Upcoming Workshops
Fall 2025
Art of Advocacy: Stories that Change the World
Come join the fourth cohort of Art of Advocacy Fellows!
Art of Writing partners with Berkeley alumnus and communications expert Matthew King to host a series of workshops on the subject and practice of writing as advocacy.
Over five Friday afternoons, 12 undergraduates learn how to research, write, and pitch stories on public policy topics of their choosing. Participants who successfully complete the workshop will be “Art of Advocacy Fellows.” Students have the opportunity to rigorously edit and revise their work to meet the standards of the industry’s most discerning editors. In conversation with King and other participants, students explore and experiment with narrative and rhetoric, with shaping a story to move their readers to action and advocacy for a cause, such as climate change, voting rights, food insecurity, and racial equality, among other issues.
Students work in different forms and varied voices, including op-ed, social media campaigns, blog posts, letters to the editor, and more. Prospective fellows should submit their applications by October 4.
About Matthew King: as a student at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, Matthew King majored in two things — English and following the Grateful Dead. He began his professional career in the publishing industry, where he served as executive editor and vice president of the Hollywood Reporter for many years. After transitioning to the nonprofit sector, he led numerous advocacy campaigns as director of communications and marketing for the ocean protection group Heal the Bay. He now operates May77 Communications, where he has led statewide government campaigns to address food insecurity and sea level rise. His work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Eligibility
UC Berkeley undergraduate students who are able to attend all five sessions of the workshop.
Schedule
This five-session workshop meets on selected Fridays in October and November 2025 (Oct 17, Oct 24, Oct 31, Nov 7, Nov 14) from 2:00 to 4:00 pm (with break). The October 17, October 31, and November 14 sessions will be in person and the other sessions will be over Zoom.
To see a schedule of the workshop, please view the linked Art of Advocacy Schedule below.
The Art of Advocacy Schedule.pdf 31.17 KB
Deadline
October 4, 2025, 11:59 pm
Application Materials
Complete your Art of Advocacy application on the Submittable website.
Please note that you will need to create a Submittable account to access the application. For technical assistance, please visit submittable.com/contact.
For inquiries about the workshop, please contact Jane Liaw at janeliaw@berkeley.edu.
This Moment in Memoir: A workshop in autobiographical writing
Do you have personal stories you’re ready to tell? In this intensive November 1-3 workshop, memoirist and novelist Sylvia Brownrigg will help students explore their own narratives, whatever the subject: family or culture, trauma or transformation.
Participants will produce different kinds of writing in class—including “flash memoir”; place descriptions; character sketches, of self and others; and dramatic episodes—and be given the opportunity to discuss and critique each other’s work. Each student will also have focused, responsive attention from the instructor, and may bring previous writings in this genre for the instructor to read and comment on outside of class.
Part of each day will also be devoted to reading sections from powerful memoirists and innovative writers who are stretching the form: from Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House (combining mythical with autobiographical writing) to Michelle Zauner (Crying in H Mart), Kiese Laymon’s Heavy (in the voice of a letter to his mother) to Tara Westover’s Educated.
There is an explosion of new styles and modes in memoir, and over these three days we will familiarize ourselves with some innovations, while also talking about and practicing the fundamental elements—voice, setting, character, and narrative arc—that make any story compelling. The workshop takes place at a time when the “hybrid memoir” has come into its own, with authors including essays, poetry, or illustration in their narratives.
Students will have the chance to produce in-class writing and then meeting in small groups for discussion; there will also be full-class workshops during the second two days.
Participants who successfully complete the workshop will be “Art of Memoir Writing Fellows.”
Applications to this workshop will open soon.
Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of 8 acclaimed books of fiction including the novels The Delivery Room, winner of the Northern California Book Award; Pages for You, winner of the Lambda Award, and its sequel Pages for Her; and a collection of stories, Ten Women Who Shook the World. Her novel for children, Kepler’s Dream, was turned into an independent feature film. Brownrigg’s new memoir, The Whole Staggering Mystery, was published by Counterpoint in April 2024, and was described in the New York Times as “an exuberant yarn… an absolute banger.” She discussed her inventive memoir recently with Hippocampus Magazine. Brownrigg’s books have been included in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times lists of notable fictions and have been translated into several languages. She has also published reviews and criticism widely, including in the New York Times, The Guardian, and LA Review of Books.
Past Workshops
Spring 2025
150 Words or Less (Writing in Museums)
Museums use objects and physical spaces to tell stories that spark curiosity and help visitors connect to the richness of human cultures and understand the natural world. Museum guests can often engage all of their senses, but text usually plays a central role in their experiences.
During field trips to the Magnes and BAMPFA, participants will explore and analyze museum writing and the conditions that affect reader comprehension and interest. Drawing on insights from the field trips, students will draft a museum writing sample, critique their peers’ writing, and revise their own work.
This workshop will meet during the weekend of March 14 through March 16, 2025, in the Geballe Room of Townsend Center for the Humanities (220 Stephens Hall). March 14 and March 16 will be half-days. March 15 will be a full day. Refreshments will be provided.
Hannah Weisman is executive director of the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley. As a museum educator turned director, Weisman takes a people-centered approach to her work, seeking ways to help people make connections and build community in museum spaces and with material culture.
Applications for this workshop are now closed.
Sound Stories: An Introduction to Audio Storytelling
What makes a great story, and what makes a story sing in audio? Pushkin Industries senior producer and host Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey takes students through the process of building an audio story — from story-hunting, sourcing, reporting, and researching to drafting and editing. Drawing on his experience making chart-topping narrative shows Revisionist History and The Last Archive and working with authors such as Jill Lepore and Malcolm Gladwell, Naddaff-Hafrey teaches students how to look for stories and build them into full podcast episodes. Students should bring ideas for their own podcast episodes, as they learn to hone and build audio stories from the ground up.
At the end of the workshop, students will have made a short audio story.
Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey is a senior producer at Pushkin Industries, where he writes and hosts on Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History and The Last Archive, a podcast about the history of evidence. He has been a producer at NPR, and his writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Smithsonian, the Yale Review, and Aeon among other publications. He is also a musician and has composed scores for BBC Radio.
This workshop will meet virtually on the afternoons of March 21, April 11, April 18, and April 25. It will meet in person on April 4 (afternoon) and April 5 (10 am to 2 pm) in the Geballe Room of Townsend Center for the Humanities (220 Stephens Hall).
Applications for this workshop are now closed.