Community Class: Writing Outside of Your Lane with Milo Todd
Admission
- $25.00 - Supporting Tuition
- $15.00 - Helping Hands
- $5.00 - Helping Hands Extended
Description
As the call for diversity in stories grows stronger (thankfully), many writers without lived experience of marginalization may feel anxiety about how to approach these stories with care and authenticity. Questions like “How do I start?”, “What if I make mistakes?”, and “Am I even allowed to write this?” are common—and valid.
In this 90-minute lecture, Milo Todd offers mainstream writers a thoughtful, practical framework for writing characters outside your own lived experience. Through the pillars of Self-Reflection, Research, Craft, and Editing, you’ll gain tools to approach this process with care, empathy, and a deeper understanding of your responsibility as a writer.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to examine your motivations and assumptions before you begin
- Techniques for effective research and incorporating what you’ve learned
- Craft strategies for creating authentic, non-stereotyped characters
- Tips for working with sensitivity readers and handling feedback
This class welcomes writers of all identities and focuses on equipping you with the knowledge and confidence to write with integrity. Let’s work together to create stories that reflect the rich, diverse world we live in.
For student privacy this class will not be recorded.
About the Instructor:
Milo Todd (he/him) is co-EIC at Foglifter Journal, runs The Queer Writer newsletter, and teaches creative writing primarily to queer and trans adults. He’s received awards, accolades, and fellowships from such places as Lambda Literary, Tin House, Pitch Wars, GrubStreet, Monson Arts, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His debut, THE LILAC PEOPLE, will be published by Counterpoint in late April 2025.
This event will be held in Zoom. By registering for this class, you agree to follow the Clarion West Code of Conduct and Zoom policies.
About Our Community Classes:
Community classes are offered at low cost and with additional sliding scale options to enable access to high-quality writing instruction, regardless of your economic circumstance. Please choose the ticketing price that best supports your circumstances.
Limited Free Seating:
We offer a percentage of seats in every class to People of the Global Majority (Asian, Black, African, Latina/o/x, Middle Eastern, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, and/or have been racialized as 'ethnic minorities') for free, regardless of financial need.
Eligible folks should complete this form to enter the lottery for free seats. If a seat is available, we will email you 7-10 days before the class begins. For more information, see our equity and inclusion policies.