Courses – priscillalong.net

Currently Offered: Two Courses. See Below.

Hugo House: Prose Style: The Art of the Sentence, the Art of the Paragraph (six-week, in-person course offered in February and March, 2026).

Hugo House is on Capitol Hill, in Seattle, accessible by light rail and buses.

Link to Register to Come.

1634 11th Ave.
Seattle, WA 98122
Phone: (206) 322-7030
E-mail: welcome@hugohouse.org

First-rate writers use all the sentence forms, and they use particular forms not at random but to intensify meaning and deepen emotion. This hands-on course in developing virtuoso skills in sentencing and paragraphing is designed for writers of all levels—from beginner to advanced—interested in revising across several short works or a book-in-progress. We’ll scrutinize brilliant sentences and paragraphs and we’ll deepen our craft skill by writing or revising our own. Our new paragraphs will include leaps, turns, flourishes, and, always, transitions. Diction (word choice) is part of it: We’ll explore techniques for gathering language that is more original, more true to our own vision, and more sonorous.

Required text: The Writer’s Portable Mentor, Second Edition. Bring a notebook to write in.

Dates and Times, 5 pm at Hugo House, six classes

Thursday February 5, 5 o’clock

Thursday February 12, 5 o’clock

Thursday February 19, 5 o’clock

Thursday February 26, 5 o’clock

Thursday March 5, 5 o’clock

Thursday March 12, 5 o’clock

Note: For the writer, the journey from wishful to virtuoso is one whose alchemical transformations occur entirely within a process of work. In our classes we work very hard. Are you ready to work and have you cleared enough time to do every assignment to the best of your ability? That is the question to ask yourself as you consider taking one or another of these courses. Oh, yes, we do have fun. But we groan too, and we work.

2. Winter Seminar 2026

Craft work: sound

Theme: TBA

Form: Choose among A/B, titled theme, or abecedarian (this is for one of the pieces)

Required Books: The Writer’s Portable Mentor, 2nd edition.

Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures.

Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea.

Held on ZOOM. We now welcome writers who can’t get to Seattle without driving (or flying) for six hours.

Six Monday afternoons, 1–3 Pacific Time (Zoom opens at 12:30 conferring and chatting.) Cost $410. I send the link shortly before class and am available on Zoom at 12:30.

Class 1: Monday January 5

Class 2, Monday January 19

Class 3, Monday February 2

Class 4: Monday February 16

Class 5, Monday March 2

Class 6: Monday March 9

Portfolios due postmarked Monday, May 11, 2026.

In this seminar we will compose, as usual, two new pieces (can be short fiction or nonfiction) and revise a work-in-progress to completion. We will work on sentences, as we do. We now do all sentence work from week to week. We will also work on two or three flash (VERY short) pieces in relation to our Here and Now work. Very low bar on these.