Lessons for the silver screen begin at the Fletcher Library

While each individual class at UVM costs an arm and a leg, graduate student Tommy Walsh offers a chance to learn about screenwriting for free.

Walsh teaches an Intro to Screenwriting class at Fletcher Free Library every Saturday at 3 p.m.

A Masters of Fine Arts student at Goddard College, Walsh is required to do 15 hours of teaching, he said.

“At Goddard, we believe that students need to give their learning back to their community,” Director of the MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College Paul Selig said.

Selig said that students complete this requirement in a number of ways, by working at places as diverse as prisons and libraries.

Walsh decided to teach a free, weekly class in Burlington for anyone who might be interested.

“I was kind of inspired to reach out to the community,” Walsh said.

Each week, the class explores various aspects of screenwriting.

“We started from the core of what storytelling is,” Walsh said. “We did character one day, setting another — each class kind of starts snowballing upon each other.”

The class is also about developing people’s personal plot ideas.

“All you really need for a movie is an idea,” Walsh said. “The people coming here aren’t necessarily academics but they’re people with ideas.”

The class appeals to nontraditional students with busy lives because of its relaxed, assessment-free structure.

It represents a great opportunity for those who are thinking about writing  a screenplay, allowing for a wide variety of students’ abilities, attendee Cordell Hull said.

Furthermore, Walsh makes an effort to keep the class unintimidating.

“[Walsh] is very enthusiastic and makes the idea of writing a screenplay seem like an adventure worth undertaking,” participant Sue Mick said.

According to the syllabus, Walsh’s class motto states that in order to live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. 

The eight-week course is winding down, but the class has sparked an interest by the students to have a screenwriting forum in Burlington.

“I got approached by a student to start a screenwriting group,” Walsh said. “The idea is to have it be an open forum to screenwriting.”