Coaching
I offer memoir coaching sessions to help writers tell their stories, access their authentic voice, and meet their creative goals. Each session is tailored to your experience level and includes a dynamic blend of editorial feedback, generative prompts, recommended reading, craft instruction, and discussion of creative challenges. My warm, engaging, and trauma-informed coaching style creates the fun, safe, and constructive environment necessary for the creative spirit to thrive.
All coaching takes place on Zoom. I charge $150 for an initial one-hour session, which includes feedback on a writing sample and a thorough discussion of your goals and desired outcomes. Follow-up sessions are 45 minutes and cost $100. Written feedback on submitted writing (up to 3,000 words) is included in cost. Additional work can be reviewed for an editorial reading fee of $.02 per word. Please email me at libbykurz@gmail.com or complete the contact form below if you’d like to schedule an appointment.
Teaching
I teach creative writing workshops both independently and through The Muse Writers Center, one of the largest nonprofit literary centers in the country that offers full scholarships to students. I believe in making the craft of writing available to anyone who wants to learn it, not just degree-seeking students in academic programs. My classes focus on poetry, memoir, or a hybrid of the two. I love walking writers through the images and patterns their own life is telling and how to shape those components into a larger, universal narrative. Please see below for a list of current class offerings.
Current Class Offerings
The Memoir Studio
Feb 12 –– Apr 22, 2024
Class meets online every other Monday evening, from 7:00 pm-9:30 pm EST
The Memoir Studio is for writers actively drafting or revising a full-length memoir manuscript. Each class will include craft discussions on issues pertinent to each student’s work, such as structure, scene vs exposition, voice, and finding the story beneath the story. We will explore various narrative forms and craft techniques through the analysis of assigned weekly reading, as well as consider the real-world consequences and ethics of writing and publishing true-to-life stories. The majority of each class will be dedicated to workshopping submitted writing and students should expect to present a new or revised piece each class as well as provide thoughtful and informed critiques for fellow classmates. This class is an opportunity to work through problems that have arisen with an existing manuscript. Writers will leave this class armed with the tools to transform previous and new work into a clear and compelling memoir of any length.
This class is available through The Muse Writers Center.
Cost: $250. Tuition assistance is available.
Taking Libby's workshop was one of the most life-affirming experiences I've ever had. I never imagined that learning how to write would also transform me as a person. Libby's expertise at communicating her love of writing, combined with her warm, personal and highly engaging style, makes this workshop perfect for even the most reluctant of writers!
—Molly W
Libby’s writing workshop was a rich and fruitful gift. When I began, I offered a disclaimer that I didn’t know a single thing about poetry, but I finished the course feeling like a true poet. The depth of the workshop, the instructor’s expertise, and the weekly assignments and feedback made the path of poetry feel smooth and seamless.
—Johanna M