writing the spaces of the natural world often resonate emotionally with our interior spaces. Whether you choose to write narratives about travel to foreign lands and cultures, stories about fishing the Blackfoot, or personal essays about revelations the natural world has provided for you, your experiences—amusing or profound—can be rendered in a way that elevates them beyond mere travelogue. How do you sharpen writing about the world outside to distinguish it from chewing the scenery? In this workshop you will learn to bring telling details, character development, appropriate dialogue, narrative arc and critical thinking together to form meaningful stories that resonate with readers.
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Manuscript Consultation

These treasured one-on-one meetings are ideal for those who wish to engage in a dialog about their writings and seek hands-on advice or simply the eye of an experienced reader. While meetings may focus on micro-level aspects, such as narrative tension, voice, characterization, et cetera, you fashion the consultation that fits your particular needs. These individual sessions are particularly useful for those “stuck” in an aspect of a writing project or who seek a new angle for their work.
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MFA Application Consultation

A simple choice in formatting or content can be the death knell of an MFA application. Writers aspiring to enroll in MFA programs are encouraged to meet with 406 Instructors, who can assist in the assembling of successful applications, and alert prospective MFA students to “red flags” that might appear in their application materials.
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Proofreading

Proofreading, like so many writing tasks, is an art unto itself. Bring us your manuscript and we will do the rest. Please contact us to be connected to one of our pros.
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