Learn how to write about travel—articles, memoir, essay, blogs, guidebooks—from a professional writer and a New York Times editor.

Travel writing lets us traverse the world on paper or screen, journeying everywhere from the cobblestone streets of Amsterdam to the brilliant-white beaches of Zanzibar. Reading of travel can provide the inspiration and information to set us in motion or it can transport foreign locales right into our living room.

Travel writing requires you to pack along a sense of adventure, a journalist’s eye, and a storyteller’s flair.  In our courses, you will learn about the full spectrum of travel writing, as well as such writing craft elements as description, structure, voice, and angles. You will also learn how and where to market your work.

Travel writing abounds in magazines, newspapers, books, and on the Internet. Whatever type of travel writing you seek to write, we’ll show you how to turn the world into words.

During the first ten weeks of this eleven-week course, a professional writer will teach you the fundamentals of travel writing. You will have a weekly writing assignment and two opportunities to present a longer work for instructor and classmate feedback. The eleventh week will be devoted to an online Q&A with a New York Times editor.

Using a balance of lecture, exercise, and feedback on work from the instructor and classmates, this workshop gives students a firm grounding in all the basics of feature travel writing. Everything is presented in a clear, accessible manner.

• Begin writing two travel pieces or a travel book
• Lectures on types of travel writing and basics of craft
• Writing exercises
• Present work for critique (two times)

Only this Premium travel writing workshop includes a week-long Q&A with an editor from The New York Times.

Travel Writing is for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.

Class size is strictly limited to 16 writers.

View a course syllabus

Instructor
Andrew Collins (June & July) has served as editor and writer on more than 150 guidebooks for Fodor's, Moon Handbooks, and Zagat guides. He’s also the expert "guide" on gay and lesbian travel for the website About.com, and has contributed to Travel + Leisure, The Advocate, Sunset, New Mexico Magazine, Out Magazine and various AAA publications. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University.

Guest Editor
Barbara Ireland (June & July) is the deputy travel editor for The New York Times.  Ms. Ireland became a backfield editor for The New York Times’s “Escapes” section in July 2002 after three years on the Op-Ed page, where she was deputy editor from May 2000 to July 2002.  She also was acting op-ed editor for a period of several weeks when the 2000 election was unsettled.  Earlier she was a copy editor in Business Day.  Ms. Ireland received a B.A.degree in English, graduating magna cum laude, from Cornell University. She was awarded a John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University in 1988 and served on the Pulitzer Prize juries in both 1996 and 1997.

Learn the most effective methods for selling magazine and newspaper articles from a professional freelancer and a New York Times editor. 

Many writers make a living, or a sizable portion of their living, by selling articles to magazines and newspapers on a freelance basis. The trick is to generate saleable ideas, match them perfectly to the right periodicals, then write terrific query letters. In particular, you must know exactly which publications are appropriate for which ideas (and how to figure this out among the thousands of publications).

In this five-week class you will learn how to execute each of these steps. You will also gain a realistic understanding of how you can begin a freelance career, move up the ladder in terms of prestige and pay, and manage your writing as a business. In addition, this unique course will give you the opportunity to interact with an editor from The New York Times in a special week-long discussion.

Among the topics covered:

• Overview of the magazine/newspaper market
• How to generate saleable ideas
• How to write great query letters
• How to scope out and analyze magazines and newspapers
• Effective ways to make contact
• How to send your materials
• Deciphering rejections
• Understanding contracts
• Managing the business side of writing

This course focuses on the selling of nonfiction magazine and newspaper articles. During the first four weeks, a professional freelancer will walk you through the strategies for selling magazine and newspaper articles on a regular basis and each student will have two opportunities to present a query letter to the instructor for feedback. The fifth week will be devoted to an online Q&A with an editor from The New York Times, a feature unique to this Premium class.

Class size is strictly limited to 25 students. 

View a course syllabus

Instructor
Cindy Price is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and writes for the American Michelin red guides. She primarily covers food and travel for the Times' Escapes, Travel and Dining sections, but has covered a range of topics for the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Sports section, Conde Nast Traveler, Philadelphia Weekly, Gotham, FHM, and the New Leader.

Guest Editors
Sandy Keenan (June & July) joined The New York Times as deputy sports editor in September 2007, after working as the assistant managing editor for investigations and enterprise for Newsday.  Ms. Keenan’s previous editing jobs at Newsday included assistant managing editor for Long Island, where she was responsible for overseeing a staff of 60 reporters and columnists and 15 editors producing the local news report.  She switched from reporting to editing in 2000 when she was named enterprise sports editor and later deputy sports editor.  Ms. graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Learn how to craft compelling feature articles from a professional writer and a New York Times editor.

Feature articles are the human side of journalism—pieces that go beyond the facts, exploring the world in a personal and compelling way. Such articles can examine virtually any topic, from the latest news to the newest trends to profiles of interesting people.

Feature articles abound in magazines and newspapers and they can even grow into books, such as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Perfect Storm.

Article writing combines the reporter’s hunt for a story with a storyteller’s flair. In our course, you will learn such journalistic techniques as angles, “ledes,” research, and interviewing, as well as such craft elements as description, structure, character, and voice. You will also learn how and where to market your work.

Whether you seek to write stories drawn from serious news or the lighter side of life, we’ll show you how to write articles that grab a reader’s attention.

During the first ten weeks of this eleven-week course, a professional writer will teach you the fundamentals of feature article writing. You will have a weekly writing assignment and two opportunities to present a longer work for instructor and classmate feedback. The eleventh week will be devoted to an online Q&A with a New York Times editor.

Using a balance of lecture, exercise, and feedback on work from the instructor and classmates, this  workshop gives students a firm grounding in all the basics of feature article writing. Everything is presented in a clear, accessible manner.

• Begin writing two feature articles
• Lectures on types of features and basics of craft
• Writing exercises
• Present work for critique (two times)

Only this Premium article writing workshop includes a week-long Q&A with an editor from The New York Times.

Article Writing I is for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.

Class size is strictly limited to 16 writers.

View a course syllabus

Instructor
S. James Snyder has written articles for USA Today, Newsday, the Newark Star-Ledger, L Magazine, the Villager, and Art Forum. He has served as film critic for the New York Sun, arts reviewer with Downtown Express Collider, film editor for SOMA magazine, and is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. He holds an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Guest Editors
Francis Flaherty (June & July) has worked for the last 15 years at The New York Times as a columnist and editor, and is currently the Deputy Editor of the City Section. He has written for Harper’s, the Atlantic, Commonweal, and the Progressive and teaches journalism at New York University. His book on writing, The Elements of Story, will be published by HarperCollins in July 2009.