Kol u'Deyo - Editing Jewish Experience: Examining Text, Relationship, and Change - TUES. - AUDITOR

Instructor Name

No’a L. bat Miri

Workshop Title

Editing Jewish Experience: Examining Text, Relationship, and Change

Genre

Editing Skills (Prose)

General Description

A first draft presents a fractured world: some of it must be repaired before it finds the reader, some must be repaired in the action of the story that plays out under the reader’s hopeful eyes, and some must be repaired by the reader, herself, as she carries the story through the imperfect worlds of her own life. 

The Torah not only created Jewish experience, but set in motion a collection of processes that have been innovating, annotating, and otherwise adjusting Jewish experience for thousands of years. Each major movement within text both reflects and has caused changes in what it means to live as a Jew. 

Eternal, but never stagnant, the conversation of Jewish text invites us to consider a variety of frameworks for contemplating and enacting change: in the world, in our stories, and in ourselves.

In this workshop, writers will practice the editorial relationship from both sides with the aim of developing skills that serve the entire literary community. We will gain experience and discuss what it takes and what it means to work earnestly towards the perfection of a design not our own. In addition to enabling participants to enter into editorial relationships with more graciousness and confidence, what we learn will also be applicable to improved solo editing practices, and will help us each to become better workshop colleagues for future occasions.

Week 1

A Theology of Editing - During our introductory session, we will introduce ourselves and do a quick overview of the course. We will then turn to the Tanakh to explore questions of the editorial relationship that exists between the Divine, the Jews, and Torah. We will close with guidelines for developmental editing.

Week 2

Rational Actors - We will turn to the Talmud to examine the relationship between reason and action in Jewish practice and in character presentation. We will hear a few developmental conversations and work through some of the challenges they present for a writer’s response.

Week 3

Breath as Editor - Starting with a few developmental responses, we will begin our transition into line-editing and concerns who make their home in the ecotone between these two types of editing. Taking a step back, historically, we then visit the Mishnah to explore ways to preserve and use oral/aural methods to manipulate understanding in written work. 

Week 4

The World of a Single Word - Continuing the work of line-editing, we will hear a few line conversations. Following this, we will look at selections of midrash that can inform our sense of the significance of word choice within micro and macro contexts.

Week 5

Bending Each Arc - After hearing a few line responses, we will move back into the borderlands of line-editing and developmental editing, this time considering the practices and texts of mussar in shaping the arcs of stories, characters, and morality.

Week 6

The Never-Ending Draft - In our closing week, we will review and share additional pieces of text and discussion that exceeded our previous containers.

Participant Cap

12

Participant Expectations

Each participant will have the weekly responsibilities of providing editorial guidance for one assigned participant and working through the editorial guidance provided to her by her assigned participant-editor, the instructor, and any other participants who volunteer editorial guidance (neither process should take more than one hour outside of class, but of course participants with more time are at their leisure to do deeper work); providing feedback for participants other than the assigned participant is optional, but all manuscripts must be read at least once for the sake of orientation; each participant will be given a time during class to have a live discussion with each editorial partner and is expected to prepare for 10-15 minutes of gracious discussion about the manuscript and that week’s edits (each participant will do this once in the role of editor, once in the role of writer); there are no out-of-class readings required other than participant work as described above, but the instructor may provide supplemental readings to interested participants; each participant additionally has the option of a fifteen-minute editorial call with the instructor to be scheduled for a time after the fifth class session; all participants are expected to treat others with respect for their dignity and their efforts, to not share participant work or personal information that might arise in discussion without explicit permission from involved parties, and to keep intellectual property, artistic integrity, and collegiality in mind at all times. 

Auditor Cap

3

Auditor Experience

Auditors are welcome to sit in on all sessions, will be provided with all distributed materials, and are invited to join discussions; they will not be matched with participants for the workshop’s practice editorial relationships, and will not have their work shared among the group. Auditors will not provide a manuscript and need not commit to attending all synchronous meetings.

Course Schedule

11AM-12:30PM Eastern, Tuesdays; April 26, May 3, May 10, May 17, May 24, May 31

Language Req(s)

English - participants should be comfortable communicating entirely in English; other languages (particularly Jewish languages) are fully welcome in transliteration in participant work

Generative/Editorial

0% Generative/100% Editorial

MS/Sample Req

Participants should submit 15-20 manuscript pages of prose to be workshopped over the course of six weeks; excerpts from longer works should additionally include a one-page synopsis. Works do not need to have Jewish content, but it is strongly encouraged.

Recommended For

Writers who are at a point where they are looking to develop their first major editorial relationship (either with an independent editor, agent, or a acquiring editor); writers who are unable to currently take on a more rigorous, full-time, structured commitment, but have the motivation to turn to greater self-editing with some guidance; writers who view their process as part of their spiritual life and are curious about how editing might also be part of that experience; other interested writers