is a community for creative writers and readers. Join us to generate new writing, study craft techniques, share your work, and experience the power of telling your own story.
We’re officially launching in the Summer of 2024 with a series of readings, workshops, and literary parties, so stay tuned!
Until then, follow us on Instagram and Substack.
Yours in writing,
Ash
Close Reading
Meet your Teacher
Ash Pattison-Scott is a writer from California, now based in Brooklyn.
She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she’s a Randall Jarrell Fellow and MFA in Writing Candidate at Sarah Lawrence College.
After teaching writing at UC Berkeley, San Quentin State Prison, SUNY Purchase, she founded Close Reading in 2022 to make the study of writing accessible to all people and a hell of a lot more fun.
If you’re ready for your writing practice to feel energizing, playful, and fun you’re exactly where you need to be.
Kind Words from Students
“I’m currently in an MFA program and took this course for something fun and challenging over the summer, and it was more rewarding and generative than a few of my MFA courses. I highly recommend taking Ash's course not only for her skills as a teacher, but her care in gathering texts, prompts, questions, and people.“
“Ashley pulls you into the literary world by slicing and dicing themes so gracefully. The reading lists are always so well thought out. They connect magically during our workshops in our discussions. The prompts inspire and gently push your creative boundaries to show you, you all have it in you, all along. She holds space for that creative spark turn into a fire.”
“Ashley teaches by stealth. Coaxes you along the riverbank with easy-seeming prompts then drops in one last lure and you're out of your depth and scrambling - like any serious writer should be.”
“Ash brings together readings which are fantastic on their own and highlight a broad spectrum of topics and ways of understanding, and arranges the reading calendar in a way that new meanings are created through the separate texts conversations and juxtapositions with one another. She creates a classroom environment that is both welcoming of everyone's journeys that brought them to their thoughts about the texts or their own writing, and also transformative through challenging her students with writing prompts and questions through which to view the readings.”