Writing for the Ear with Alicia Zuckerman

4 weeks: Thursdays, February 23 – March 16 / 7 – 9 p.m.

Writing for the ear is different than writing for the eye. The rhythm is different. Often the vocabulary is different. Sentences tend to be shorter. Like this. They aren’t even always complete sentences. And sometimes they start with conjunctions. Lots of writers who’ve spent time learning how to write for the ear say when their writing becomes more conversational, they become better writers overall. It’s one of the most useful things you can do to find your own voice. The poet Billy Collins says it takes a lot of time to figure out how to sound like yourself. Listen to the former U.S. Poet Laureate read one of his poems, and you’ll hear what that sounds like. In this course, we’ll do a lot of listening — to poets, comedians, radio journalists, songwriters, other writers — and to each other. In this course, writing exercises will probably sound different than others you might have done before. In this course, we’ll write out loud. You’ll discover what writing for the ear means in your own writing. These principles apply to both non-fiction and fiction. Maybe you’re looking to write for story slams, a podcast, audio essays, the screen, the stage — or the page. All this applies to writing for the eye too. You know when you’re reading something and you suddenly realize you can hear a character or an author, like you’re listening in on a conversation or they’re talking to you? That’s writing for the ear.

Alicia Zuckerman is the editorial director at WLRN, where she’s in charge of editing feature stories and other long-form radio. Her reporting has aired on NPR, Public Radio International and American Public Media and has won a national Edward R. Murrow award. Before coming to Miami in 2007, she covered the arts for New York Public Radio and New York magazine. She was a 2013 USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism fellow. She has edited many regional, state and national award-winning stories, from outsider art to the Central American migrant crisis. “Remembering Andrew,” a radio documentary she co-produced about Hurricane Andrew, won a Third Coast International Audio Festival award, known as the “Sundance of radio.” Alicia has a bachelor’s degree from the University at Albany (SUNY), where she studied writing and music, and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Zuck is pronounced like book, not duck.