Nonfiction Writing Workshop: "Say Less, Tell More" w/ Tereneh Idia

Say Less, Tell More: Sharpening Your Writing\’s Focus and Impact

How to really, truly, make your point in fewer words. (My editors will laugh that I am conducting a workshop on this, as they all too often have to edit my work’s word count down. However, as a former teacher myself, I know that in the learning is teaching is learning, so I hope we can support each other.)

From tweets to long texts, from grant writing to emails, we often write too much. How can we make our point, share our story, inspire, influence — by saying less and but telling more? The saying is in what we write, but the telling is what the reader takes away from our words. We will discover and learn to employ tools that will help us better focus our writing on what we really want to get across. In particular, we will learn to finetune the goal of the writing: What do you want to stick with the reader after they finish your piece? What are you aiming to achieve with this work? Over the course of the workshop, we\’ll explore several examples and you\’ll have time to draft three different styles of writing in response to prompts. At the end, you\’ll leave with implementable writing tools you can use on your own to enhance the heart and impact of your writing.

Participants should bring a sample of three kinds of writing: an email; a first paragraph to a short story, essay, or paper; and a tweet/social media caption.

This online workshop is suitable for beginner to Intermediate writers, or anyone who would like to add brevity to their missives.

All students who register and attend will receive 10% off a future workshop!

This workshop will take place on Zoom. The link will be provided via email the day of the workshop. Registration ends at 10am ET on 10/23. Our minimum enrollment is 6 and our maximum is 15. Please head to whitewhalebookstore.com/workshops for more information about our workshop program.

There will be a limited number of scholarships available for folks experiencing financial hardship at the moment or who otherwise find the fee to be a burden; please email events@whitewhalebookstore.com for more information.

About the instructor:

Through writing, arts, crafts and community, Tereneh Idia, works on issues of social justice especially: misogynoir, the environment, design, arts and culture. She launched IdiaDega, a global eco-design collaboration of Indigenous women artisans in 2014 and became a journalist in 2018. Her bachelor degree is in Business from Drexel University and she received her masters degree in Fashion Design and Marketing from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Tereneh is the contributing columnist for the Pittsburgh City Paper. Her work has also appeared in Pittsburgh PublicSource, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, AfroPunk.com, The North Star, StarTrek.com and the book, TENDER a literary anthology & book of spells: evidence.

Her journalism awards include: Golden Quill for best columnist 2019 and 2020, nominated in 2021. The Robert L Vann Pittsburgh Black Media Federation Award for 2020. The Association of Alternative News Media Best Column Billy Manes Award winner for best column in the United States and Canada in 2020, she was a finalist for this award in 2021.