COURSE DESCRIPTION

New York Times bestselling author Ayana Gray guides students through approaching their writing craft with respect, responsibility, and accountability at every stage of the process.  

Intentional Craft: Writing Outside Your Lived Experience will inspire you to create interesting, diverse stories by teaching students the importance and skill of crafting characters outside your own lived experiences. Storytellers have the unique power to open doors and build bridges when they write stories that are inclusive and encompass more than one community. In this foundational course, Ayana addresses how to respectfully and responsibly write characters of different races, ethnicities, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, disabilities, and neurodiversities. From her own experiences and research, Ayana includes best practices, dos and don’ts, as well as practical ways to avoid stereotypes when venturing out into new territory.

COURSE LAYOUT

This course includes three learning modules. Each module is broken into three individual lessons that include video lectures as well as assignments, exercises, and opportunities for self-reflection. Modules are designed to be completed in sequential order as each lesson builds on top of the previous one. Library courses also include recordings from the Live Q&A sessions with the author completed during the live course.