Arts: Writing   

A legacy letter (also called an “ethical will”) is a written document that allows people to share their life lessons, express their values, and transmit their blessings to future generations. A legacy letter is shorter than a memoir, typically just a few pages. Writing one is a rewarding experience that creates an enduring gift for family, friends, and loved ones. This four-session online course includes discussion and brief writing exercises to help you examine your life history, explore your values, and capture important insights. It offers advice, encouragement, and a model structure to help you draft and complete your own legacy letter. Students are strongly encouraged to attend all four meetings, as each session builds on the previous ones.

This course is designed for those interested in creating a story that will intrigue and interest readers. If you have considered writing a longer treatment of a story, this course is for you. It will include a general orientation as to the overall process, prompts that stimulate writing, and illustrations of how the groundwork paves the way to the story being told. Novel-writing skills will be developed through discussion, instructor presentations, examples taken from the instructor’s own published novel, exercises, and consideration of the steps one might employ in writing an extended story. Small groups, questions, and shared observations related to the material will lead students toward a path for beginning or even developing work on an extended story. Most important is the readiness to work with what the student feels is a story that will intrigue and interest readers. Students will maintain a notebook and work in it at each class, as well as outside of class. NOTE: The instructor’s novel, “Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free,” is required reading and should be read or heard prior to the start of class. It is available online at Amazon, Audible, Bookbaby Bookstore, as well as Bloomsbury Books in Ashland at a cost of $16.