Playwrights' Tricks to Rev Up Any Genre

Instructor: Jody Gehrman

Skill Level: Open to All

Workshop: June 25-29, 2025

Have you heard of Chekov's gun, but aren't sure how it can help you? Does your dialogue sometimes go nowhere or lack nuance? Here's your chance to learn some of the key principles playwrights have employed for thousands of years and use them to rev up your fiction or memoir project. Join playwright, novelist, and college professor Jody Gehrman as we explore some of the most useful tools in the playwright's arsenal and discuss how to apply them to your novel, memoir, or short story.

Jody Gehrman has authored fourteen published novels and numerous plays for stage and screen. Jody’s plays have been produced or had staged readings in Ashland, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and L.A. Her play Wild Fire was performed at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival; her play Tribal Life in America won the Ebell Playwrights Prize and received a staged reading at the historic Ebell Theater in Los Angeles. She and her partner David Wolf won the New Generation Playwrights Award for their one-act, Jake Savage, Jungle P.I. She holds a Master’s Degree in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California and is a professor of Communications at Mendocino College in Northern California.

Jody taught this workshop a couple of years ago at a conference of the Writers of the Mendocino Coast.

A notebook or laptop might be useful, but not required.