The Virginia Woolf Writer’s Workshop: Seven Lessons to Inspire Great Writing

Some retro folks still believe the best way to learn how to write is to study good writers. Better yet: study great writers. That’s why, until the advent of the writer’s workshop in the post-WWII academic expansion, most of the great writers produced in the west (if they went to college at all) studied literature. Noted Woolf scholar Danell Jones has made the process of learning from a master more workshop-friendly with this series of exercises and prompts based on the writing practice of Virginia Woolf as she described it in her journals and letters. Best of all, Jones uses Woolf’s writing as exemplum. We can only hope it’s the next fad in workshops, for experience suggests most contemporary writers could only benefit from at least reading giants, if not standing on their shoulders.