Storytelling and Sound

Wednesdays from 10-11:30 am ET on November 3, 10, 17; December 1, 8, 15 (please note no class on November 24)

Explore how music can be a springboard and conduit for creativity in writing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This six-week class will offer listening selections from various periods in music history, along with background information on the pieces themselves and their composers. We’ll use the music to stimulate our writing energy and as a basis for prompts. Participants will be offered prompts at each session and, as they are comfortable, encouraged to share their work with the instructor and each other.

Fee for all 6 weeks is $150.

What Past Participants Had To Say

“Drawing on her experience as a musician and writer, Kris Faatz presents an engaging class using music as a springboard for writing. How delightful to both write to music and to learn more about the composers and what surprising places it took me as a writer. Kris engages her students in substantial craft discussions while providing encouraging and insightful feedback to student writing. This class was a delight. I highly recommend it.” -N. McMillan, www.nancymcmillan.com

“I loved the Storytelling and Sound class! I found myself writing at a higher level of creativity than normal thanks to Kris Faatz’s approach to teaching. Kris is an accomplished musician and is also an experienced writing teacher. She offers a wonderful way of fusing classical music, writing prompts, craft lessons and personal encouragement. I could see taking this class with Kris over and over again! After all, you can never learn too much about all the ways to interweave incoming sources that can inspire our work.”   -P. Lear

Course Instructor

Kris Faatz

Kris Faatz is a professional classically-trained pianist and published writer. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including CRAFTBaltimore Review, and Streetlight Magazine, and has received recognition in various competitions, most recently winning Tiferet Journal’s 2020 fiction contest. Her first novel, To Love A Stranger (Blue Moon Publishers, 2017), was a finalist for the 2016 Schaffner Press Music in Literature Award. Her second novel, Fourteen Stones, is forthcoming in 2022. Kris lives in Maryland, where she teaches creative writing with the Community College of Baltimore County and the Baltimore County public library system, and is a regular presenter at the Eastern Shore Writers Association’s Bay to Ocean Writers Conference.