A One-Night Short Course from the Writers’ Annex
Whether in the form of memoir, history, or immersion reportage, the books of longform narrative that grip so many of us as readers, and try inspire so many of us as writers, come out of a tradition. It can be traced back millennia in some respects, all the way to Aristotle’s instructions about what he approvingly called a “complex plot.”
But the formation of this tradition primarily took place during the 20th Century. Its central innovation was that a writer could apply the novelist’s toolbox — character development, dramatic tension, and so forth — to factual material. Just as importantly, the writers who came of age in those decades were implicitly influenced by breakthroughs in two other art forms — the emergence of singer-songwriters performing their own compositions rather than products of the Brill Building assembly line and the indie movie heyday of “New Hollywood” directors such as Martin Scorcese, Robert Altman, and Hal Ashby. Within academe, meanwhile, the longstanding animosity between journalists and formally-trained historians was shifting into more of a Venn diagram.
What all this history adds up to is, indeed, an aesthetic tradition, one that many practitioners do not even fully recognize. In this one-night, two-hour short course, we will trace these traditions and consider the threads that run through them, and explore aspects of the form that can benefit your own writing.
Register Here
Register for the 2026 Season Pass
Register for all four one-night courses only: Spring 2026 Collection
Dates & Times: Online Thursday, May 7, 2026. Main session runs from 4 pm-6 pm (Pacific) with optional discussion group to follow.
Note: For those who are interested, an intimate Zoom discussion group (Virtual House) will meet immediately after each the session.
Readings
Handouts will be posted online and shared via email prior to the first session.
Samuel Freedman
Samuel Freedman is an award-winning author, journalist, and educator. He is the author of 10 books, most recently Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights. His books have been finalists for the National Book Award (Small Victories) and the Pulitzer Prize (The Inheritance) and have won the Sidney Hillman Prize (Into the Bright Sunshine), the National Jewish Book Award (Jew vs Jew), and the New York Public Library’s Helen M. Bernstein Award (Upon This Rock). As a professor at Columbia Journalism School, Freedman developed a class in book-writing that has produced more than 110 authors, editors, and agents.
What to Expect:
- One, two-hour session online. The group can be large, depending on the course.
- In the first hour, Freedman will present in a lecture-style format.
- In the second half of each session, Freedman will continue his presentation, and will address questions and widen the discussion. Participant questions and comments will be submitted in the chat.
- Optional small (8-10 person) discussion groups will be available to those with the energy and interest after the formal session is over.
- The session will be recorded, and will be available for later viewing by registered participants for at least 30 days following the final session
Tuition:
- Early Bird Tuition is $54. The Early Bird Deadline is Thursday, April 30, 2026.
- Standard Tuition is $60.
- Limited financial aid available. Please contact us if needed.
- Season Pass and other packages available here. (link coming soon)
Register Here
Register for the 2026 Season Pass
Register for all four one-night courses only: Spring 2026 Collection
The Writers Annex
Online, and year-round, The Writers’ Annex is composed of short courses, seminars, workshops, and more. Our vision is to bring the creative insight and experience of our staff poets and prose writers to our community in all seasons, not just in the summertime, and not just here in our Valley. Our online offerings will address such topics as eco-poetics, translation, and generative sessions. Some will be one or two days, some will be weekend intensives, and some will meet weekly for a month or two. In addition, we hope these offerings will help offset the tremendous expenses we face as an organization for our traditional in-person events in Olympic Valley. Join our Mailing List