Fall 2026
We have a new course at McNally Robinson, and returning by popular demand are Life Sketches in Words and Spark your Writing. We're looking forward to a fall of writing, conversation and creative output. Join us!
new course in McNally's classroom
October 3, 10, 17 & 24
Workshopping your Writing: the pleasure and the process
You have in hand a work in progress (WIP), maybe a manuscript or maybe a longer piece of writing (however you define ‘longer’ in your writing practice). You want fresh, creative, and critical eyes to help you through the hard work of refining and revising the piece.
This four-week course offers a dynamic and collaborative environment for writers interested in reviewing and reworking their WIP in the company of other writers doing the same. Deborah and Amanda will guide the conversation to ensure each writer has the time and space to present their work, to ask for specific feedback, and to respond to comments. The objective is for you to make progress on your WIP and to sharpen your critical-reading and response skills, while building community via the support of this group.
The class will be run as a seminar: Each writer will be invited each week to present their WIP to the group by reading excerpts and asking for specific comments and feedback. Our focus will be on structure, plot and narrative development. We will consider questions of beginnings and endings, characters, form, style, tone, and more. (This class is not about language-level editing.) Genres welcomed are fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, and memoir.
There will be pre-work before the first class and homework each week.
Saturday mornings / October 3, 10, 17 & 24
Fee: $150
Space limited to 8 participants
Register here
October & November sessions
Spark your Writing 1
No term of ours is complete without this perennial favourite -- and, this term, we're offering two sessions. Fuel your writing practice with a weekly 'spark' (words + image) sent to your email inbox on Monday morning. Over the course of the week, you write an original piece 'sparked' by what you received. Then, on Sunday afternoon we meet to share what we have each written. It's fun! You will be inspired by the sparks, learn from reading your work aloud to the group, and benefit from encouraging conversation and constructive feedback.
New sparks, always, in every session.
Sunday afternoons 1-3pm (Winnipeg time)
October 4, 11, 18 & 25
November 8, 15, 22 & 29
Via Zoom | Fee: $60 per session
Registration opens in September
Six weeks October/November
Life Sketches in Words
Writing is a solo act, but when we do it in the company of others also engaged in capturing memories with words on the page it is both fun and remarkably productive. "Life Sketches" is six weeks of prompts to get you writing about your own life. A new topic each week. Every week writing, conversation and sharing. All designed to spark your memory and to get words down onto the page. Later, you can rework and revise those words. This course is about generating drafts and stories to get you started.
Wednesday mornings, 10 a.m. to 12 noon (Winnipeg time)
October 7, 14, 21, 28 & November 4, 11
Via Zoom | Fee: $90
Registration opens in September
