Writing Classes and Memoir Workshops by Kimberly Garts Crum

Write your true story. Learn the craft. Join the Shape & Flow writing community.

I am Kimberly Crum, owner and educator at the Shape & Flow Writing studio at a repurposed slaughterhouse, Mellwood Arts Center, in Louisville, Kentucky (home of the postponed Kentucky Derby).

I enjoyed a social work career before getting my MFA in creative nonfiction in mid-life. Listening to stories has been a career! Now, I guide aspiring writers in the retelling of true stories, for publication or posterity. All are welcome in this place—the young at heart as well as the old souls!

My office at Mellwood Arts Center is shuttered for now, due to COVID-19 (aka Corona).  We now utter phrases we rarely (or never) used —shelter-in-place, flatten the curve, social isolation. All workshops, seminars and groups will meet during this time through the Zoom videoconferencing platform.  I have jaunted awkwardly into this space, trying and failing, locking people in the “waiting room,” accidentally of course. Proud to say the learning curve on Zoom is flattening!

Plan to join us for one of the following upcoming writing opportunities!

Please consider joining an actual-virtual monthly writing group in which you will contribute, share, listen, and learn.  Touch us with your insights and words!

  • The monthly legacy-writing group will meet in video conference on the first Wednesday of each month, beginning April 1 ($20 per participant).
  • The monthly woman writer’s group will meet in video conference on Saturday, April 18— 10 to 11:30 AM ($15 per participant).
  • Four-week memoir/personal essay workshops will begin via video conference on Tuesday, April 21—10 AM to 11:30 AM ($80 per four-week session).
  • The workshop with poet Lynnell Edwards, “Introduction to Short Lyric Forms,” is scheduled at Mellwood on Thursday, April 23, 6 to 8:30 PM.  Lynnell will the teach the seminar on videoconference if necessary.

To inquire or enroll, e-mail me at shapeandflow@gmail.com 
I will send electronic invoices directly to you. 

Dogs in the Time of Corona

I expected we’d all be reading more than usual. What I did not expect is a peak in dog fostering and adoption. Our own dog, Moses, doesn’t understand why he is so lucky to have us around all day every day! 

While relaxing on the couch near your favorite pet (s), I highly recommend the wonderful literary anthology by yours truly and co-editor, writer Bonnie Omer Johnson— poems, essays, memoir and short stories by men and women born between 1946 and 1964. Check out  The Boom Project: Voices of a Generation, which will be on sale for $19 until April 9

Blessings and Peace to everyone who lands here!
Kim, and Moses the dog

 

Workshops

I want to improve my craft within a writing community.

Coaching

I want one-on-one help for my writing project.

Editing

I want an editor to help me develop and polish a manuscript.

Musings

Writing in the Time of Corona

by Kimberly Crum, posted in Uncategorized

Come together, virtually. Write now! Greetings from my home office—a high swivel stool at my kitchen breakfast bar. I love the way the light slants through this room and I can hear the birds singing, as if all is right with the world. Here I can easily distract myself when my writing inspiration wanes and I forget to listen to my own advice—”Don’t wait … Continue reading Writing in the Time of Corona

Consider the Lowly Hermit Crab

by Kimberly Crum, posted in Uncategorized

I first read about the hermit crab in Barbara Kingsolver’s essay collection, High Tide in Tucson. In this true story about a stowaway crustacean, Kingsolver creates a lively lyrical first person narrative, in which the crab becomes a metaphor for how creatures habituate to their environments. Indeed, the hermit crab makes good metaphor. When you feel cramped, find a new shell to call … Continue reading Consider the Lowly Hermit Crab

Of Madeleines, Monuments and Memoir

by Kimberly Crum, posted in Uncategorized

A man at a party praised my husband for his determination to read all three volumes of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past — a literary tome, which “[in]several thousand pages, retraces the course of [the Frenchman’s] adolescence and adulthood, democratically dividing his experiences among the narrator and a sprawling cast of characters.” “Remembrance of Things … Continue reading Of Madeleines, Monuments and Memoir

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Testimonials

“The workshop is an enjoyable, stimulating way to learn and develop writing skills with a wonderful instructor and inspired women.”

“I have learned how creating scenes, using dialogue to move the story along, and integrating the setting with the characters can make your writing more engaging.”

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