Arlington Community Education

Share your work with other writers and receive the benefits of a collaborative, supportive, and fun workshop. We’ll address craft elements and do in-class exercises designed to get you thinking about your work in new ways. We will shape our course around the work and ideas that students bring, focusing primarily on the workshop process: feedback and discussion of student work in order to help you reach your writing goals. This workshop welcomes poets and prose writers of all genres, all experience levels, and those at varying stages of the writing process. Both returning writers and new faces are welcome. Please come prepared to share a portion of a current project.

Many popular books have been adapted for the big screen, some more successfully than others. Join one or both of these classes to discuss two recent film adaptations of novels and see if indeed “the book is better” or if the movie improved upon the novel we will be reading. Read the novel before the first session, as we will focus on our thoughts of the novel in the first class. Then between the first and second meetings we’ll each watch the movies on our own time, and come back together to discuss how well it was adapted in film and how the messages of the book and film relate to each other. Session One: News of the World -- The first session will be focused on Paulette Jiles’ moving tale, News of the World. We’ll read about an unlikely duo—a former confederate soldier making money by reading newspapers aloud and a kidnapped girl he is charged with returning to her family. We’ll start with a discussion of the novel that the Washington Post said, “affirms that the news of the world can be good, if we strive together to make it so,” followed by the new film adaptation starring Tom Hanks. 2 Mondays | Apr. 5–Apr. 12 | 7:00–8:30 pm Session Two: The Dig -- The second session will be dedicated to John Preston’s The Dig, inspired by one of the most famous modern archeological excavations in Great Britain, Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. Set in 1939, John Preston’s novel explores the characters who own the land, help with the excavation (one of which is the author’s aunt), and even those who try to thwart it, set against the backdrop of the approach of WWII. After reading the novel we’ll watch the new Netflix film adaptation starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan. 2 Tuesdays | May 25–June 1 | 7:00–8:30 pm Take Both & Save for $59

What if Edgar Allen Poe had written The Tell-Tale Heart in the age of social media? Or Anton Chekhov had written for a modern audience? In this class we’ll look at classic short stories by writers like Poe, Chekhov, Alice Munro, Shirley Jackson, and John Cheever. Then we’ll read versions by contemporary authors who are “covering” or “remixing” those stories through updating, rewriting, or building upon them in interesting ways. Each week we’ll look at a different pair of stories and discuss how the modern update affects our interpretation of the originals. Please note: Before the first class please purchase McSweeney's Issue 49, featuring "cover stories." The book is available at Belmont Books.