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Class Catalog

There’s a class for everyone.

Long-time writer or just getting started? Writing an epic poem or a short story? Whoever you are and wherever your passions lie—if you want to write, there’s a Hugo House class for you. Explore our catalog and find yours.

When we say we want our classes to be for everyone, we mean it.

The Writing Life

The Writer’s Notebook

Instructor: Molly Schaeffer. Combining generative exercises, workshops, and notable examples, we'll investigate the relationship between writers/artists and their notebooks, and ask how our notebooks can feed our creative work and even be the creative work itself.

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Level: Introductory
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 22, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Poetry

Poetry I

Instructor: Michelle Peñaloza. Whether you're a beginning poet or a lover of the art, this class will introduce students week by week to elements of poetic craft.

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Level: Introductory
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 22, 2024 , 12:00am PT
Format: Online Asynchronous
The Writing Life

Self Publish Like a Pro

Instructor: Beth Jusino. This class guides students through the nitty-gritty of the constantly changing self-publishing process, including pricing, distribution options, hiring freelancers, choosing a format (print? ebook? audio?), and more.

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Level: Advanced, Intermediate
Length: 4 sessions
Start: January 22, 2024 , 12:00am PT
Format: Online Asynchronous
Fiction, Nonfiction

16-Week: Contextualizing the Family Story

Instructor: Jaimie Li. This class will connect our intimate experiences to a broader social history, using a combination of research and in-class writing assignments, towards producing individual stories that reflect a greater sense of where we come from and who we are.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 16 sessions
Start: January 23, 2024 , 7:10pm PT
Format: In Person
The Writing Life

Building Your Author Platform

Instructor: Theo Nestor. This course covers the basics of platform building, from author websites to essay publication, blogs, email lists, and social media, and more.

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Level: Intermediate, Advanced
Length: 1 session
Start: January 23, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Nonfiction, Memoir, Essay

Creative Nonfiction II

Instructor: Meghan Lamb. Investigate nonfiction strategies and narrative structures—including lists, profiles, braids, and epistolaries—exploring what it means to "exaggerate" without "lying."

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Level: Intermediate
Length: 8 sessions
Start: January 23, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Poetry

Introduction to Poetic Form

Instructor: Tiana Nobile. In this course, participants will read and write both traditional forms (i.e. sonnet, ghazal) and modern, experimental forms (erasure, golden shovel), with discussions and in-class workshop.

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Level: Introductory, Intermediate
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 23, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Reading, Essay

Reading the Asian American Essay

Instructor: Joyce Chen. In this class, we'll read a wide array of essays written by writers both canonical and contemporary, and use them as a vehicle into discussions about craft, voice, audience, and more.

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Level: Intermediate
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 23, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: In Person
Fiction, Nonfiction

20-Week: Fiction/Nonfiction Daytime Workshop

Instructor: Peter Mountford. This daytime workshop offers regular deadlines, accountability, strong community, and high-quality feedback and peer review.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 20 sessions
Start: January 24, 2024 , 10:00am PT
Format: Online
Fiction

Workshop for Weirdos

Instructor: Carolyn Abram. With in-class workshop and readings, students will discuss craft elements of creating weird stories, such as worldbuilding, genre expectations, and publication options.

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Level: Intermediate
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 24, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Nonfiction, Essay

Writing About Past Travels

Instructor: Monika Sengul-Jones. Visit your inward passages by writing a travel essay about past travels. Pack your memories, memorabilia, journal entries, library cards, and beloved dreams.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 24, 2024 , 7:10pm PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Essay

Trees & Us

Instructor: Claudia Castro Luna. This generative class explores how trees have inspired human consciences, bodies, structures, imaginations, and work. Engage with a variety of texts—letters, essays, music, poetry, to examine our relationships to the tree societies around us.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 7 sessions
Start: January 25, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: In Person
Poetry

Voice & Tone in Persona Poems

Instructor: Melanie Figg. Explore the persona poem, particularly voice and tone, by reading writing poems written in the voices of objects, people, and nature.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 3 sessions
Start: January 25, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

Breaking Up Time & Space

Instructor: Cedar Sigo. This workshop will investigate various ways of capturing and recording details of the everyday, exploring questions of craft and creativity around voice, tone, inflection, time and chronology, rehearsal versus practice, and more.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 1 session
Start: January 26, 2024 , 11:00am PT
Format: In Person
Nonfiction, Essay

The Artful Essayist

Instructor: Christine Hemp. Cultivate your voice, tune in to the "ear" of language, and find a shape for your unique essay in this workshop for the novice and advanced writer alike.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 2 sessions
Start: January 26, 2024 , 10:00am PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Essay

Accompanying Crisis

Instructor: Susan Briante. Through readings and exercises, participants will consider the ethics of writing out of and through crisis, taking inspiration from writers confronting violence and climate change, as well as historic and contemporary oppressions, and more.

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Level: Introductory, Intermediate
Length: 2 sessions
Start: January 27, 2024 , 10:00am PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Essay

Bake a Zine

Instructor: Kate Lebo. How can a recipe tell a story? This generative class will mash up family recipe-writing traditions with poetry, flash fiction, and the personal essay to see what emerges on the other side.

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Level: Open to all levels
Length: 1 session
Start: January 27, 2024 , 10:00am PT
Format: In Person
Nonfiction, Essay

Humor & Persuasion: The Comic Personal Essay

Instructor: Courtenay Hameister. Explore the art of the comic personal essay with close readings, subject matter guidance, humorous writing exercises, peer feedback, and a few laughs.

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Level: Intermediate
Length: 2 sessions
Start: January 27, 2024 , 1:10pm PT
Format: Online
Poetry

Poetry: Fast & Fearless

Instructor: Kimberly Dark. This "crash" course on poetry explores craft elements such as form, metaphors, movement, and tropes, strategies for editing, and more with in-class writing and discussion.

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Level: Introductory, Intermediate
Length: 1 session
Start: January 27, 2024 , 1:10pm PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Young Adult/Children's Lit

Voice in Young Adult & Middle Grade Fiction

Instructor: Karen Finneyfrock. Explore and hone an authentic, inventive voice for your young adult and middle grade novels.

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Level: Introductory, Intermediate
Length: 6 sessions
Start: January 29, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Nonfiction, Memoir, Essay

Writing about Music

Instructor: Kristi Coulter. This generative class explores techniques for writing vividly, precisely, and relatably about the music we love (or hate, or love to hate).

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Level: Introductory, Intermediate
Length: 4 sessions
Start: January 31, 2024 , 7:10pm PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Reading

Reading Virginia Woolf & Shirley Hazzard

Instructor: Liza Birnbaum. This class will examine Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse in conversation with Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus, particularly in respect to character arcs, politics, and sentence-level syntax.

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Level: Intermediate
Length: 8 sessions
Start: January 31, 2024 , 5:00pm PT
Format: Online
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Short Story, Essay

Decolonizing Nature Writing

Instructor: Jennifer Perrine. This generative class will read nature-centered poetry, essays, and fiction by Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and Latine writers. With writing prompts derived from forest bathing, bird noticing, and more.

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Level: Introductory
Length: 4 sessions
Start: February 1, 2024 , 7:10pm PT
Format: Online
Fiction

Start Writing Right Now

Instructor: Tina Tocco. This generative class offers a low-stress, supportive environment for those eager to experiment with fiction writing, with imaginative prompts such as music, sounds, images, and more.

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Level: Introductory
Length: 4 sessions
Start: February 1, 2024 , 10:00am PT
Format: Online