EGISTRATION & TUITION (SELECT SUITABLE OPTION AT CHECK-OUT)

Stream A: Day 1 Only – The Professional’s Toolkit ($150 🇨🇦 | $110 🇺🇸)
Stream B: Day 2 Only – The Creative Feature Writer ($150 🇨🇦 | $110 🇺🇸)
Stream C: Both Days ($250 🇨🇦 | $182 🇺🇸)
*Stream D: Both Days + Manuscript Review ($350 🇨🇦 | $255 🇺🇸)

*For an additional fee, students will receive a personal consultation from Richard. This includes detailed notes on a submitted draft of up to 2500 words plus a 50-minute, virtual consultation on pitching, selling (if the piece is unsold), editing, reporting, structuring and strategies for getting better going forward. Richard’s previous PanU students have placed stories in major publications around the world, including The New Yorker, The Walrus, Maclean’s, and more.

BOOTCAMP OUTLINE (Both days include one-hour lunch break)

Day 1 (Sat. Sept.14, 12pm-5pm EST): The Professional’s Toolkit

Learn how to pitch, report, and write rock-solid features and opinion pieces that newspapers and magazines will jump to publish. This session covers everything from story conception to pitching, reporting, structuring, and writing, with an emphasis on simplicity, strength, and saleability. We’ll explore profiles, short features, policy stories, op-eds and more.

Day 2 (Sun. Sept. 14, 12pm-5pm EST): The Creative Feature Writer

Go beyond the basics to write features and reported essays that readers will remember. This day focuses on advanced techniques for developing a distinctive voice, experimenting with structure, and blending nonfiction forms like essays, reportage, narrative, and memoir. Emphasis will be on the creative aspects of narrative writing, with a professional goal of publication.

TAKEAWAYS

• Master the essentials of pitching, reporting, and writing publishable features, op-eds and essays.
• Develop and refine narrative story ideas from conception to final draft
• Understand and apply different structures for various feature types
• Experiment with creative techniques to develop a unique voice
• Blend different nonfiction forms to create compelling narratives
• Gain insights into the professional standards and expectations of editors

REGISTRATION

After checkout, you’ll receive a receipt with a link to download your tickets, which will include Zoom passcodes and additional webinar information. You will also receive an emailed reminder a few days before the event.

ACCESSIBILITY & RECORDING

This webinar is designed for live participation but a recording of the webinar will be provided to all registrants to stream if they’re unable to attend in full or wish to view it again. Closed captioning is also available for both live and recorded video, however, it’s auto-generated and subject to error.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Richard Warnica is currently a business feature writer at the Toronto Star and a part-time professor of journalism at Humber University, where he teaches undergraduate feature writing. A finalist for several National Newspaper Awards, Richard has worked as both writer and editor for such outlets as Politico, The National Post, Canadian Business, and Maclean’s. Known for his deep, sometimes obsessively, reported features, long and short, he’s covered the justice system, popular culture, health issues, the fall of Rob Ford, and the rise of Donald Trump. He was a 2010 Investigative Reporting Fellow at the Tyee Solutions Society, and the 2018-19 Webster/McConnell Fellow at Massey College, at the University of Toronto. He lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter.