The Work Room

1 Session: Sunday, March 8
11:00am-2:00pm ET
Edward Carey

How to reignite your imagination, sharpen your fiction, and give yourself permission to be braver and stranger in your writing through the inspiration of fairy tales…

Edward Carey is here to show you how. He is the author of nine books including Little, The Iremonger Trilogy, and Edith Holler. His work has been published in 25 languages. For the last sixteen he taught at Michener Center and the English Department of the University of Texas at Austin, before returning to England. He was also a frequent visitor to Iowa Writers Workshop, where the first version of this class originated. Carey illustrates all his books and his illustrations have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Corriere della Sera and in Wes Anderson's latest film “The Phoenician Scheme.”

In this seminar, we will visit these wondertales and see in all their darkness and boldness, how they still speak to us today and how they can liberate our writing. We’ll start with the tales of the Brothers Grimm, as well as the 1001 Nights and the work of Hans Christian Andersen, before moving to more modern practitioners, including Leonora Carrington, Angela Carter and Helen Oyeyemi.

We shall examine the simplicity of the form—it has been said that there is no fat on a fairy tale—its vibrancy, its sheer imagination, its cruelty and what lies beneath its seeming nonsense, often messages of a more sober and alarming content. We shall learn the lessons of economy and plot and character that such tales have to teach writers of any sort of fiction.

We shall visit ugly sisters, evil stepmothers, simple brothers, hapless tailors, little red caps, decaying houses, depressed Christmas Trees, bluebeards, flying trunks, many thieves, mutilated bodies, fake children, talking dolls, and a flea who lives with a louse. We shall consider terror and darkness, how best to survive and even triumph over monsters, monstrous parents, poverty, the whole terrible world.

There will be numerous exercises for writers throughout.

Workshop Highlights:

• Letting your imagination run wild.

• Rediscovering your love of story.

• Giving yourself permission to be bolder and stranger with your work.

To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, March 6.

1 Session: Saturday, April 4
2:00-4:00pm ET
Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg is the acclaimed author of six works of fiction and currently directs the creative writing program at Harvard University. She has also taught in the MFA programs at the Michener Center for Writers, Columbia University, and Warren Wilson.

Writers of speculative short fiction often hear that their worlds are underdeveloped and unclear or that their worlds are too “big” for a short story. How to strike the right balance? This master class will focus on creating vivid, convincing non-realist worlds in the space of the short story. The session will be divided into two parts. The first part will be a lecture on speculative world-building in two Octavia Butler short stories, followed by Q & A. The second part will focus on exercises that encourage students to explore and refine the world-building in their own stories.

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn how to build a speculative world in the space of a short story

• Gain a deeper understanding of the worlds you're seeking to create

• Lecture, generative writing exercises, Q&A

This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, March 27.

2 Sessions: Sundays, April 5 + 12
1:00-3:00pm ET
Moriel Rothman-Zecher

Moriel Rothman-Zecher is the award-winning author of the novels Sadness Is a White Bird (Atria Books, 2018) and Before All the World (FSG, 2022) and the forthcoming poetry collection, I Still Won’t Have Known (BOA Editions, 2028). Moriel teaches creative writing at Swarthmore College, and is a member of the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars Low Residency MFA Program. Moriel is the recipient of a ‘5 Under 25’ honor from the National Book Foundation and fellowships from MacDowell, and has published work in The New York Times, the American Poetry Review, the Paris Review, Zyzzyva, and elsewhere.

Have you always wanted to write a novel? Are you stuck in the middle of a draft? Do you need to let go of hesitation, or buckle down for revision? Join this two-part craft seminar to design a "cold-hearted workplan" to start, write or finish your first (or next) novel. Writing a novel is hard, especially in a culture that (occasionally) celebrates creative output, but does not value the labor and time necessary for creative production. But: community can help, and so can a cold-hearted workplan. In this craft seminar, we will discuss four components of novel writing: Reading voraciously, writing recklessly, revising rigorously and unsentimentally, and, of course, the cold-hearted workplan, a method Moriel has both used to write all of their own books, and has taught in numerous contexts, including the Catapult writing program; participants in that course have gone on to write full manuscripts, and also to publish novels with major presses (HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, etc.). 

The first meeting will include a generative writing exercise centered around reckless writing, and will then introduce the concept of the cold-hearted workplan, which participants will draft during class, and put into action in the week that follows. In the second meeting, we will discuss our workplans, and workplan experiences, do an exercise that centers rigorous and unsentimental revision, both of the workplan and in general. Then, we will go off into the world, workplans in hand, to start, write or finish our novels. 

Workshop Highlights:

• Creative inspiration

• Development of a "cold-hearted workplan" for your continued practice

• A miniature community of fellow-travelers

This class has 3 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, March 27.

13 Sessions: Sundays, April 5-June 28
11:00-12:00 ET
Yasmin Zaher

Yasmin Zaher is a Palestinian journalist and writer born in 1991 in Jerusalem. She got her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. Her first novel, The Coin, was published in 2024.

This fiction workshop is ideal for writers who wish to make progress on their writing projects in a high-level and supportive environment. We will meet once a week to workshop each other’s new material, with attention to story, character, structure, form, and style. Feedback will be constructive, intended to give the writer a sense of what’s working, what’s not, and how to make it better.

This workshop is designed for writers who are ready to share their writing with others, and who are looking for a structured environment to motivate them to move forward. We will also discuss all that intersects with writing, like reading, publishing, art, and discipline. Ideally, you will meet like-minded writer friends with whom you could continue workshopping after the semester is over. Novels, short stories, cross-genre and hybrid forms are all welcome.

Workshop Highlights:

• Intimate group of up to 8 writers

• Workshop 20-60 pages of your writing

• Get constructive feedback and move forward with your projects

There is 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, March 27.

1 Session: Tuesday, April 14
6:00-9:00pm ET
Isle McElroy

Isle McElroy is the author of three novels, The Atmospherians, People Collide, and The Channel (2027). They are currently a Shearing Fellow at UNLV and teach in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College.

What makes a novel impossible to put down? How does a novelist create momentum from the opening page? In this craft lecture, students will study opening passages from authors like Raven Leilani, Sarah Thankam Mathews, James Baldwin, Imogen Binnie, and others to learn how novel beginnings convey the arc of the book to follow.

As readers, we will focus on tone, setting, characterization, and plot to get a sense of what the writer has done to draw the reader into the world of the novel. Topics covered will include world-building, character development, shifting points-of-view, nontraditional form, unreliable narration, and dialogue. The attention to both introductory and advanced craft elements will make this course suitable for writers at every level.

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn how to create momentum early in a novel

• Learn how novelists selectively reveal details

• Learn what makes a novel engaging

This course has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Monday, April 6.

1 Session: Saturday, April 18
12:00-3:00pm ET
Swan Huntley

Swan Huntley is the author of four novels and two illustrated books for adults. She earned an MFA from Columbia University and has received fellowships from Macdowell and Yaddo.

Before writing a novel, there are many foundational choices you need to make. What is the structure? What is the timeline? What is the internal arc of the main character? What is the external arc?

In this class, Swan will take students through my process of making these choices. She will also share the template that she use before writing a novel, which distills the fundamentals into a simple form.

Workshop Highlights:

• An understanding of the foundational choices you need to make before writing a novel

• A template to fill out

• A clear plan for starting or continuing your novel

This class has 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by DATE TK.

1 Session: Saturday, April 18
2:30-4:30pm ET
Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg is the acclaimed author of six works of fiction and currently directs the creative writing program at Harvard University. She has also taught in the MFA programs at the Michener Center for Writers, Columbia University, and Warren Wilson.

This class will be an adventure in sharpening our writerly instincts, and is designed to provide a reset for writers who have reached a moment in their practice where they are seeking greater clarity and self-trust. Why does this matter? Without a sharp and sturdy artistic compass it can be difficult to determine what a project needs, especially once outside readers have “entered the chat.” Together we will explore the role of intuition in the writing process and tools for reorienting an artistic compass that’s gotten a bit scrambled.

Workshop Highlights:

• Refresh your relationship to your writing practice

• Learn new strategies for moving through periods where you feel stuck or lost

• Learn how to integrate feedback without losing your way

• Rediscover why you love to write

This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, April 10.

1 Session: Saturday, April 25
1:00-4:00pm ET
Sunil Yapa

Sunil is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. His bestselling novel Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist was a finalist for the 2017 PEN/Faulkner award and was described as "fast-paced and unflinching" by The New Yorker, "a genuine tour-de-force" by The Seattle Times, and “generation-defining” by The Toronto Star. Yapa holds an MFA in Fiction from the City University of New York- Hunter where we worked with Colum McCann and Peter Carey. He also holds a certificate in writing from the UCLA Film and Television program. 

Using clips from Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Godfather, The Great Gatsby, Titanic, Star Wars, Pride & Prejudice, Breaking Bad, and more, we will break down and highlight the ten crucial scenes in every successful drama. In this introductory one day craft seminar we will learn the ups and downs of three act structure: from the inciting incident to the moment of despair, from the character’s ghost to their moment of revelation. You’ll leave with a deeper understand of how great stories work their magic—to use in your own work or just to wow your friends with your sparkling insights about this year’s Oscar winners. 

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn the secrets of cinematic storytelling 

• Supported with multiple examples from well-known films

• Study with a hybrid novelist-screenwriter. 

This class has 2 half scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, April 17.

3 Sessions: Wednesdays, May 6, 13, 20
7:00-9:00pm ET
Jess Row

Jess Row is the author of three collections of short stories, including Storyknife (Ecco, 2026). His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, the Atlantic, n+1, the Baffler, and three times in Best American Short Stories. He's also the author of two novels, Your Face in Mine and The New Earth, and a collection of essays, White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination.

How do you fit a complete story, a human drama, a beginning-middle-and-end, into a text that might be 2000 or 5000 words long? What makes a great short story feel so much longer, fuller, and richer than its length would imply? In this class I'll introduce a simple technique I've been teaching students for 25 years: a way to find the right point of entry into your story and exit out of it. I think it's the key to understanding how stories create meaningful drama in tiny spaces, or as Grace Paley put it, "enormous changes at the last minute."

In the first class we'll start off by reading some very short stories (no advance reading necessary) and talk about the principle of fulcrum and how to find it. Then we'll do some preliminary exercises and I'll give you a homework assignment. In the second class we'll listen to one another's stories and I'll give tips on how to build your story-writing skills with more reading and writing.

Workshop Highlights:

• For beginners: this is your introduction to the technique that makes a short story happen.

• For practicing writers: the fulcrum is a skill you can adapt to any kind of short story, conventional, genre, or wildly avant-garde.

• For anyone who loves short stories: appreciating the fulcrum will give you new insight into how great story writers do what they do.

To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, April 24.

1 Session: Thursday, May 7
6:00-9:00pm ET
Isle McElroy

Isle McElroy is the author of three novels, The Atmospherians, People Collide, and The Channel (2027). They are currently a Shearing Fellow at UNLV and teach in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College.

In fiction, it’s often assumed that everything the writer produced is fully imagined–or, in the case of autofiction, that nothing is made up, each character representative of a real-life parallel. The truth is normally far less interesting. Fiction writers peel from life required to create their fictional worlds, sometimes borrowing heavily, sometimes very little at all.

In this workshop, we will explore strategies for bringing real life into fiction. Why, for instance, might a writer borrow from real life to write fiction when they could just as easily make it all up? How might real life details undermine narrative momentum and coherency? When is it necessary to fictionalize?

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn strategies for borrowing from real life in fiction

• Discuss the ethical implications of borrowing from real life

• Write a short exercise blending real life and fiction

This course has 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, May 1.

1 Session: Monday, May 11
7:00-9:00pm ET
Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of the national bestseller, The American Daughters, as well as The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was longlisted for the Story Prize, and We Cast a Shadow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. All three books were New York Times Editor’s Choice selections.

Selling a novel can be frustrating and mysterious. Sometimes it may feel like getting book contract with a publisher is impossible, or, worse, that the odds are stacked against you. But successful novels are published every year.

This lecture style class is designed to provide writers with a comprehensive knowledge base and set of tools to go from unpublished to having a book on a shelf at the bookstore. Topics will include completing a manuscript, finding an agent, and signing with the correct publisher. By the end of this session, writers will have a better understanding of the publishing industry and how to succeed in selling their book. This class is for writers who have a manuscript that is complete or nearly complete.

Workshop Highlights:

• Selling a book is difficult and frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.

• Writers will learn what agents and editors expect.

• Writers will have a better understanding of the publishing industry and how to succeed in selling their book.

This class has 2 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, May 1.

4 Sessions: every other Thursday, May 14, May 28, June 11, June 25
8:00-10:00pm ET
Sunil Yapa

Sunil is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. His bestselling novel Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist was a finalist for the 2017 PEN/Faulkner award and was described as "fast-paced and unflinching" by The New Yorker, "a genuine tour-de-force" by The Seattle Times, and “generation-defining” by The Toronto Star. Yapa holds an MFA in Fiction from the City University of New York- Hunter where we worked with Colum McCann and Peter Carey. He also holds a certificate in writing from the UCLA Film and Television program. 

How do the great storytellers work their magic? How do they make us forget about our phones and read (or watch) long into the night? As writers we often get stuck: 40 pages of nothing and then an explosion of random plot moments, or poignant character studies without movement. What is the solution? How can we bring plot and character together into a story that is as gripping as it is emotionally satisfying?

Using films, tv series, and novels— from Finding Nemo to Ferrante, Gone Girl to The Great Gatsby—we will break down 3 distinct techniques to tell a story. Character, Plot, and Suspense. My goal as a novelist and screenwriter is to give you screenwriting tools adapted for the novel so that you can break through on your project. Class includes watching two movies per week, one seminar meeting a week. Each week’s seminar will include a discussion of the previous week’s films; a new lecture; two copies of the new week’s worksheets, one for the movies to be discussed, and one to be applied to your own work. A manuscript or idea in progress is encouraged but certainly not required. 

Topics:

Week 1: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Week 2: Contradictions, Frictions, and Needs

Week 3: How to Create Suspense 

Week 4: Hollywood Bullsh*t Demystified plus a short word on Pantsing v Plotting
Office Hours: a free one-on-one hour in the beginning, middle, or end of the course, to discuss any movie, concept, lecture, maybe to generate an outline together, or discuss the workbook you’ve created over the 4 classes of the course

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn screenwriting tools from a novelist

• Watch and breakdown 8 key films and shows

• Masterclass to help you find an organic storytelling strategy that fits your needs

This class has 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Monday, May 4.

6 Sessions: Sundays, May 17, 24, 31, 7, 14, 21
12:00-3:00pm ET
Ru Freeman

Ru Freeman is an award-winning writer, poet, and activist who has taught internationally for over 15 years, and whose creative and political work has appeared internationally, including in the UK Guardian, The Boston Globe, and the New York Times. She is the author of the essay collection Bon Courage: Essays on Inheritance, Citizenship & A Creative Life, the short story collection, Sleeping Alone, and the novels A Disobedient Girl, and On Sal Mal Lane, a NYT Editor’s Choice Book.

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I have taught for decades in the US and abroad, published collections of stories, essays, and novels, and produced anthologies of seminal work on issues of social justice. I have also published poetry, and articles as a freelance journalist, and served as a judge for prestigious awards including the PEN Hemingway Prize. I meet writers where they are, with regard for who they are as people, what has moved them to write, and with a view to helping them go further. I want writers to lean into the emotional truths that underlie their writing, to draw on their strengths, and to develop under-utilized aspects of their repertoire. As a veteran in the literary world, I have an extensive network of contacts across the media and publishing industries. I routinely connect my students to industry professionals when I feel their projects are ready.

Sometimes writers are too close to the material. You have worked on it so long that what seemed like it glittered now appears dull. Characters conjured in full emotional regalia now wander seemingly without purpose. Detail is buried under generalities. Setting is diluted. Dialogue arrested mid sentence. The plot sickens. Perhaps it isn’t quite so bad, but if you are tired of clutching your pages to your chest hoping that it is a good working-draft but harboring a suspicion that it needs something beyond hope to reach its potential, this workshop offers a rare opportunity to have your novel workshopped alongside carefully selected peers. We will deep-dive into segments of your draft, diagnose where it might be stuck, and brainstorm approaches to move it forward. You will have the opportunity to ask for help with specific issues and get input to move your novel forward.

We will workshop 1/3 sections of each of your drafts, responding to questions from each writer. The first two weeks will also focus on compelling beginnings, the second two on sustaining middles, and the last two on endings and how they are earned. Following each workshop, the writers whose work was discussed will meet with me for a half-hour check in to discuss any pressing issues, which equals an hour and a half of one-on-one time with me during the session. You will also schedule a longer hour-long meeting to discuss progress after our entire session has concluded.

Workshop Highlights:

• Full workshop of your entire novel

• The opportunity to create community with your workshop cohort for future exchanges

• Regular one-on-one sessions with the instructor after each workshop and upon conclusion of the session to discuss your work and next steps

2 Sessions: Saturdays, March 7 + 14
1:00-3:00pm ET
Sandy Ernest Allen

Become a better self-editor by taking this two-part Craft Seminar taught by author, essayist and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen. When writing about our own lives — or the lives of others we may or may not know — how can we forge the critical distance necessary for revision itself? Consider this an opportunity to push your best unpublished personal essay draft or memoir excerpt to the next level. 

This is a craft-focused seminar focused on the revision of personal essays and other literary nonfiction pieces. When writing about our own lives, how can we forge the critical distance necessary for revision itself? In general, how can we become better self-editors? This course will be geared towards serious writers of literary nonfiction who already have a strong draft of a personal essay (or standalone memoir excerpt) they wish to revise. Consider this an opportunity to push your best unpublished personal essay draft or memoir excerpt to the next level. During the first class, the instructor will guide students through a variety of strategies for revision, ones they’ll then try out during the interim.

Students will be asked to submit their initial drafts ahead of the first class and the revised drafts ahead of the second, primarily for instructor perusal (Maximum 15 pages. If a memoir excerpt, material should work on its own without further explanation.) Students will also be asked to share a reflection with the instructor, discussing how the revision process went for them. Though this won’t be a formal workshop, participants may be asked if they’d be willing to have portions of their two drafts shared with the group for discussion. Ample time will be provided for student questions, both about revision, as well as topics like pitching, editorial processes, fact checks, and the various challenges one can face when writing about real people and events.

Workshop Highlights:

• Students will come away with a variety of approaches for the revision of personal essay/memoir, including work they already feel is strong.

• They'll get to try out and play with various mechanical drills in service of revision, as well as strategies for forging distance between the self who wrote the draft and the one who is revising.

• They will learn how to navigate some of the real-world hurdles one might face when attempting to publish personal essays/memoir/reported literary nonfiction.

2 Sessions: Sundays, March 15 + 22
12:00-2:00pm ET
Tricia Romano

An interview isn’t just a series of questions, it’s a conversation—a dance between the interviewer and the subject. Take it from Tricia Romano, the author of The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper that Changed American Culture (Public Affairs, 2024), which Dwight Garner, writing for the New York Times Book Review, called “A well-made disco ball of a book.”

As someone who has interviewed thousands of people—included more than 200 subjects for a recent oral history— each interview was incredibly different. Some of my interviews have been short and sweet—packed with information but very quick and to the point. Others have been long and meandering, fun during the moment, but in the end, did not yield much useful information. 

You will find that every interview is like a fingerprint—completely unique. Some subjects are open books and love to talk. Other interviewees are like talking to a wall. Your job is to get the information you need for your profile, book, or Q&A from them as painlessly as possible.

We’ll talk about what makes Taffy Brodesser-Akner such an amazing profiler. We’ll analyze some of the techniques that  print journalists like Susan Orlean, Danyel Smith, and Wesley Lowery use for their interviews and how NY Times journalist Wesley Morris handles his questions. We will discuss what made Joan Didion such a compelling interviewer.

In addition to examples from some of the aforementioned writers, we’ll look at some of my own interviews from The Freaks Came Out To Write and Q&A’s I conducted and talk about what worked and what I wish I would have done differently. We’ll also try a few in-class live attempts at interviews to demonstrate how to navigate conversations.

We’ll analyze some of the different approaches for interviewing subjects as well as talk about the techniques, such as:

• How do you prepare for an interview?

• How do “friendly” interviews for profiles differ from those that are antagonistic? 

• How do you broach difficult subject matter with your interviewees? 

• How do you handle interviewees who possess strong media training? How do you get them to actually answer your question? And what do you do when they won’t?

• How do you use an interview to draw out “color” for your story or book—details about an environment, events in the past, or details about another person?

To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, March 6.

2 Sessions: Saturdays, April 4 + 11
3:00-5:00pm ET
Lidia Yuknavitch

Lidia Yuknavitch is a highly acclaimed, nationally bestselling author of memoir, fiction, and nonfiction. Her most recent book is the memoir Reading the Waves (Riverhead, 2025), whichwas praised by Booklist as “emotional and darkly hilarious,” and as "electrifying" by Suleika Jaouad. Her memoir The Chronology of Water has been adapted into a feature film by the actress Kristen Stewart.

—

Come practice and play with me by reading, swimming within, and making fluid narrative shapes. I am the author of two creative nonfiction anti-memoirs, The Chronology of Water and Reading the Waves, both of which ask the question, why not let story loose to form new shapes of telling? As a human who has spent their entire adult life teaching exploratory art forms and collaborating in community at Corporeal Writing, I have some insights into not only how to deviate from traditional structures, by WHY.

"Never mind. Arrange whatever pieces come your way." As Virginia Woolf reminds us, non-linear narrative is not just a game to play but a mode of consciousness, being, and expression. The stories we tell about life--real or imagined--need not pledge allegiance to forms meant to erase us. We are the only ones who can invent the forms that speak a self.

Working with some key citations from Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Jeanette Winterson, Clarice Lispector, Helene Cixous and Han Kang, and using those citations as flashlights, as I did in Reading the Waves, we will study and do generative writing around these structures:

Day One

• The use of the narrative lyric fragment

• Narrative Repetition, Echo Effect, and Recursion

Day Two

• Emotional Micro-intensities

• Arrangement, de-arrangement (and derangement ha), and rearrangement

Participants will come away with a strong practice and play experience and material they can use to:

• Create new storytelling forms

• Explore narrative braids, diptychs or triptychs, poems, plays, manifestos and spells. Ok kidding about spells. Sort of. Or not.

• Explore in-depth writing practices that liberate expression and meaning-making toward storytelling not inscribed or dictated by patriarchy. Feminist as f*ck.

To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, March 27.

1 Session: Sunday, April 19
2:30-4:30pm ET
Anna Clark

Anna Clark is an investigative journalist at ProPublica and creative nonfiction faculty in Alma College's MFA program. Her books include The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy, winner of the Hillman Prize and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. She's spent years thinking about these questions:

How do you breathe life into crucial moments of your story -- evoking time, place, character, and action in vivid narrative detail -- when you weren't there to see it yourself? In memoir or personal essay, how do you break through the foggy filter of half-remembered moments and write scenes with confidence? In narrative nonfiction, how do you translate reams of research into a gripping story without sacrificing truth?

In this interactive seminar, we'll dig into the art of reconstructing scenes. We'll begin with a generative exercise to get us going, and we'll learn from work by writers such as Candice Millard, David Grann, Sheri Fink, Bridgett M. Davis, Sarah M. Broom, and Maxine Hong Kingston. From dialogue to research to discerning when it's worth zooming in at all, we'll survey techniques for bringing multi-dimensionality and emotion to our work without sacrificing our faithfulness to truth. We'll leave time for brainstorming solutions to challenges students face with scenes in their personal projects.

Workshop Highlights:

• How to tell when it's worth zooming in for a scene in the first place

• How to find the kind of detail that's essential for great nonfiction scene

• How to navigate through the unknowable -- without losing narrative force

This class has 3 partial scholarships available for a reduced fee of $45. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, April 10.

2 Sessions: Sundays, April 19 + 26
2:00-3:30pm ET
Jennifer Michael Hecht

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of The Wonder Paradox: Awe, Poetry, and the Meaningful Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), as well as Doubt (Harper Collins) and Stay (Yale), and her three poetry books include Who Said (Copper Canyon). Her prose and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Vox, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, Tin House, and The Kenyon Review. She has taught writing in the graduate programs of The New School and Columbia University.

If you’ve got a nonfiction project, or just an idea, there’s a lot I can tell you about writing it and getting it through publication. I’ve got five nonfiction books, with four different publishers. They have met with a variety of success—heartbreaking, significant, and bestseller. I’ve worked in popular history and philosophy, creative nonfiction, memoir, and journalism. My work has won some major awards as well. Along the way I’ve learned a lot about writing nonfiction and I’ve also learned about what agents and editors are looking for. I’ve got a collection of insights to share. So if you have a nonfiction idea, or something you’re trying to finish, I’ll give you a nice leap forward. If you don’t have a project but want to know more about it all, I’ve got a lot to share. All are welcome!



There will be an optional invitation to send me a short piece of writing which I’ll give notes on by the second class session.

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn how to attract agents and editors.


• Discuss techniques for exciting prose and developing your own voice.

• Learn to use structure to get from idea to finished.

This class has 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, April 10.

1 Session: Saturday, May 9
3:00-4:15pm ET
Matthew Gavin Frank

Matthew Gavin Frank is the author, most recently, of the nonfiction book, Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines, which the writer and editor Michele Filgate called, "One of the best books I've ever read." Frank is also the author of the nonfiction books Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast, Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo, as well as the poetry books The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop. He’s a professor of creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Northern Michigan University, where he is also the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of the literary magazine, Passages North.

The poet and essayist Alice Notley writes, “I woke up thinking that a dream is like an illuminated manuscript, in which words and letters are enlarged, made calligraphic, highlighted, painted, with stories and symbolic figures in the margins… You might well say that that is what poetry, or essay-writing is—an art form based on telepathy, a sending of complex messages through an almost immaterial presentation (a few words on a page?); or, you might say, that all communication is like that. And isn’t it?”

In this session, we will engage two published flash essays that begin in a dream, and we will discuss ways in which to write from the dreams that consume us. Via a writing prompt, we will practice methods of rescuing the “dream” from mere ephemerality on the page, fostering connections between the dream-world and the “actual” world, in order to best arouse this sort of “telepathic” communication between writer and reader. Participants will engage the writing prompt in real time, and will then share their work with their peers.

Workshop Highlights:

• A frank discussion of the interaction between interiority and exteriority in creative nonfiction.

• An opportunity to practice writing via an in-class generative prompt.

• An opportunity to share your work with your peers and instructor, soliciting feedback on how to expand the piece.

2 Sessions: Sunday, May 17 + 24
11:00am-1:00pm ET
David McLoghlin

David McLoghlin is a prize-winning poet, and a writer of memoir and personal essay. His third book, Crash Centre (2024) was recently shortlisted for Ireland's Pigott Prize, and has been hailed by senior Irish poet Thomas McCarthy as “a work unquestionably triumphant with poetic victories.” He was awarded a Literature Bursary (grant) for memoir by Ireland’s Arts Council, has an immersive essay forthcoming in Golfer’s Journal, and a personal essay has recently been published on Poetry Foundation’s website. His poems have been broadcast on WNYC’s Radioloab and anthologized on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably in Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing (Beacon Press, 2020).

We live in time, and our thoughts constantly move between the past and the present. Using different timelines, or at least referencing them, is one of the best ways to add authenticity and believability to our stories. In this course, we will learn how to establish a narrative anchor (what Sven Birkerts in The Art of Time in Memoir (Grey Wolf Press, 2007) calls “a vantage point”). In other words, this is a place from which the past in the story can be surveyed. Where this vantage point belongs in the timeline can be specified via scenes from the narrator’s “present life” or more organically as a wistful, wise, or angry tone within the narrative voice—one that is defined by the wise perspective gained by reflecting on past events.

This practical masterclass is structured around reading short extracts from memoir and personal essay; it includes practical tips for how to navigate time in our writing; and in-class prompts and writing exercises to practice and reflect on what we’re learning. Students can expect to come away with a greater understanding of important craft elements in creative nonfiction. This class is for all levels. While attendees may be at the beginning or end of a project, all that is required is an interest in writing memoir or personal essay.

You’ll learn:

• To work with time by moving between present and past convincingly without confusing the reader, possibly employing more than one timeline, or at least establishing a greater awareness of your “narrative present.” (By narrative present I mean the life of the adult self who is telling the story.)

• How to use tenses (past, present, and conditional) to suit a variety of narrative moments. Do we tell our story wholly in the present tense, gaining in immediacy what we lose in reflectiveness? Or do we balance the use of present tense (peak moments of beauty, love, crisis, or trauma) with the use of the past tense to bring in the reflective voice of the adult narrator, the adult “you?”

• How to explore implementing different timelines, whether chronological with flashbacks, braided or semi-braided narratives.

This class has 1 full scholarship and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, May 8.

3 Sessions: Thursdays, May 21-June 4
7:00-9:00pm ET
Javier Sinay

This writing workshop is taught by Javier Sinay, an author and a journalist. His books include The Murders of Moises Ville, the true story of his journey reporting a long forgotten true story of violence and displacement, but also resilience and cooperation. In 2015 he won the award of Fundación Gabo (the most important for journalism written in Spanish language) for his story “Fast. Furious. Dead” published in Rolling Stone. He has lead writing workshops, in person and virtually, at The Work Room, the Yale Journalism Initiative, UMass (College of Social & Behavioral Sciences--Journalism), Brandeis University, The Center For Fiction (NY), Lighthouse (Denver), the National Library of Argentina, Casa América (Madrid, Spain) and more. He lives in Buenos Aires.

In this workshop we will read and write to learn about those who came before us -- and thus we will better understand our identity: Who were they? Who are we? Why did Jorge Luis Borges never publish the story that dishonors his grandfather? Why does Prince Harry say so little about his father in his memoir? Why did our grandparents do what they did? From how many generations do we carry genes? These and other questions about genealogy, family, molecular biology and inheritance can help us find answers through words.

This workshop is for any writer interested in identity and will teach you how to write a perhaps epic and surely revealing family memoir. We will read pieces by Jorge Luis Borges, Margo Glantz, Leonard Cohen, Gabriela Wiener and Jordan Salama, among others. And my book 'The Murders of Moisés Ville’.

Workshop Highlights:

• Instructor and peer feedback

• Generative writing exercises

To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Wednesday, January 28.

2 Sessions: Sunday, April 5 + 12
3:00-4:30pm ET
Rickey Laurentiis

Rickey Laurentiis is a poet who was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to study light. Her most recent book of poems is Death of the First Idea (Knopf, 2025), which Publishers Weekly called “visionary” in a starred review. It was longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry, and is a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is also the author of Boy with Thorn (Pitt Poetry Series, 2015), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and the Levis Reading Prize, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery award, and the PEN/Osterweil Award.

Each student will pick one modern fixation noticed in at least three poems (and presenting those poems) briefly introduce the idea to the rest of participants, facilitated by Laurentiis.

This class studies the contemporary. What are market values of the poetry world—or do we spit & hiss at such careful calculatization? But what are the dominant impressions, major themes, obvious techniques, tested approaches the contemporary moment holds to the poem? This class will meet briefly to discuss some. You will need to come to session prepared with an iota of information. To have identified for yourself what’s a trend in contemporaneous (that is, published within the last five years) poetry, its urges and itches as an acknowledged fact of the present. Presence is an escaping value and tests our gall, but is all there is in lyric) poetry: the presence of the poet in the poem, even in the unconfessional poem. These trends you identify should seem momentous, monumental if possible, particular to the moment,and need not reveal the author’s personal estimation: you may hate and/or love a trend. Yet come with an editor’s eye: are these trends poetic? noetic? ethical? are they productive or destructive to the promise of poetry’s future? epic? lyrical? Each student will pick one modern fixation noticed in at least three poems (and presenting those poems) briefly introduce the idea to the rest of participants, facilitated by Laurentiis. By session’s end, & after a synthetic exercise, students will leave with some idea of the current moment, & its wills, & its ills.

Workshop Highlights:

• What are trends in American poetry?

• Are these trends useful for our collective poetic future?

• How can we incorporate these trends into our work?