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.
Our favorite horror authors know how to create a sense of dread, the chill down your spine, from the first page. This class will explore how to replicate that feeling in our own work, on a sentence level and beyond.
Instructor: Lauren Camp. Explore the idea of character through a number of lenses you won't expect—sometimes celebrating ordinary concerns, sometimes finding incredible wisdom outside of ourselves.
Instructor: Gracie Bialecki. Designed for writers of all levels interested in exploring the poetry and poetic teachings of Mary Oliver. We’ll discuss and collectively define craft elements and techniques that reoccur in her work.
Instructors: Allison Ellis & Amy Bowers. We dream of productive writing sessions but the reality is that tasks often overshadow. (Re)learn to open our eyes, go on local outings, and build a toolkit that turns the world into a dreamy writing office.
Instructor: Naa Akua. Set your intentions to engage love as a "practice," through writing epistolary poems, journal prompts, and mini memoirs, as well as incorporating meditative techniques and breathing exercises into your routine.
Instructor: Beth Slattery. This class will explore the nonfiction story through points of view, scene, reflection, and form. Using generative writing, reading, and an introduction to the workshop model, we will investigate our own personal stories.
Instructor: Jay Aquinas Thompson. Long poems create a cosmos for the reader: bigger life, more vulnerability, and grander designs. In this generative and reading class, you’ll plumb principles for shaping long works and workshop material with group discussion.
Instructor: Nisi Shawl. In this craft-focused class, we’ll dive deep and work through methods of writing a speculative fiction story or novel of high quality, covering a wide variety of topics, writing exercises, and workshopping.
Instructor: Susan Meyers. Whether you’re looking to write stories or a novel, this course will introduce three key elements of fiction: description, conflict, and character.
Instructor: Karen Finneyfrock. This yearlong course will offer a booster of support and instruction to writers who are working toward completion of a young adult or middle grade manuscript.
Instructor: Tara Conklin. Book Lab is a year-long intensive class for writers seeking to revise, restructure, rethink, and finalize a book-length manuscript. Students form a small cohort of writers all working toward the same goal.
Instructor: Jeanine Walker. Designed for any poet ready to take their poetry understanding to a new level, Poetry I will introduce or reintroduce you to poems from many different eras while providing a rich foundation for writing new poems.
Instructor: Beth Slattery. Weekly writing and reading assignments and instructor feedback help us explore why we procrastinate and how to break the cycle. Establish a writing practice and navigate the murky waters of their own procrastination.
Instructor: Jennifer Haupt. In this two-session workshop, we'll look at the ghosts in popular movies and novels, and do exercises to find your protagonist and antagonist's ghosts, the thing they are most afraid of and are often unaware of themselves.
Instructor: Tina Tocco. This class is geared towards writing for ages 8–12, with in-class prompts—everything from starter sentences to images, magical objects to inanimate objects—and discussion in a low-pressure atmosphere.
Instructor: Bill Carty. This yearlong poetry class will set students up for future poetic endeavors, including developing a short collection of poems, discussing submitting work for publication, and creating a long-term writing practice.
Instructor: Sonora Jha. Sometimes you have a story to tell, and you don’t know yet the genre in which it wants to be told. In this yearlong course, you will find your voice, your story, your form.
Instructor: Carolyne Wright. Whether you're contemplating a voyage or already underway, learn to tell your stories through narrative poetry, exploring strategies to get started and keep the story going.
Instructor: Maya C. Popa. A favorite of the French symbolists and contemporary poets alike, the prose poem is an enigmatic, hybrid creature that wields the techniques of poetry but foregoes its line breaks.
Instructor: Christine Hemp. This class is for those who want their memoir to have a novel’s urgency, with all the turns and surprises of a narrative arc.
Instructor: Beverly Aarons. Learn how to create a personalized organizational system that can provide a flexible structure for finishing projects and reaching goals.
Instructor: Susan Meyers. Writing about real life can be tricky. This class explores memoir and autobiographical fiction to examine how "true" your life stories should be.
Instructor: Shama Shams (Sanjukta). This course is based on Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, a series of prompts that focuses on recovering the creative self. We’ll work through the book together in a supportive environment.
Instructor: Michelle Peñaloza. Whether a beginning poet or lover of the art, this class will introduce you to the beauty and complexity of writing and reading poetry, as well as the basics of the workshop model.
Instructor: Aimee Suzara. Read and discuss works by diverse, heavily BIPOC writers challenging the "canon" and forging the path for other writers speaking to moments that make movements.
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