Low-key, high-energy, challenging and gentle, Tuesdays with Crescent is a 10-week, once-a-week small writing group. It takes place on ten consecutive Tuesday evenings, in real time (6:30 pm to 8:30 pm Central). You may attend from anywhere, online, via Zoom, or physically (in Fayetteville, Arkansas). Participation is limited to 12.
In just ten sessions, you will shift your anxieties, and start (or return to) writing.
The course is given twice a year, in the spring (January-April) and fall (September-December).
WHAT: HOW DOES IT WORK?
Centered on the process and practice of writing, each class builds on the next and gives writers and would-be writers the insights, tools, approaches, practices and methods they need to grow their work to its 
individual next level. And, most important, Tuesdays with Crescent helps writers fall in love, or back in love with the process of writing itself.
As you work with your fellow classmates under the gentle guidance of a master teacher and much-published writer, you’ll find, grow, clarify, and energize your voice and ideas.
It is not a critique group, where participants bring in already-written work for discussion and analysis. All writing takes place in class. (If you want a critique group, please see Crescent’s Works-in-Progress group).
You come in with nothing more than a notebook (or laptop), Crescent talks briefly (and in later classes, not at all), teaches a bit, and tosses out a topic. And we’re off to the races.
Reading out loud is optional. There are no grades. There is no way to do it wrong.
WHO: IS IT FOR ME?
Each Tuesdays series is limited to 12 participants. Typically, half are local and attend physically, and half are distance learners, coming in via Zoom from all over.
This class of Crescent’s deliberately combines writers and would-be writers at all phases, in all genres: beginning or novice, experienced or just longing to be.
There are five categories of people who typically benefit hugely from a Tuesdays with Crescent series.
- Those who’ve “always wanted to write but” or are in the related category: “I used to write, but.”
- Long-time writers who are blocked, bored, frustrated and can’t seem to find the refresh button.
- Those who are excellent at telling stories verbally but lose their mojo when they try to get it on paper.
- Artist’s Way drop-outs or burn-outs, as in “I did Morning Pages for almost three years, then I just got bored with it.”
- Those who enjoy shaking things up, trying something new, for the fun and juice of it; out of the same impulse that might lead them to take country-line dancing, improv, or a wild-foods foraging class.
- Those who suffer from general or writing-specific self-doubt, procrastination, perplexity about their next step — yes, Tuesdays shakes up and alters these painful states, whether or not you consider yourself a writer.
The bottom line: if you want to be here, and you show up on the basis of that wanting, this course is for you.
WHEN: AND WHAT IF I MISS A CLASS?
Tuesdays with Crescent takes place on 10 Tuesday evenings, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm Central. These evenings run for consecutive weeks (unless holidays or bad weather intervene). Scroll down for the the exact dates of the next upcoming sessions, in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020.
While it’s okay to miss one or two classes, except the first (because life, as we know, happens), please plan to be at all of them. If you usually attend in person but are sick or traveling, remember you can attend online via Zoom.
As a last resort, you can request via email that a recording of a class you had to miss be sent to you for replay at your convenience. We are able to do this because, since we have distance learners, sessions are automatically recorded (but never broadcast). However, we discourage this option because first of all you get so much more out of participating in real time with your fellow Tuesday-ers and second, it costs us to do this. We’ll do it once for free, but after that, there is a charge of $25 per class.
REGISTRATION: WHEN IS THE NEXT SESSION AND HOW DO I SIGN UP?
Fall, 2019: All classes take place on Tuesday evenings, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. September 10, 17 and 24; October 1, 8, 15, and 22 (no class 10-29), and November 5, 12, and 19. REGISTRATION OPENS ON JUNE 15, 2019.
Spring, 2020: All classes take place on Tuesday evenings, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. January 7, 14, and 28; February 4, 11, 18, and 225 , and March 3, 10, and 17. REGISTRATION OPENS ON OCTOBER 15, 2019.
If you would like to be notified when registration opens, or have a space held for you (which you will confirm when registration opens), please email Ms. Sweetie Berry here with the subject line Tuesdays with Crescent.
COSTS: HOW? HOW MUCH?
Earlybird: $750, for the first two weeks after registration opens
Mediumbird: $999, after the first two weeks of registration until three weeks before class begins
Better-Late-Than-Never-Bird: $1250, for the last three weeks before class begins if there is space available.
If you need to do this in several payments, please email Ms. Sweetie Berry here with the subject line Payments, Tuesdays with Crescent. She will arrange this for and with you. Crescent is committed to everyone who wants to take this series with me being able to do so.
TRUTH: WHY SHOULD I TAKE THIS?
The understanding and fearlessness you gain in class tends to spill, cornucopia-like, into your life — creative, professional, relational — as a whole. The skills and techniques Crescent offers will serve you not just in writing but in almost every other endeavor. With gentle guidance and deceptively simple, experiential writing practices, Tuesdays with Crescent turns apparent obstacles into material: for writing, and from which to build a thriving, resilient life.
Part of Crescent’s Fearless Writing™ Classes, Courses, and Events
[…] when I teach writing practice, as in my Tuesdays with Crescent groups, I’ll use a structure I call a “fill-in-the-blanks” poem. This is a playful form […]