The Food Writing Workshop

About the Workshop

Nationally renowned editor and two-time James Beard Award-winning writer Leslie Brenner will be your teacher and writing coach in our hands-on, MFA-style, interactive 4-week online workshops. Read more about Leslie Brenner.

Our current workshop:

FOOD WRITING FOR SUBSTACK

Geared toward food writers of all levels, this workshop has two components:

1) First 30 minutes of each session: Substack intensive. This give you the tools to maximize your success on Substack, build an engaged audience and amplify what you uniquely bring to the table.

2) Second 60 minutes of each session: We’ll work on participants’ writing in an MFA-style workshop setting.

What is an MFA-style workshop? It is a class taught in the format used by Masters of Fine Arts writing programs given by universities and colleges in the United States, such as those at the University of Iowa and Columbia University School of the Arts (where Leslie earned her MFA).

During the second part of each of our sessions, two participants will each get their own 30-minute chunk of time devoted to their work.

You’ll choose a piece of writing to “workshop.” It could be an essay, a food feature, a reported article, a chef interview, a cooking story with recipes or the intro to a book you’re working on — whatever you like. It will be submitted in advance to the whole workshop, so we can all — students and instructor — read the work carefully and mark it up with constructive notes for the writer.

When it’s your turn to be up in workshop, the work you submitted will be critiqued and discussed by the group, with the writer of the piece remaining silent and taking it all in until the end. The writer’s fellow students are the first to offer their thoughts on the piece, with the instructor waiting to weigh in until everyone (except the writer) has had a say. The instructor then summarizes the comments. In the second hour, a second student’s work is critiqued in the same manner.

Following the workshop, all participants will give the manuscript marked up with notes to the writer. The instructor will provide a full written constructive critique.

There is enormous value in this type of workshop.

First, there is the inherent value of the feedback itself — it shortcuts the writer’s process in taking a particular story to its highest potential. And from a larger view — with lasting value — each writer learns how to assess outside criticism, taking the what’s most useful and setting the less useful aside. The process enables writers to learn to be their own best critics.

For those critiquing their classmates’ work, there is also tremendous value. You’ll learn a ton about what makes a good piece, and more importantly, you’ll learn to be an editor — and you’ll be able to use that skill to become a much more effective editor and critic of your own work.

Discount code for Cooks Without Borders Substack Paid Subscribers: MEMBER20

Have questions? Email me at leslie@lesliebrenner.com.