College Essay Jumpstart Sessions

In-Person Workshops to Get Started!

with Allan Reeder

Starting your college essay can feel overwhelming—especially when you’re staring at a blank page and wondering where to begin. These focused, one-hour writing sessions are designed to help students get past that first hurdle and start writing.

In each session, Allan creates a supportive, creative environment with essential guidance on writing from your lived experience. Students write and revise individually, while working alongside a small group of fellow writers. Whether you already have a promising idea or haven’t thought about your essay yet, the starter lesson, guided writing exercises, and focused community will help you move forward.

The Workshop Hour

1. Jumpstart Lesson
Allan launches the session with a core lesson on writing from experience and finding meaningful material in your own story.

2. Two Guided Writing Blocks
Structured writing stints give students dedicated time to write and then revise, helping turn ideas into actual sentences on the page.

3. Regroup
The session ends with a group discussion about discoveries, progress, and next steps—so every student leaves knowing where to go from here.

Choose Your Session

Tuesday, September 22 | 7:00–8:00 PM
Saturday, September 26 | 10:00–11:00 AM

$35 per session
Limited to 10 students per session

What Students Can Expect

• A supportive, focused environment for getting started
• Practical guidance on writing from personal experience
• Time to write—not just talk about writing
• Guided opportunities to revise and strengthen ideas
• A clear next step for continuing the essay process

“The session helped my daughter accomplish more than she could in the last several months. She gained much-needed inspiration, confidence, and guidance to start the process.”

—Parent of a Jumpstart student

 

Ready to get started? Reserve your spot at Maxima Hive.

 

About Allan

Allan is the founder of Hillside Writing. He began his literary career at twenty-three, apprenticing under novelist John Irving, whom he assisted through several sentence-by-sentence revisions of a 1,000-page manuscript. The encounters with the writer’s practice — specifically with the precise acts and art of revision — led Allan to editorial posts at The Atlantic and DoubleTake magazines and into the sentence-making of a wide range of professional fiction and nonfiction writers.

Allan on the importance of trust — in the process, and in the details of your own story.
Read his blog post here.

Finding a special satisfaction in encouraging the creative process, Allan subsequently turned to the classroom to teach while earning a master’s degree at the renowned Bread Loaf School of English.

For fourteen years he taught and mentored young writers at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, in Natick, Massachusetts, where he founded an international magazine for high school poets, story writers, essayists, and playwrights. Among other honors, his own writing has earned two consecutive Artist Grants in Fiction from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, and a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. In addition to running Hillside, he has taught online writing classes for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, at Arizona State University. Allan brings an editor’s precision, an educator’s patience, and a mentor’s dedication to every working relationship at Hillside.

*Class Registration, Cancellation & Refund Policy

To provide the best experience while keeping our programs sustainable, most classes require a minimum number of participants. Maxima Hive reserves the right to cancel or reschedule a class if the minimum enrollment is not met.

If We Cancel a Class

If Maxima Hive cancels a class, registered participants may choose one of the following:

• A full refund of the original method of payment.
• Store credit for the full registration amount, which may be used toward any purchase at Maxima Gift Center, Maxima Book Center, or any future Maxima Hive class or event.

We encourage participants to choose store credit whenever possible, as credit card processing fees are incurred when payments are processed and again when refunds are issued. Selecting store credit helps us reduce these costs and continue offering quality community programming.

Participant Cancellations

If you cancel your registration before the class or event, an 8% cancellation/restocking fee will be deducted from your refund. This fee helps offset the non-refundable credit card processing and administrative costs associated with your registration.

Instead of a refund, you may choose to receive 100% of your registration fee as store credit, with no cancellation fee deducted. Store credit may be used toward merchandise at Maxima Gift Center or Maxima Book Center, or toward any future Maxima Hive class or event.

Class Rescheduling

If a class is rescheduled, your registration will automatically be transferred to the new date. If you are unable to attend the new date, you may choose either a full refund or store credit.

Thank you for supporting local, small-business programming. Your understanding allows us to continue offering meaningful classes, workshops, and events for our community.