Mary Beth Mason will present her course on Creative Writng 101.  

In these days of social media, writing for many people has come to be defined as short phrases, often filled with intentionally misspelled words (luv) and acronyms (LOL).  While such writing does allow for communication of sorts, it is not the kind of creative writing that expresses complex and interesting ideas.  Indeed, writing on social media is not the kind of writing that many residents of Leisure World learned in school, or which many residents think of as real writing or communication. 

Though LW residents often value and enjoy good writing, even people who want to write creatively often don’t have the confidence to develop their own voice and develop the skills that would enable them to share ideas with friends and family, and perhaps even write one’s personal history to share with children and grandchildren. 

In order to help LW residents improve their creative writing and to give them a chance to share their work and get constructive comments, the Center for Lifelong Learning (CLL) presents a new course, Creative Writing 101, taught by LW resident Mary Beth Mason.  Mary Beth’s view is that if one writes they are a writer. The focus of the class will include learning how to use descriptive details to give passion, depth, and sensual impressions to ones writing.

Mary Beth’s approach is that this class is for anyone who has tried their hand at poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, or if they have produced a draft of a short story, novel, essay, or poem. In other words, the class is for people who want to write and perhaps improve their writing – though the goal of the class is not to prepare people to write their novel or to make money from their writing, or to help with getting published or with grammar and punctuation.  This class is, in essence, for people who want to write for themselves. 

Mary Beth also points out that this class to help people develop their creative selves and focuses on developing their own personal writing voice. And the class also emphasizes the enjoyment of writing and expression.

            As part of the class, participants will read their work aloud their work and receive feedback. Since a spontaneous free-writing approach will be the modus operandi for the class, “critiquing” will be limited to comments that express understanding, empathy, and encouragement.

Creative Writing 101 will be given on Tuesdays at 10 am from March 15 to April 5 in Clubhouse 1.