Class Catalog

Instructor: Samantha Ladwig. Learn to excavate the tension & emotion from your real-life experiences to weave a story that resonates with readers. Leave with the nuts and bolts of a first draft and tools for taking it to finished product.

Instructor: Deborah Woodard. Confront the grotesque and bizarre preoccupations found in our everyday lives. We’ll study the work of Franz Kafka and Rachel Karyo, then find new ways to explore the weird and uncanny in our own writing.

Instructor: Meghan Lamb. Explore bodily interventions—including often-taboo subjects of sex, aging, illness, bodily change, and bodily difference—through reading, discussion, and generative writing. 

Instructor: Nisi Shawl. Learn the art of word-smithing—how we can use names and creative grammar to introduce readers to our invented worlds. We’ll learn various strategies for inventing language and develop semantics for our own spec fic worlds. 

Instructor: Beth Slattery. Find the true heart of your story and decide the best way to tell it in this eight-week workshop. Through reading, workshop, and discussion, we’ll explore techniques to find your personal style and strengthen your writing. 

Instructor: Anca Szilágyi. Level up your fiction writing this new year! Designed for writers ready to deepen their craft, we’ll cover advanced writing techniques, like POV, narrative distance, scene construction, dialogue, and more.

Instructor: Holly Day. Overcome your fear of the blank page in this generative short fiction workshop. Throw perfection to the wayside, embrace the creative process, and emerge with a solid short story draft.

Instructor: Carolyn Abram. Come one, come all! This workshop is a haven for writers whose work doesn’t fit neatly into “traditional” literary molds. Get feedback on your strangest, most surreal stories in this supportive workshop environment. 

Instructor: Jeanine Walker. Learn specific techniques for reading and giving feedback on others’ work, as well as approaches to revise your own work. Leave with feedback on three poems and the tools to hone your writing craft beyond the classroom. 

Instructor: Sarah Dalton. Practice writing, drawing, and creative collaboration techniques developed by Lynda Barry to explore what she calls the Unthinkable Mind or Image World. 

Instructor: Jasmine Griffin. Perfect for genre-curious writers, this class invites you to experiment with the multitude of genres under the spec fic umbrella: paranormal, horror, magical realism, fabulism, surrealism, absurdism, and more. 

Instructor: Grace Bialecki. This craft crash course is designed for novelists working on their first draft: We’ll review key elements of plot structure and tackle generative exercises to help you structure your story and finish your first draft.

Instructor: Wancy Cho. In this 16-week workshop, we’ll look back on our own extraordinary experiences and practice bringing them to the page. This class includes short weekly readings and discussions but will primarily focus on workshopping.

Instructor: Sally Ashton. Let’s read through the 2024 edition of Best American Poetry together! We’ll discuss our faves and the parts we don’t get. We'll also have optional writing prompts. Readers of all levels welcome – bring a curious mind! 

Instructor: Beth Slattery. Learn to navigate your flavor of procrastination. We’ll learn the whys behind procrastination, write together, and practice strategies to stay on track. Leave with a completed draft of a project you’ve been avoiding. 

Instructor: Ruth Joffre. Calling all sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and/or the beautifully weird in-between writers: Ready to buckle down on your WIP? This intensive cohort will give you the structure, support, and community you’ll need to get writing!

Instructor: Anastacia-Reneé. Perfect for new and emerging poets, this intensive will introduce you to the poetry genre. Through close reading and workshopping, you’ll learn poetry fundamentals in a supportive cohort environment. 

Instructor: Shankar Narayan. Dive into the rich space of writings about the forest—from scientific papers to ancient poetry, from global mythology to spells—to inspire our own creative practices. Leave with new pieces, ideas, and community.

Instructor: Theo Nestor. Need to market your book but unsure of how to build your audience? Learn easy and manageable ways to approach email lists, social media, and websites. You'll leave with concrete skills to put into practice right away. 

Instructor: Andrew Bell. Learn the importance character and conflict have in any scene– whether you're writing film, TV, theatre, or prose. We'll study great characters, work on characters of our own, and write and workshop scenes at the end of the day. 

Instructor: Elizabeth Villamán. Take your character from flat and forced to complex, authentic, and unforgettable in this craft-focused class. We’ll explore the emotional and psychological transformations that drive our characters—and our narrative.

Instructor: Kaelie Giffel. This class introduces students to recent feminist memoir and life-writing. You'll learn the basics of memoir’s generic conventions, how feminists have used the genre, and its political value. 

Instructor: Carolyne Wright. Explore the relationship between public events and personal transformations: over six weeks, we’ll study works that bear witness to social and political change, then reflect on urgent social contexts of our own.  

Instructor: Stephanie Barbe Hammer. Explore the structure and language of fairy tales and discover how you can use these timeless tales to inspire fresh stories rooted in the everyday moments of your own life.