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The Writer’s Center offers hundreds of writing workshops and classes every year. Workshops cover all genres and all experience levels. Join us in person and online.

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Event views navigation, poetics of a queer body.

Learn about the Poetics of a Queer Body that are within you. Poetry allows us to express our most authentic voice. Whether it be imagining other lives we could be […]

Novel Year with Diane Zinna

Complete your novel and prepare for publication! Novel Year is an intensive, advanced workshop geared toward writers with either a draft of a novel ready for revision or a novel […]

Show and Tell Intensive

Learning to dramatize, to write in a way that shows what happened rather than tells what happened, is one of the most critical skills a successful writer can possess. A […]

How to Write a Lot!

Build an invincible writing routine! You may think you don’t have the time, energy, or inspiration to write because of your hectic lifestyle. Wrong! Learn what Kathryn Johnson’s Extreme Novelists […]

Using the Tools of Fiction in Nonfiction

Enrich your nonfiction with the powerful tools of fiction. Whether you are crafting an essay or writing a memoir, the tools of fiction can bring depth and suspense to your […]

Reading Your Work Out Loud

Practice sharing yourself and your story. Spend an evening practicing and learning about the art of public speaking. This in-person coaching session will give you the opportunity to bring your […]

How to Tell Your Story

Join us for an hour as we discuss and learn different effective methods towards building and developing your story. This workshop is intended to help with all creative projects and […]

Sonnet Crash Course

What is special about the sonnet? Guided by an award-winning and internationally published author of sonnets, villanelles, and other metrical poems, you’ll first read time-honored sonnets to see how and […]

How Poems Begin

“Let us go then, you and I, where the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table…” Poets and poems are often remembered for […]

Write Like the News

Become concise as news, precise as law. Lead with the future — not background — for lead-ership, especially in a crisis. That’s the most important of eight journalism skills that […]

Writing Picture Books II

Learn how to polish your picture book manuscript before submitting to an agent or editor. You’ve drafted your picture book, what’s the next step? Learn to revise and polish your […]

Getting Your Poetry Published

Expand the audience for your poetry! This intensive one-day workshop will offer all poets—whether they have yet to submit their first poem to a literary journal or are ready to […]

Creative Courage and Self-Care for Writers

Learn how to navigate all phases of the creative process without burning out. As writers, it’s vital that we nurture our creativity through self-care so we can work with our […]

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About Our Writing Workshops

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The Center for Fiction’s Writing Workshops explore a wide range of forms and subjects: fiction and nonfiction, memoir and translation, prose and poetry, history and social justice, and more.

Whether online or in person, we strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

Gain skill and confidence in your work, as well as key professional insights, under the guidance of award-winning authors and industry insiders.

Members of The Center for Fiction receive early access to writing workshops, as well as 10% off enrollment.

Recent Instructors

Jami Attenberg

Jami Attenberg has written about food, travel, books, relationships, and urban life for the New York Times magazine , the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times (London), the Guardian , and others. She is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All Grown Up , and, most recently, a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You . Her work has been published in sixteen languages. She is also the founder of the annual #1000WordsofSummer project, and maintains the popular Craft Talk newsletter year-round. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Lily Andrews

Lily Andrews is a writer from Minnesota, but she lives in New York. She is studying to be a high school teacher and enjoys reading children’s literature. While she doesn’t know yet whether she will ever be a memoirist, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ghost City Review , Sonora Review , Ignatian magazine, and Rio Grande Review . She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and runs a post-abortion healing workshop called Hear Me Roar.

Stefan Merrill Block

Stefan Merrill Block grew up in Plano, Texas. His first book, The Story of Forgetting , was an international bestseller and the winner of Best First Fiction at the Rome International Festival of Literature, The Ovid Prize from the Romanian Writer’s Union, the 2008 Merck Serono Literature Prize and the 2009 Fiction Award from The Writers’ League of Texas. The Story of Forgetting was also a finalist for the debut fiction awards from IndieBound, Salon du Livre, and The Center for Fiction. Stefan’s stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times , the New Yorker Page-Turner, the Guardian , NPR ’s Radiolab , GRANTA , the Los Angeles Times , and many other publications. Stefan’s most recent novel, Oliver Loving , was released in 2018 by Macmillan/Flatiron Books, and is being developed for television by Participant Media. He lives in Brooklyn.

Conor Bracken

Conor Bracken is the author of The Enemy of My Enemy is Me (Diode Editions, 2021), as well as the translator of Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Scorpionic Sun (CSU Poetry Center, 2019) and Jean D’Amérique’s No Way in the Skin Without This Bloody Embrace (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. His work has received support from the Community of Writers, Bread Loaf, the Frost Place, Inprint, Cornell’s Institute for Comparative Modernities, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and has appeared (or will soon) in places like BOMB, Image, jubilat, New England Review, the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Sixth Finch , and West Branch . He teaches writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of the children’s picture book Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky , illustrated by Caldecott Honor Artist Daniel Minter. Named among the best books of 2022 by NPR, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews , and The Center for the Study of Multicultural Literature, Blue  was honored with the 2023 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award® recognizing excellence in the writing of non-fiction for children, and it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Brew-Hammond also wrote the young adult novel Powder Necklace , which Publishers Weekly called “a winning debut”, and she edited Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices , of which Kirkus Reviews said in a starred review: “This smart, generous collection is a true gift.” Every month, Brew-Hammond co-leads a writing fellowship whose mission is to write light into darkness. You can keep up with Nana on Instagram at @nanaekuawriter , Twitter at @nanaekua , and Facebook at @nanaekuawriter .

Joanna Cantor

Joanna Cantor holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and a BA from Colorado College. Her debut novel, Alternative Remedies for Loss , was an Amazon Best Book of the Month for May 2018 and received coverage in Vanity Fair, Real Simple, Nylon , and elsewhere. Her writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Departures, Fodor’s Travel, Greatist , and Willamette Week . Joanna was a recipient of a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. She previously taught fiction writing at Catapult and is also a yoga teacher. She lives in Brooklyn. You can keep up with Joanna on Instagram at @joannacantor and on Twitter at @jojannna.

Elysha Chang

Elysha Chang is a writer and educator based in Brooklyn. Before moving to New York, she taught Asian American Literature and Creative Writing at Villanova University, University of Pennsylvania and Blue Stoop Philadelphia. Her debut novel, A Quitter’s Paradise , is about American immigrant inheritance and was published in 2023. She holds a master of fine arts from Columbia University and has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction and Kundiman.

Caroline Christopoulos

Caroline Christopoulos is a publicist with Gold Leaf Literary Services, a publicity firm that works exclusively with writers/authors. She also works part-time at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, NC, where she has been a bookseller for twenty-two years and buyer for eighteen. She worked on the steering committee of the Asheville Grown Business Alliance and continues to be on the programming committee for the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. In addition to bringing authors and their works the attention they deserve, her focus includes strengthening community and promoting local business. She and her husband live in Asheville and New York City with their daughter and their dog, Tiny Cakes.

Sarah Cypher

Sarah Cypher is a freelance book editor and author of The Skin and Its Girl (Ballantine, April 2023). She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Creative Writing Fellow in Fiction, and a BA from Carnegie Mellon University. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Lit Hub , Electric Literature , New Ohio Review, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review , and others, and she has been a resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts and Vermont Studio Center. She grew up in a Lebanese Christian family near Pittsburgh and lives in Washington, D.C., with her wife. You can keep up with Sarah on Instagram at @sarahcypher and on Twitter at @threepenny .

Kavita Das came to writing ten years ago after working for social change and social justice for fifteen years. She writes about culture, race, gender, and their intersections. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Kavita’s work has been published in WIRED, CNN, Teen Vogue, Catapult, Fast Company, Tin House, Longreads, the Atlantic, the Washington Post , Los Angeles Review of Books, Kenyon Review, NBC News Asian America, Guernica, Electric Literature , Colorlines, the Rumpus , and elsewhere. Kavita’s second book Craft and Conscience: How to Write About Social Issues (Beacon Press, October 2022) is inspired by the Writing with Conscience class she created and teaches. Her first book, Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar , was published by Harper Collins India in 2019. In the real world, she lives in New York with her husband, toddler, and hound. And in the virtual world, she can be found on Twitter: @kavitamix and Instagram: @kavitadas and at kavitadas.com .

Omer Friedlander

Omer Friedlander was born in Jerusalem in 1994 and grew up in Tel-Aviv. He is the author of the short story collection The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land , winner of the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award and a finalist for the Wingate Prize. The book was chosen as a Sophie Brody Medal Honor Book and longlisted for the Story Prize. Omer has a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and an MFA from Boston University, where he was supported by the Saul Bellow Fellowship. He was a Starworks Fellow in Fiction at New York University. His collection has been translated into several languages, including Turkish, Dutch, and Italian. His writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Fellowship and Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. He is currently teaching Creative Writing at the MFA program at Columbia University.

Miciah Bay Gault

Miciah Bay Gault is the author of the novel Goodnight Stranger (Park Row, 2019), which was nominated for a Shirley Jackson award, longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize , and selected for Poets & Writers’ First Fiction roundup.

Miciah is a Breadloaf fellow and a Vermont Arts Council creation grant recipient. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Tin House, the Sun, Agni, the Southern Review, the Harvard Review, the New York Times ‘ Modern Love’ column, and other places. She teaches in the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is coordinator of the Vermont Book Award.

David Gordon

David Gordon was born in New York City. He attended Sarah Lawrence College, holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing, both from Columbia University. He is the author of seven published novels and a book of stories.His first novel, The Serialist , won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. It also won three major literary awards in Japan—Kono Mystery ga Sugoi, Mystery ga Yomitai and Mystery Best 10—becoming the first novel ever to do so—and was made into a feature film. In addition to Japanese, his novels has been translated into Chinese, Korean, French, German, Turkish, Russian and Polish. His most recent book, The Pigeon , is number five in the Joe the Bouncer series. A new novel, a neo-noir called, Behind Sunset , is forthcoming from Mysterious Press, as well as a video game co-written with Hampton Fancher, ( Bladerunner ). His work has appeared in Harpers , Paris Review , the New York Times magazine, the  New York Times Book Review , Fence , Brazenhead Review , Maggot Brain , LitHub , Electric Literature , and others.

Jakob Guanzon

Jakob Guanzon is the author of Abundance , which was longlisted for both the National Book Award and the Aspen Words Literary Prize in 2021, and has been translated into multiple languages. His shorter works have appeared in BOMB , the New York Times , and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, and has since taught as part of the Zell Visiting Writers Series at the University of Michigan. He lives in Harlem.

Lucinda Halpern

Lucinda Halpern is a literary agent with nearly 20 years’ experience in both the publicity and agency sides of publishing. Before founding Lucinda Literary, she worked in the Publicity division of HarperCollins, where she assisted on the media campaign for Freakonomics among other New York Times bestsellers. She later took a management role in Sales and Marketing at Scholastic before becoming a marketing consultant for Gretchen Rubin ( The Happiness Project ) and others, and then launching her career as an agent. She has worked with such publishers as HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette, and currently represents authors writing in the categories of business, health, lifestyle, popular science, narrative nonfiction, memoir, and upmarket fiction.

Lauren Harr

Lauren Harr is a publicist with Gold Leaf Literary Services and has worked in the book world for twenty years—as a bookseller in Asheville, NC and Albuquerque, NM, an assistant at literary nonprofits in Santa Fe, an intern at Graywolf Press, and a marketing assistant and publicist at Coffee House Press. She spent eight years at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe where her passions were connecting readers and books and assisting the events program. She lives in Asheville with her husband and daughter and holds an MFA from Spalding University’s School of Creative and Professional Writing.

Debra Jo Immergut

Debra Jo Immergut is the author of the novels You Again , named a New York Times Best of the Year and shortlisted for the 2021 Gotham Book Prize, and The Captives , a 2019 Edgar Award finalist and published in over a dozen countries. She has also published a collection of short fiction, Private Property . Her essays and stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, Narrative, the New York Times, PANK, Hobart , and elsewhere. A recipient of Michener and MacDowell fellowships, she has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in western Massachusetts.

Yahdon Israel

Yahdon Israel, a Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster and founder of Literaryswag, a cultural movement that intersects literature and fashion to make books accessible. He has written for the New Inquiry , LitHub , Poets & Writers , Vanity Fair , and the Atlantic . He teaches Creative Writing at the MFA Program at City College, previously served on the Board of the National Book Critics Circle, and founded the Literaryswag Book Club, a Brooklyn-based subscription service and book club that meets every last Wednesday of the month.

Seth Kaufman

Seth Kaufman is a ghostwriter and novelist. He is the author or co-author of five book proposals purchased by publishers, including autobiographies of basketball legend Rick Pitino, video game designer John Romero, and his own collection of music essays. He has collaborated on bestselling memoirs, biographies, current affairs, political and sports books. His work, under his byline or a clients’ byline, has been published by the Wall Street Journal , the New Yorker online, LitHub , Publishers Weekly , and many other national publications. His satirical work, The King of Pain , was called “one of 2012’s most enjoyable novels” by the New York Times . And Bleacher Report scribe Mike Freeman called Eat My Schwartz , the autobiography Kaufman co-authored (and also wrote the proposal for), “easily, one of the most unique and well-done books about NFL life I’ve ever read.”

Josh Krigman

Josh Krigman (he/him) is a writer, teacher, and facilitator in New York City. He has taught creative writing at Hunter College, the United Nations International School, 826NYC, The Writer’s Rock, and for National Geographic Expeditions. He has been awarded residencies from Vermont Studio Center, and his work has appeared in The Summerset Review, Akashic Books, Necessary Fiction , and elsewhere. He received his MFA in fiction from Hunter College. Through Little Nights , he hosts interdisciplinary events designed to make art-making more accessible to new audiences. He is also the co-founder and New York host of Club Motte , an international storytelling series that hosts live events in New York, Oakland, and Berlin.

Danielle Lazarin

Danielle Lazarin is the author of the short story collection Back Talk . Her fiction and essays can be found in the Southern Review , Colorado Review , Literary Hub , Glimmer Train , the Cut , Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. Her work has been honored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Glimmer Train Family Matters Award, the Millay Colony for the Arts, The Freya Project, and the Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. She lives and teaches in her native New York, where she is at work on a novel and a story collection.

Alcy Leyva is a Bronx-born multi-genre writer whose first two books in the Shades of Hell series, And Then There Were Crows and And Then There Were Dragons . His newest book, the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life , was released October 10th, 2023 by Green Writers Press. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Creative Writing for the University of Birmingham and currently lives (and works) in New York.

Theresa Lin

Theresa Lin received her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, where she was awarded the De Alba Fellowship by Writing Program faculty for an excerpt of her novel manuscript. She is represented by Janklow and Nesbit and lectures at The Cooper Union. She has previously taught at Fordham, Rutgers, and Columbia and her writing has been featured in the LA Review of Books , Off Assignment , Racquet , Oh Reader , Storm Cellar , Truthout , Smart Set , and Random Sample Review , among others.

Bruna Dantas Lobato

Bruna Dantas Lobato is a Brazilian writer and literary translator based in St. Louis. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker , A Public Space, the Common , and other publications, and has been recognized with fellowships from Yaddo, A Public Space, NYU, and Disquiet International. Her literary translations include Caio Fernando Abreu’s Moldy Strawberries (Archipelago Books), Stênio Gardel’s The Words that Remain (New Vessel Press), and Giovana Madalosso’s Tokyo Suite (Europa Editions). Other translations from Lobato have appeared in Vogue, Bookforum, BOMB, the Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, the Brooklyn Rail , and the American Scholar , among others. You can keep up with Bruna on Twitter at @bdantaslobato and Instagram @bdantaslobato .

Melissa Lozada-Oliva

Melissa Lozada-Oliva is the author of peluda , Dreaming of You and Candelaria . Her work has been featured in the Poetry Project, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR , Vogue, Vulture , and BBC Mundo. She received her MFA from New York University in 2020.

Jessie McCarty

Jessie McCarty (they/them) is an interdisciplinary writer and cataloger specializing in Irish, Southern, and LBGTQ+ folklore through new media and poetry. They are the author of The Bovine Huff , a research chapbook on The Shreveport Yellow Fever Mound in Shreveport, Louisiana and Ireland/Eire’s Tain Bo Cuailnge. The Bovine Huff was awarded the 3rd Best Poetry Book of 2022 in the Chicago Reader . In August 2023, McCarty co-authored the poetry collection Our Fairy Diary with multi-media artist Sarah Haines. This artbook of letters, written between Chicago and Shreveport, functioned as a study in fairy rings as a limited edition of 50. As of September 2023, Our Fairy Diary is sold out.

David McLoghlin

David McLoghlin is a prize-winning poet and writer of memoir and personal essay. His books are Waiting For Saint Brendan and Other Poems and Santiago Sketches . His third book, Crash Centre , will be published in May 2024 by Salmon Poetry. Apart from a major bursary (grant) for memoir from Ireland’s Arts Council, and a personal essay published in the anthology Others Will Enter the Gates: Immigrant Poets on Poetry, Influences, and Writing in America (Black Lawrence Press), he has published personal essays, short stories and memoir extracts in The Stinging Fly , Poetry Ireland Review and other journals. An essay on being mentored by poet Sharon Olds is forthcoming in This Glistening Verb (University of Michigan Press) as part of their “Under Discussion” series. He is currently at work on a book about his grandfather, the golf architect, Eddie Hackett, widely considered “the Father of Irish Golf Design.” In October 2023 he played one of his grandfather’s designs, Connemara Golf Links, and is writing an immersion piece for Golfer’s Journal in the USA. He has previously taught memoir for The Center for Fiction, and teaches creative writing in Ireland with The American College, Dublin, Poetry as Commemoration and Writers in Schools. While living in New York between 2010 and 2020 he was Resident Writer at Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx, and an NYU Teaching Fellow at Coler Specialty Hospital; and a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship Recipient (2023).

Leia Menlove

Leia Menlove’s writings have been published in Guernica , Fiction Magazine (CUNY), Narratively , the Harvard Review , the Evergreen Review , Catapult , Joyland , and others. She was a featured artist of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Series, “Conversations with Contemporary Artists,” discussing her fabulist erotic work, How to Train Your Virgin . HTYV was released by Badlands and ArtBook in 2015, and was covered in BOMB , T magazine, Vogue , MSNBC’s Chrystal Ball Show , Hyperallergic , Sluttist , and many other forums. She is editing her first novel and beginning work on her second.

Kate Milliken

Kate Milliken is the author of If I’d Known You Were Coming , winner of the 2013 John Simmons Award for Short Fiction, and the novel, Kept Animals , which was long listed for the 2020 First Novel Award. Her work has been supported by the Tin House Writers Workshop, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center among others. When not at work on her next book, Kate is a freelance editor and writing coach.

Ruth Mukwana

Ruth Mukwana is a fiction writer. Her work has appeared in several magazines including Bomb , Solstice , and Consequence . Her short story, “ Taboo ” was a runner-up in the Black Warriors Review 2017 fiction contest. She’s the Co-Fiction Editor of Solstice Magazine . She is the Creator and Host of SAHA, Stories and Humanitarian Action, a Podcast that investigates whether fiction can raise awareness on the causes and consequences of humanitarian crises. Her works in progress are a collection of short stories and a novel that follows Queen, a middle-aged woman working for the UN, as she’s forced to confront a past, she wants to forget, and her quest for justice. Told through multiple points of view, the novel interrogates trauma and memory, and resilience and forgiveness. She’s a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars (MFA), a 2022 Bennington Alumni Fellow and a 2020 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil NYC Emerging Fellow, and a former humanitarian worker with the United Nations. She lives in New York with her daughter.

As a fiction writer with an MFA from Bennington College and a humanitarian worker whose work and writing deals with social justice issues, she is passionate about writing for social justice and has a deep familiarity with both the research and questions of craft. Therefore, she offers a wide perspective and comparative approach.

Alison Mills Newman

Alison Mills Newman is a former child star from the ’60s, a singer/songwriter and recording artist with Taj Mahal, and has opened for Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Weather Report with Joe Zavinul and Wayne Shorter, screenwriter, poet and award winning independent filmmaker and author of Maggie Three and the highly acclaimed Francisco .

Zeynep Özakat

Zeynep Özakat was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. Her writing has appeared in Glimmer Train Stories , where she won the Fiction Open Contest, in Black Warrior Review, Michigan Quarterly Review , and Gulf Coast Online . She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, where she received The Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction, The Leonard Brown Prize in Poetry, and a Graduate Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work. She has received scholarships and support from The Disquiet Conference in Lisbon, The Bread Loaf Environmental Writing Conference, The Juniper Summer Writing Institute, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where she was a 2021-2022 Writing Fellow.

Soraya Palmer

Soraya Palmer is the author of The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts . She is a Flatbush-born-and-raised writer and licensed social worker. Her novel was named one of Today’s “38 Best New Books to Read in 2023,” one of the “Buzziest Debut Novels of the New Year” by Goodreads , one of the “Best and Most Anticipated Books of 2023” by Elle magazine, and one of “The Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2023” by Ms. magazine. Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature , Hazlitt , Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She has been awarded a residency at Blue Mountain Center and graduated from the Virginia Tech MFA program. She lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Nicholas.

Daniel Saldaña París

Daniel Saldaña París is the author of three novels— Among Strange Victims , Ramifications , and The Dance and the Wildfire —and a collection of personal essays, Planes Flying Over a Monster . His work has been translated into several languages, and he has been included in Bogota39, a list of the Best Latin American Writers Under 40.

The recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Banff Center for the Arts, the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires, Art Omi, and MacDowell, he has been awarded the Eccles Center & Hay Festival Writers Award in the U.K., and his latest novel was a finalist for the Herralde Prize in Spain. He was a 2022-2023 fellow at the NYPL’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and has contributed to publications such as the Guardian , BOMB, Guernica, Aperture, Music & Literature, LitHub, Publisher’s Weekly , and KCRW’s UnFictional , among many others. You can keep up with Daniel on Instagram at @dsparis .

Dawn Raffel

Dawn Raffel is the author of six books, most recently Boundless as the Sky , a hybrid collection incorporating fiction, image, and early 20th Century history, amid the rise of both fascism and technology. The title novella, set at the 1933 Chicago World’s fair, is told through multiple perspectives, including “ordinary” people and sideshow performers whose voices have been lost to history books. Her previous book, The Strange Case of Dr. Couney , is historical narrative nonfiction based on deep archival research. Other books include a nationally bestselling memoir, The Secret Life of Objects , two story collections and a novel. She has taught creative writing at International Literary Seminars (previously Summer Literary Seminars) in Kenya, Russia, Lithuania, and Canada. You can keep up with Dawn by following her on Instagram at @dawnraffel , or on Twitter at @dawnraffel .

Juliana Roth

Juliana Roth was selected as a VIDA Fellow with the Sundress Academy for the Arts for her fiction and is currently seeking a home for her novel and collection of short stories. Her writing appears in the Breakwater Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Irish Pages , and Entropy as well as being produced as independent films that she directs. Her web series, The University , was nominated by the International Academy of Web Television for Best Drama Writing. Currently, she teaches writing at NYU and writes the newsletter Drawing Animals featuring essays, interviews, doodles, and podcast episodes celebrating our interconnection with nonhuman animal life. She also holds a 200-hour yoga teacher certification and is a current Emerging Writer Fellow at The Center for Fiction. She formerly lived out of a backpack in the La Sal Mountains and as a volunteer on an organic farm in Maine.

Buku Sarkar

Buku Sarkar is a fiction writer and photographer based in New York. Her first book has just been published in 2023, a collection of short stories titled Not Quite A Disaster After All . She has written for various magazines including NYRB , ZYZZYVA , NYTimes , Sewanee Review , Threepenny Review , and received the best short story of the year award from Sewannee Review . Her photography, has been shown at ICP, Art Basel Miami to name a few.

Alanna Schubach

Alanna Schubach is the author of The Nobodies (Blackstone, 2022). Her short fiction has appeared in Shenandoah , the Sewanee Review , the Massachusetts Review , Electric Literature , and more. She was an Emerging Writer Fellow with The Center for Fiction and a Fellow in Fiction with the New York Foundation for the Arts. She earned an M.F.A. in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College.

Amy Silverberg

Amy Silverberg is a writer and comedian based in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories , the Paris Review , Granta , TriQuarterly , the Los Angeles Review of Books , and elsewhere. Her debut novel First Time, Long Time is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette. She also writes television, most recently The Movie Show on the SYFY Channel. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from The University of Southern California, where she currently teaches.

Javier Sinay

Javier Sinay is a writer and journalist. His books include Camino al Este , Cuba Stone (in collaboration), Los crimes de Moisés Ville (published by Restless Books as The Murders of Moises Ville in 2022), and Sangre joven , which won the Premio Rodolfo Walsh de la Semana Negra de Gijón, España. In 2015 he won the Premio de la Fundación Gabo/FNPI for his chronicle “Fast. Furious. Dead.,” published in Rolling Stone . His work has appeared in the newspapers La Nación and Clarín , in Buenos Aires, and on the website RED/ACCIÓN. He was also a South America correspondent for El Universal (Mexico) and the editor of Rolling Stone (Argentina). He has collaborated with Gatopardo (Mexico), Label Negra (Peru), Letras Libres (Mexico) and Reportagen (Switzerland). He lives in Buenos Aires.

Eraldo Souza dos Santos

A 2022 LARB Publishing Fellow, Eraldo Souza dos Santos is a Brazilian writer currently based between Paris and São Paulo. His first novel, to be published in 2024, is an autobiography of his illiterate mother and a meditation on the lived experience of Blackness and enslavement in modern Brazil. At the age of seven, his mother was sold into slavery by her white foster sister. It was 1968—eighty years after the abolition of slavery in Brazil and four years into the anti-communist coup d’état, during the month in which the military overruled the Constitution by decree. By weaving in extensive archival research and interviews, the novel narrates their journey to Minas Gerais—where she was born—and Bahia—the Blackest state in Brazil, where she was enslaved on a farm for three years—to investigate why the family that enslaved her has never been brought to justice. It also narrates his grandmother’s journey to search for her missing daughter. In March 2023, he offered a masterclass based on his novel at the prestigious UEA Creative Writing Course. You can keep up with Eraldo on Twitter at @esdsantos .

Mathangi Subramanian

Mathangi Subramanian is a neurodiverse South Asian American novelist and essayist. Her middle grade book Dear Mrs. Naidu won the South Asia Book award, and her novel A People’s History of Heaven was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner prize and The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her picture book A Butterfly Smile was inducted into the Nobel Museum by economics laureate Dr. Esther Duflo. She is a guest artist at Denver School of the arts and affiliate faculty at the Regis Mile High MFA program. She holds a doctorate in education from Columbia University Teachers College.

Jenna Tang is a Taiwanese writer and translator who translates between Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and English. She is a board member and chair of the Equity Advocates Committee at the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). Her translations and essays are published in McSweeney’s , Latin American Literature Today , World Literature Today , Catapult , AAWW , Words Without Borders , the Paris Review , and elsewhere. Her book in translation, Lin Yi-Han’s novel, Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise (HarperVia), will be out in May 2024.

Hannah Tinti

Hannah Tinti is the author of the bestselling novel The Good Thief , which won The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize , and the story collection Animal Crackers , a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley , is a national bestseller and is in development for television. She teaches creative writing at New York University’s MFA program and co-founded the Sirenland Writers Conference. Tinti is also the co-founder and executive editor of One Story magazine, which won the AWP Small Press Publisher Award, CLMP’s Firecracker Award, a 2020 Whiting Prize, and the PEN/Magid Award for Excellence in Editing.

María Alejandra Barrios Vélez

María Alejandra Barrios Vélez is a writer born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She was the 2020 SmokeLong Flash Fiction Fellow, and her stories have been published in Shenandoah Literary , Vol. 1 Brooklyn , El Malpensante , Fractured Lit , SmokeLong Quarterly , The Offing , and more. Her work has been supported by organizations such as Vermont Studio Center, Kweli, Caldera Arts, and the New Orleans Writers’ Residency.

Her debut novel, The Waves Take You Home , will be published March 19, 2024.

Sofia Warren

Sofia Warren is a cartoonist and writer based in Brooklyn. Her first book, Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator , was named one of the top graphic novels of 2022 by Forbes , and was a 2023 Finalist for the Pop Culture Classroom Excellence in Graphic Literature award. Sofia has been a contributing cartoonist at the New Yorker since 2017, and her work has also been published in MoMA Magazine, Catapult, Narrative Magazine , and the books Send Help! and Notes from the Bathroom Line . She is a visiting professor at Wesleyan University. You can keep up with Sofia on Instagram at @sofiawarrenart .

Eleanor Whitney

Eleanor Whitney is a writer, editor, and content marketer. She is the author of Riot Woman , a collection of feminist essays examining the impact of the Riot Grrrl movement, and Quit Your Day Job , a business guide and an accompanying workbook for creative people. Microcosm will publish her fourth book, Spread the Word: Promote Your Book, Find Your Readers, and Build a Literary Community in the fall of 2023.

Throughout her career, Eleanor has worked to build communities, education programs, and marketing content strategies at museums, art organizations, and tech startups, including the Brooklyn Museum and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Queens College, a Master’s in Public Administration from Baruch College, and BA in cultural studies from Eugene Lang College. She has taught writing at both Queens College and Eugene Lang College and in community workshops around the country. Hailing from Maine, she divides her time between Brooklyn and the Mojave desert. You can keep up with Eleanor on Instagram at @killerfemme and on Twitter at @killerfemme.

Joe Wilkins

Joe Wilkins was born and raised on the Big Dry of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon. He is the author of a novel, Fall Back Down When I Die , praised as “remarkable and unforgettable” in a starred review at Booklist . A finalist for the The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, Fall Back Down When I Die won the High Plains Book Award. Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers , and four collections of poetry, including Thieve and When We Were Birds , winner of the Oregon Book Award. His second novel, The Entire Sky , is slated for publication in July 2024 with Little, Brown. Wilkins directs the creative writing program at Linfield University and is a member of the low-residency MFA faculty at Eastern Oregon University.

Diane Zinna

Diane Zinna is the author of the novel The All-Night Sun (Random House, 2020) and Letting Grief Speak: Writing Portals for Life After Loss , a craft book on the art of telling our hardest stories, forthcoming from Columbia University Press in 2024. She has led a free grief writing class called Grief Writing Sundays since the start of the pandemic.

Courtney Zoffness

Courtney Zoffness is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir-in-essays Spilt Milk , named a best debut of 2021 by BookPage and Refinery29 and a “must-read” by Publishers Weekly . She won the Sunday Times Short Story Award and received fellowships from The Center for Fiction and MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in the Paris Review Daily , the New York Times , Guernica , the Believer , and other venues. She’s an Associate Professor of English at Drew University, where she directs the creative writing program. You can keep up with Courtney on Instagram at @czoffness, and Twitter at @czoffrun .

We kindly ask those attending in-person workshops to review our Health & Safety Protocols before visiting The Center for Fiction. For refunds, please refer to our Refund Policy .

The Best Free Online Writing Courses for Creative Writers, Fiction, and Nonfiction

by Tom Corson-Knowles | 63 comments

All of us want to improve our writing skills, hone our craft, and get ahead in our writing careers.

Not all of us can go back to school and get our MFA in writing—heck, not all of us want to!

Thankfully, the internet makes it possible to take great online writing courses for free (no matter where you live, what your circumstances, or your budget).

Taking a writing course online can help you polish your writing to be the best it can be—a critical step before either self-publishing or submitting your manuscript to publishers .

Through these free writing courses, you’ll gain practical tips and strategies to help you improve your writing—both for your current manuscript and for future projects.

Free Online Writing Courses

The more you learn and practice, the easier writing will become and the better your books will be. And that’s key to attracting and growing a devoted audience and becoming a full-time author !

How to Choose an Online Writing Course

You’ll want to choose a course that meets your needs, which means you need to know your needs first.

Identify Your Goals

When picking a course, ask yourself what specific areas you’re looking to improve:

• Do you want to pick up basic writing skills, like improving your grammar?
• Do you want to learn more about how to create gripping plots?
• Do you want to learn to create realistic, vivid characters?
• Do you want to learn how to add value to your nonfiction writing?
• Do you want to turn your life experiences into a book that has meaning for a broad audience?
• Do you want to learn how to earn a living off a specific kind of writing?
• Do you want to dive deep into a specific area of craft, like dialogue construction?

All of these goals—and many more—make good reasons to choose an online writing course!

Set Your Course Budget

Next, you’ll want to ask yourself what you’re willing to commit to a course, both in terms of time and money. There are some great free courses out there, as well as other courses that charge a fee. You might consider starting with a free class to make sure that you can handle the online learning format, then stepping up to a more advanced paid class later.

Pick a Commitment Level

Any course or class, no matter whether it’s online or not, requires dedication to actually make a difference in your life. You’ll need to be ready to listen to lectures, read papers and presentations, follow through on assignments, and engage with your classmates.

Some online courses are completely self-paced, which means you work through the material on your own, taking as long as you like. This is great for people with busy lives, jobs, and family commitments—but it also means you have to take responsibility for structuring your time and doing the work.

Other courses have weekly assignments, sometimes even monitored or graded by an instructor, along with class chat sessions, feedback opportunities, and other ways to have a full classroom experience without actually going to a university.

These types of courses are less flexible, as they often require you to log in at certain times, and they demand that you do your work on time! But they also offer a lot of benefits in terms of helping you manage your time and devote energy to improving your writing and to working with other writers to start forming a community.

Once you’ve figured out what you’re looking to learn, what you’re willing to commit (in terms of time, energy, dedication, and money), and how you think you’ll learn best, you can get started with your writing course!

Of course, you might not be quite ready to take the plunge into paying for an online writing class just yet. Will you be able to keep up with the assignments? How do online lectures work, anyway?

To help you get started in the world of online learning, we’ve rounded up some of the best free online writing courses out there, regardless of your focus: creative writing, fiction, and nonfiction.

Ready to find the right course for you? Let’s check them out!

Free Creative Writing Courses

Creative writing courses are amazing because they can be applied to just about anything you want to write, from memoirs to novels…even nonfiction!

These classes teach you the basic skills you need to write fluidly, fluently, and with style—essential no matter what your genre or field.

More advanced classes help you find your writing voice, learn the secrets of creating an author brand and ecosystem, and improve your technique.

English Composition Class

About the Course

In order to be a great writer, you have to have solid basic writing skills!

Arizona State University’s Introduction to English Composition class will help you master the basics so that you can improve every aspect of your writing, no matter what your focus is.

Over the eight-week intensive course, you’ll learn a variety of useful skills that can serve as the building blocks of your future writing career, helping you gain mastery over the English language and learn to write in a way that others respect and admire.

You’ll be asked to complete several writing assignments, as well as writing a reflection piece on each of them. You’ll also have the opportunity to engage with other learners and get feedback on your work as you develop your skills.

In this course, you’ll learn:

• How to target your writing to your audience’s needs
• How to think critically about reading and writing
• How to use style conventions and techniques to improve your writing
• How to use technology to write more effectively and efficiently
• How to unlock your creativity
• How to develop good writing habits

This is really a class on building the fundamental skills you’ll need to be a successful professional writer—it’s a fantastic resource for anyone, no matter where they are in their writing journey.

Adam Pacton holds a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition and is a lecturer on creative writing, English, and composition techniques at Arizona State University.

Free! You can also pay $499 to add a “verified certificate” if you want to show the course as a credential on a resume or to an employer, but most writers will do great with the free version.

The Crafty Writer’s Creative Writing Course

The Crafty Writer is a service started by fiction author Fiona Veitch Smith to help teach aspiring and current writers how to master their craft and publish better books that get better results in the market.

As part of that mission, they’ve developed The Crafty Writer’s Creative Writing Course , a self-paced introduction to creative writing. The class walks you through the basics of becoming a dedicated creative writer, including looks at several different styles and genres.

• How to uncover your personal writing style and voice
• The basics of writing a short story
• How to choose an effective point of view
• How to use vivid imagery to bring your ideas to life
• How to find and use writers’ groups, competitions, and communities of writers
• The basics of publishing and marketing your work

There are set assignments and tasks to complete, but you don’t need to attend any live chats or sessions. There’s no individual feedback from instructors or coaches, and you won’t get feedback from other people taking the class, but you’re encouraged to ask questions if there’s anything you’re struggling with. Mostly, you’re given the tools and resources to begin finding and building your own community of support and to assess and revise your own work.

If you’ve always wanted to dip a toe into the writing world, but weren’t quite sure where to begin, this could be the ideal online option for you!

Fiona Veitch Smith is a prolific author whose work includes several novels, a biography, a children’s book series, and more than 100 articles published in magazines as diverse as  Sports Illustrated  and  Plain Truth , where she is the New Writing editor. She holds BA and MA degrees in writing and is pursuing her PhD while also teaching creative writing both online and off.

Free! The class suggests recommended reading that you can buy or borrow from your library.

DIY MFA Writing Class

DIY MFA does exactly what it promises—it helps you learn the skills taught in a formal MFA program at home on your own!

The course walks you through the three major areas that big-name master’s programs focus on: writing, reading, and building a community of fellow authors, mentors, and devoted readers.

Along the way, you learn how to select and read books that can help you improve your own writing, whether because they act as source material, give you an idea of the state of your genre, or help you broaden your horizons and learn from great writers.

You’ll also get practical tips for writing better, including strategies for outlining, hints for how to pace the flow of your book, and ideas for creating memorable phrases in both fiction and nonfiction that will hook your reader instantly.

Founder Gabriela Pereira created DIY MFA after she graduated with her master’s in writing and saw all the other writers struggling to feel like pros without that experience…and realized that she still didn’t feel quite like a pro even with it! Gabriela teaches at conferences and online, and she’s helped hundreds of writers get the MFA experience without having to go to an expensive school.

Free! Just sign up at https://diymfa.com/join to get the free starter pack and begin your online MFA journey. You can also check out great tips and tricks on the site’s blog for more in-depth looks into how to improve your writing starting today.

Free Fiction Writing Classes

If you’ve already started on your career as a novelist and are looking to take your skills to the next level, a fiction-specific writing course might be best for you!

Start Writing Fiction

Looking to start your career as a novelist the right way? This may be the class for you!

Offered through The Open University, a world leader in distance learning, Start Writing Fiction takes you from zero to novelist in eight weeks.

You’ll listen to lectures from renowned novelists, develop your skills through writing prompts and assignments, and get personalized feedback from your classmates and instructor during the class.

• How and why to keep a writing journal
• How to write better dialogue
• How to do better research
• How to structure a plot
• Why reading matters as a writer
• How to self-edit your work

The course is taught by Dr. Derek Neale , an award-winning short story author and novelist whose works include The Book of Guardians . Dr. Neale is the Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University and splits his time between teaching, supervising PhD students, developing new courses, and working on his own fiction projects.

Free! However, you can pay a small fee (£39, or about $50) to upgrade to a version of the course that gives you unlimited access to the lectures and materials after the eight-week session ends.

How to Write a Novel

Ready to write your first novel? Consider taking this class first!

How to Write a Novel will give you the tools you need to actually finish that first draft—and go on to revise it and publish it successfully!

You’ll learn:

• How to keep track of your fiction ideas
• How (and why) to outline your novel
• Basic worldbuilding techniques
• Character development tips and tricks
• How to create a daily writing habit

By the end of the 10 daily lessons, you’ll be ready to roll with your first novel, crafting worlds and characters that set the stage for your career as a successful fiction author.

Ben Galley is a bestselling fantasy author and self-publishing consultant who helps authors create amazing stories and then sell their books around the world.

Free! Just sign up with your email to start the 10-day class.

How to Craft a Killer Short Story

Whether you’re an established fiction author or just getting started, short stories are a fantastic tool to have in your arsenal as a writer. But they involve some very different skills than writing longer fiction.

That’s where How to Craft a Killer Short Story comes in!

This 10-day email course will show you what you need to know in order to create tight, gripping stories, like:

• How to pick a great short story topic
• How to trim the fat from your writing
• How to edit short stories
• How to sell your stories to literary journals, anthologies, and magazines

Follow along every day and within two weeks, you’ll be ready to tackle the short story in all its glory!

Laura Mae Isaacman  is a full-time editor; she’s worked with major authors, including Joyce Carol Oates, T.C. Boyle and Noam Chomsky. She has also lectured on the topics of writing and publishing and is the co-founder of  Tweed’s Magazine of Literature & Art.

Free Nonfiction Writing Courses

Ready to hone your skills at turning real-life information, tips, techniques, and situations into enthralling prose that changes your readers’ lives?

Take one of these free nonfiction writing courses!

The Non-Sexy Business of Writing Nonfiction

Writing nonfiction can be very rewarding, but it doesn’t necessarily have the same glow around it as being a novelist.

Still, the skills you’ll learn as a nonfiction author can help you no matter what you write or what you want to do with your career.

The Non-Sexy Business of Writing Nonfiction walks you through the good, the bad, and the ugly of writing, publishing, and marketing nonfiction books.

In this 10-day course, you’ll get an email each day walking you through some critical aspect of writing and publishing nonfiction, covering topics like:

• How to get started on your book
• How to do targeted market research
• Tools and strategies to maximize your productivity
• Tips for outlining

By the end of the class, you’ll have a toolbox to help you write and publish your first nonfiction book!

Publishing coach Azul Terronez is the founder of Author’s Writing Academy and has helped dozens of authors make their books a reality. He has also coached seasoned writers like Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, and Dana Malstaff of Boss-Mom.com.

Free! Just sign up with your email.

Writing What You Know

Writing a nonfiction book is all about translating the real world to the page, bringing readers with you as you explore a topic, event, or strategy.

Writing What You Know is an amazing introduction to the power of words to translate your experience to something that other people can learn and grow from.

This eight-hour course covers topics including:

• Using life experiences in your writing
• Creating vivid imagery
• Constructing and pacing scenes
• Using memories to structure narrative
• Turning the everyday into the memorable

By the end of the class, you’ll be able to craft engaging narratives capable of transporting your readers to another time, place, or situation—using the power of what you observe every day.

The Open University doesn’t reveal who developed its courses, but their content is on par with the best massively open online courses (MOOCs) in the world. You’ll learn techniques and skills that bestselling nonfiction authors have used to advance their careers and be able to quickly start improving your own writing.

Free! You can even download the course materials in the format of your choice to refer to later.

How to Write a Business Book

If you’ve ever wanted to write a business book, share your journey as an entrepreneur, or help others make money doing what they love, then How to Write a Business Book may be the class you’re looking for!

This 10-day email course will teach you the fundamentals of business writing, including how to make sure that your book resonates with your audience and helps add value to their business or life. This course will help you make your book more than just a business card—it will help you write in a way that changes your readers lives while enhancing your own career. Topics covered during the class include:

• Important questions to ask before writing your book
• How to outline and structure
• How to set manageable goals
• How to build your audience

Alison Jones  is a publishing partner for businesses and organizations. She provides executive coaching, consultancy, and training services to publishers and regularly speaks and blogs on the publishing industry.

Start Taking Free Online Writing Courses

No matter where you are on your writing journey, there’s always something new to learn. That’s the great thing about this path—we can learn, grow, and stretch ourselves in new and different ways every day!

One or more of the online writing courses we’ve covered here is sure to help you develop your skills and move to the next level as a writer, regardless of what genre you’re focused on or what your goals are.

Pick a class or two, sign up, and try it out! Apply the new techniques and strategies you’ve learned to your next writing project and see what a difference practice and development can make for you.

Then pick another class and keep on going!

Want to learn more about honing your craft as a writer? Check out these great resources:

• How to Write a Nonfiction Book
• How to Write Better Fiction and Become a Great Novelist
• 11 Writing Tips for Improving Readability and Communicating Better

Tom Corson-Knowles is the founder of TCK Publishing, and the bestselling author of 27 books including Secrets of the Six-Figure author. He is also the host of the Publishing Profits Podcast show where we interview successful authors and publishing industry experts to share their tips for creating a successful writing career.

63 Comments

How to join the free English learning course I have not found any link

I want to develop my email writing skill. Do you have any better solution?

Hi Mirko, we actually have a few posts on how to write an email , but you might also find these business writing courses helpful for writing emails too.

I’m trying to find a class to help me with a book I’m trying to write, but I’m a minor and it’s hard to find one that interests me but I can understand and works around my schoolwork. What would you recommend?

Hi Sierra, have you checked out any of these free courses? They’re online, so you should be able to do them in your free time/around your school work.

I think I will try Start Writing Fiction. Thank you for these great courses!

That’s great, Sierra! I hope you enjoy the courses :)

Thank you very much for providing valuable courses. I will surely pick one of my kind to get in the world of writing.

We’re glad you found it helpful Robin. Best of luck to you!

This article is very helpful for me, thank you so much for sharing this information. And here is also some important information so go here and check.

Glad you found this article helpful! And thanks for sharing the information!

Hi, Kaelyn: Lots of interesting classes here. That many are free is quite a treat.

I’m interested in learning more about creative non-fiction. I write pretty decent memoir and essays, but it’s time to dig deeper.

Would you please steer me on this.

I’m also curious what you may think of this genre in terms of earnings on Medium.

Thank you! Roy

Hi Roy, thanks for your comment! We have a post on creative nonfiction that you might enjoy. I don’t have hard numbers on potential earnings through Medium, but it’s an increasingly popular genre for online writing (and one of my personal favorites), so I think there’s definitely a market for it.

Hi, I have taken beginner creative writing class, now I want improve my creative writing more. So, what should be my next step? Are there any further courses for creative writing.

The ASU English Composition link doesn’t work. Please provide a new one. Or, a similar course.

Thanks Mitch, I updated the link!

I can’t find any link

Sorry, not sure what happened there. should be fine now!

Hi Sushmita, you might try practicing with our creative writing prompts or writing a short story :)

I would like to know if a fee is required for classes and if so how much.

Hi Cathy, the courses listed in this post are all free!

I would like to improve my business and day-to-day writing skills including grammar. Which is the best course for me to take pleae?

Hi Princess, you might actually want to check out our list of business writing courses . sounds like those might suit your needs better! :)

I am a sophomore in high school, I love writing and I want to improve so I can write short stories and poetry. What do you suggest for me? Thank you.

Hi Lena, any of the creative writing classes on this list would be a good start, but practice is also one of the best ways to improve. Consider entering a poetry or short story contest! :)

What about writing feedback? A writing course can only thrive with writing and more writing rather than talking the world out of styles and author-lectures. What is the price for feedback driven courses, if any

Hi Rashul, the ASU and Future Learn courses in this list include feedback from instructors :)

[email protected]

Thank you for all these wonderful recommendations. Can you recommend quality courses aimed specifically at writing for children, free or otherwise?

Hi Anna, thanks for your comment! None of the courses on this list are really aimed at kids, but it would depend on the age and learning level of the child. However, we do have these writing prompts for kids that you might find helpful! I’ll also work on making a list of courses for kids :)

Thank you for listing the free courses, but which one to chose is uncertain. I have worked on my manuscript and thought I was at the point for beta readers, only to find out from their comments I am far from publishing my books. I have the experience of online schooling, for I just received my masters. However, my writing skills need much improvement. I know I have a problem with telling not showing. And yes, I am a fictional writer. I also have a problem with moving back and forth with past and present tense. I am looking for the course that will help with these trouble areas.

Hi Allison, thanks for your comment! I think I would recommend the “Writing What You Know” course for your needs. We also have a post on how to show don’t tell that you might find helpful. And don’t feel discouraged, it’s a beta reader’s job to point out areas for improvement — they’ll help you get one step closer! :) Best of luck!

I am quite happy to have come across this website. I really want to take a short course on writing and acquire a certificate after completing it. Where should I go?

Hi Anthony! The ASU course offers a certificate, but so do a lot of Udemy courses. It depends on what kind of certificate you’re looking for

My writing intent is to share my Spiritual journey of the past 40 years most of which was spent learning and living the Medicines Ways of my Elder. I have a developed intuitive sense but I lack structure, form, and a deeply expanded vocabulary that would better capture in prose what I intuitively ‘feel-see’ but the results often end up being disjointed and lacking in a natural unforced flow which always leaves me not quite satisfied with the end result.

Hi Ron, thanks for your comment! yes, a lot of new writers struggle with structure, but with practice and the insights from some of these courses you can definitely make progress :)

hi do you know any free magazine writing workshops?

Hi Samantha, I don’t know any specifically for magazine writing, but any of the free nonfiction courses here will likely teach you some of the important skills you’ll need for magazine writing too:)

I’m a creative writer, I need work on my grammar ,spelling, ect ,editing my work and I want to write books what’s the best free course or courses?

Hi Jennifer, it looks like the courses on the list don’t really focus on those basic elements specifically, but we do have a lot of grammar posts that I hope you will find helpful. And if you have any specific questions, please let me know, I’m always happy to help!

Your last sentence is a run on sentence. I thought you’d want to know.

Thanks for pointing that out, Barbara. I usually don’t focus on grammar conventions when I’m answering questions. I just try to be helpful and answer as soon as possible. I’ll try to be more conscious of it :)

I am looking for a mentoring program for my 10 yr old who loves to write. Basically somebody who can go through her work and offer feedback. Thanks!

Hi Dharub, that’s so great that your daughter loves to write! you might consider signing her up for a writers’ group, or talk to a writing coach who can guide her :) However, lots of online classes, like those listed above, also feature opportunities for direct feedback from the instructor. I hope that helps!

I have always had a passion for reading and writing. I would really love to write about my life experiences, I just think it might be a little sad. Writing a novel sounds like maybe more fun but I would definitely need help creating characters with depth. I’m wondering what you would recommend as far as some free courses.

Hi Juana, the “How to Write a Novel” course on this list can help you with character development :) We also have quite a few blog posts on the subject, like how to create and use character profiles . I hope that helps :)

I really need to better my grammar. I’m quite rusty.

Hi Amanda, you can try one of these courses, or check out one of our many posts on writing tips and grammar :) I hope that helps!

Interested in Creative Writing

Hi Sonny, that’s great! There are lots of courses on this list that can help you. If you want more practice you can also try these creative writing prompts :)

Hi! I want to help my 10-year-old daughter to read and write with passion, not to write a book, she will see if she likes it, but to have an ease of communication that is not learned in school, there are courses for children ?

In my own research I stumbled across this website. Hopefully this will be of good help to your daughter.

https://outschool.com/classes/semester-long-ms-writing-course-*flexible-schedule*-IFIZxWK7?sectionUid=efcd703b-23a8-4d60-8408-a1f32077ee15#abkiqu8k90

Thank you for sharing this, Janet! :)

Hi Pamela, this Udemy course looks like a great option for kids: https://www.udemy.com/course/theultimatemysterywritingcourseforkids/ , as well as Janet’s suggestions below :)

Your courses are timely for anyone who desires to write books in any genre. But can one register for two or more courses and running concurrently? Please help.

Hi Clement, yes, you can definitely take more than one course at once. I would just recommend you make sure you have the time to dedicate your attention to each one :)

When I was much younger I wanted to be a journalist. The next Nora O’Donnell !! Now that I’m retired I want to write a fiction. I have so many ideas in my head I need to learn how to focus them and put them on paper

Hi Dianne! I can definitely relate – I used to dream of being a journalist too! Luckily, my current work allows me to practice writing, and I’m loving it. I hope you have time now to follow your new dream of writing fiction! You can try a writing course or check out some of the writing tips we share on the blog, such as our post on how to write a novel . If you ever have questions or there are more resources we can send your way, please let us know! :)

I would like to develop my writing skills, I want to learn the pros and cons of writing depending on its specific kind of writing or genre. I he I can find help for free workshops.

Hi Monalisa, here’s a list of writing workshops you might find helpful: https://www.tckpublishing.com/online-writing-workshops/

i would like to take the course on how to write a novel

Hi Dolly, that’s great! You should definitely try it :) best of luck with your writing!

Hello Barron Can you Suggested Me

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The Top 25 Online Writers’ Conferences in 2021

February 24, 2021 6 min read Education Fiction Nonfiction 3 Comments

As the COVID-19 pandemic still lingers in 2021, much of our daily routines have turned virtual. This year, writers’ conferences and workshops continue to hold their events online. There are still many opportunities for writers to develop their craft and stay in touch with the writing community.

We’ve compiled a list of some conferences and webinars in North America to watch out for this year.

Check out these writers’ conferences you can attend from home, as we continue to keep everyone safe.

1.  Southern California Writers’ Conference

The SCWC provides practical guidance for emerging and veteran writers, regardless of the publication path they choose.  With read and critique sessions, craft and execution workshops, and business and alternative workshops, attendees can expect to learn practical guides to publishing.

There will also be one-on-one consultations and cyber mixers.

Date: February 12 – 14, 2021

2.  Desert Nights, Rising Stars

Presented by Arizona State University, the conference will feature presenters from the university’s own faculty of award-winning authors. There will be over 50 events with craft talks and workshops that cover various genres. 

Date: February 18 – 20, 2021

3.  SCBWI Winter Conference

Presented by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. This year’s program will focus on popular genres and behind-the-scenes looks into the children’s publishing industry.

Featuring interviews, keynote speakers, a behind the scenes tour of Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing division, genre breakout sessions, a mock acquisition meeting and more, this conference is for writers and illustrators wanting a deep dive into the children’s publishing world .

Date: February 19 – 21, 2021

4.  Association of Writers and Writing Programs

An event for writers, teachers, students, editors and publishers of contemporary creative writing. With speakers, a book fair, and the opportunity for writers to meet literary agents, this conference is open to all ages and anyone involved in the publishing industry.

Date: March 3 – 17, 2021

5.  Spring Writers Retreat 2021

Presented by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, an educational organization that supports the arts across disciplines. The online writers retreat will allow writers to develop their craft, explore their voice and workshop their manuscripts with their peers and a distinguished faculty. 

Date: March 20 – March 27, 2021

6.  Virtual Winter Thrills

For thriller writers. There will be online master classes, a chance to practice your pitches, and learn the insider details on the business of writing from agents , editors and marketing professionals.

W hile you’re at it, take advantage of the chance to have your query letter critiqued. The sessions have already started in January, but you only pay for the sessions you decide to attend.

Date: Until March 18, 2021

7.  SleuthFest

For writers of mysteries, thrillers and crime fiction. If you’re a new writer in the said genres, or simply want to sharpen your skills, there will be presenters speaking on techniques for writing in these genres, as well as a live Shark Tank-style critique session with a panel of agents and editors.

Date: March 29 – 21, 2021

8.  San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival

A cross-cultural, bilingual literary gathering, normally held in the town of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, the conference and literary festival went virtual last year.

Its programming is still ongoing until March, with a variety of events to choose from, including: workshops, keynotes and individual consultations.

Last year’s recorded sessions are also available for purchase. Free events include: book clubs and silent writing sessions with fellow writers.

Date: Until March 2021

9.  The Las Vegas Writers Conference

Normally an in-person event, the Las Vegas Writers Conference is open to writers of all genres, and all sessions will be virtual.

Pitch sessions with literary agents and editors are included in the conference fee, as well as mentoring sessions with faculty members and published authors.

Date: April 8 – 10, 2021

10.  ASJA Writers Conference

Presented by the American Society of Journalists and Authors. All sessions will be streamed virtually, and available for free viewing after. There will also be speed-dating type sessions with agents and editors to pitch your ideas.

There will be three tracks:

• Journalism (April 13 – 15)
• Books (April 20 – 23)
• Content Marketing (April 27 – 29)

Date: April 13 – 29, 2011

11.  The Muse & the Marketplace 2021

A virtual writing residency dedicated to five days of writing. There will be facilitated goal-setting and 65 sessions taught by guest authors across different genres.

There will also be agent info sessions given in a small group setting.

Date: April 21 – 25, 2021

12.  Chanticleer Authors Conference

The CAC’s headliner this year is Cathy Ace, whose Cait Morgan Mysteries has been optioned for TV. This year’s master classes and workshops haven’t been announced yet. Check the website for more details.

13.  Pikes Peak Writers Conference

The 2021 conference program is still under construction. Past conferences offered workshops, keynote speakers, one-on-one sessions with agents and editors, critique sessions and networking sessions. 

Date: April 23 – 25, 2021

14.  Northern Colorado Writers Conference

Another conference that’s usually held in-person, the Northern Colorado Writers Conference has adopted a hybrid model in response to the pandemic.

Attendees of the virtual conference will have the opportunity to pitch to agents, participate in critique sessions, attend workshops and network with other attendees.

The conference is open to writers of all genres.

Date: April 24 – May 1, 2021

15.  Creative Nonfiction Collective Society Conference

For writers of creative nonfiction. The program for the 2021 CNFC Conference is still a work in progress. But as with past years, expect to see conversations and workshops on developing the craft of creative nonfiction .

In the meantime, they also host monthly webinars on diverse topics.

Date: May 2021

16.  The Festival of Literary Diversity

Typically held in Brampton, Canada, the festival celebrates underrepresented authors and storytellers from around the world. This year’s festival will take place virtually, with panel discussions, workshops and networking events for writers in all stages of their career.

Date: May 1 – 15, 2021

17.  Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference

Four days of online classes, workshops, panels, readings and a chance to expand your writers’ network. There are also limited manuscript reviews available for an extra fee.

Date: May 15 – 18, 2021

18.  The Writer’s Hotel Weekend Conferences

A five-day fiction conference. Featuring craft labs and publishing lectures, attendees can expect to study and develop their craft with established writers in an intimate setting.

Each attendee will also get the first 5,000 words of their work reviewed with tailored feedback by the festival directors.

Date: May 20 – 24, 2021

19.  Odyssey Workshop

Since 1996, the Odyssey Writing Workshop has been providing writing workshops for writers of fantasy, science fiction and horror. They also provide on-demand webinars for a limited time period.

Date: June 7 – July 16, 2021

20.  Write-by-the-Lake Writer’s Workshop & Retreat

Five days of online classes for writers of all levels. There will also be a free 20-page critique from staff.

Date: June 15 – 19, 2021

21.  New York State Summer Writers Institute

For college-aged students and adults. Led by a faculty of distinguished writers, this year’s summer institute will deliver...

• Creative writing workshops
• Small classes for individualized attention
• Public readings
• Private tutorial sessions
• Optional undergraduate credit for eligible students
• Merit scholarships

Date: June 27 – July 23, 2021

22.  Southampton Writers Conference

Presented by Stony Brook University. Choose from workshops or lecture series. Workshops allows participants to develop their writing with designated faculty.  Lecture series feature craft-oriented panels, salons and night readings.

Date: July 14 – 18, 2021

23.  10 Minute Novelists Writers Conference

Don’t have time to write? This conference is for time-crunched writers who quote the oft-repeated phrase, “I don’t have time to write.”  The 10 Minute Novelists conference will teach the art of creating productive and efficient writing time.

Date: July 15 – 17, 2021.

24.  Write on the Sound

A small, affordable conference for writers looking to improve their craft. Information on sessions, workshops and panel discussions will be announced closer to the date.

Date: October 1 – 3, 2021

25.  The Highlights Foundation Workshops

The Highlights Foundation offers workshops for beginning and published authors and illustrators in children’s publishing.

Workshops are led by professionals in the industry: editors, authors, art directors, publishers, agents and academics. Workshops are held in-person and online, with on-demand options.

Date: Ongoing

Connect with the author, Phoebe, at  writersdayjobs.com  and on Twitter:   @writersdayjobs .

3 Responses

Julie Kingsley

October 04, 2021

We’d love to be included if you ever talk about about online opportunities!

https://manuscriptacademy.com

All the best,

Heidi Fletcher Nichols

July 15, 2021

I would love to connect with someone who might steer me in the direction of a literary agent for my second book, Dearly Departed: To Mama and Others with Love. It is a collection of letters to many separate individuals whom I have loved and lost. Scriptures included, it is a different kind of memoir. I will appreciate any feedback, thank you!

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The Best Creative Writing Courses to Help You Level Up

Are you looking for a way to level up your creative writing game?

Of course you are, and that’s a good thing! Because you are a passionate creative, you will never stop learning and evolving. Even after publishing a bookshelf full of books, there’s still more that you can learn about the craft of writing.

I’ve been a creative writer for over 30 years and currently write 10,000+ words each week, but I’m constantly learning new things about the creative writing process (and what I learn, I share here with you). So, whether you’re a lifelong writer like me or you’re just getting started, you’ll find value in taking a creative course.

Below, I’ve created a list of online creative writing courses to improve your skills. While I can’t personally vouch for all of these courses, I will say that they all look promising. I’d love to try all of them when I get the chance.

If you’ve taken any of these courses, let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Now, without further ado, here’s a supersized list of creative writing courses:

Online Creative Writing Classes 2021

1. Accelerated Worldbuilding

If your genre depends on world-building, you need a course in how to do it quickly and thoroughly. In this course, taught by Randy Ellefson, you'll learn all about world-building, including the basics of creating life, whether you need to invent religions, draw a map, or come up with languages.

2. Amy Tan Teaches Fiction, Memory, and Imagination

Amy Tan is one of my favorite writers, so adding her to this list is a no-brainer. In 14 video lessons, Tan teaches students how to use real-life events and emotions to write fiction that resonates with the reader.

Included as part of your MasterClass membership (annual membership is $180)

3. Anne Janzer Nonfiction Course

Need help planning and researching your nonfiction book? In this self-paced course by Anne Janzer, you'll learn how to refine your book, own your expertise, and identify the right audience for your message. Also included in this course is a 30-minute consultation about your book.

$80 (Pandemic pricing)

4. COMPLETE Creative Writing - All Genres - THE FULL COURSE!

In this complete creative writing course, you won't just learn fiction. You'll also learn how to write drama, poetry, and creative non-fiction. This 12-hour video-based course will help you discover your unique voice.

5. Creating Complex Character with David Corbett

In this 4-week writing workshop, taught by author David Corbett, you'll learn how to write compelling characters that move your story forward. Corbett teaches the five cornerstones of dramatic characterization and also delves into the character's psychological and sociological nature.

6. Creative Writing Specialization Offered by Wesleyan University

Offered through Wesleyan University via Coursera, this 6-month creative writing specialization covers short story, narrative essay, and memoir. It was created for beginners who want to understand all aspects of creative writing, from plot to character to style.

Included with a Coursera Plus membership at $59 per month or $399 per year

7. Gotham Writers

Gotham Writers is one of the most respected writing schools in New York and online. They offer on-demand workshops in various categories across fiction and nonfiction, including creative writing 101, the art of dialogue, and how to master plotting.

Prices vary based on class and instruction type

8. Joanna Penn's How to Write a Novel

This course by best-selling novelist Joanna Penn is a step-by-step guide to writing a novel. It's a thorough course that teaches you the essential elements of every novel and how to write and edit your manuscript. It also includes bonus interviews with industry experts, such as K.M. Weiland, C.J. Lyons, and Jen Blood.

9. Margaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing

Margaret Atwood is one of the most respected authors of our time and has written thought-provoking stories that continue to shape and critique our world. In 23 video lessons, Atwood shares must-know tips on structuring a novel and bringing characters to life.

10. Mark Dawson's Self Publishing Formula Classes

Mark Dawson, best-selling author of the John Milton series, has self-published over 20 books and has come up with a formula for success. Choose from multiple courses, including:

Self Publishing 101

Ads for Authors

How to Write a Bestseller

Many of these comprehensive courses also come with exclusive bonuses, such as access to a students-only Facebook group.

Prices vary.

11. Ninja Writers' The Plotting Workshop*

In this 4-week course, taught by traditionally published author Shaunta Grimes, you'll learn how to develop and test a story idea, how to map out the hero's journey, and how to create a plot board.

12. The Novelry

In this course, you get access to dedicated, one-to-one tutor sessions with best-selling authors such as Harriet Tyce, Kate Riordan, and Mike Gayle. Your tutor will help you complete a book, whether you sign up for "The Book in a Year Plan" or the Ninety Day Novel®.

Prices start at $170 or £120.

Here’s a list of 25 more creative writing courses to check out. Subscribe to receive this extra resource:

13. ProWritingAid University

When you join ProWritingAid University, your subscription includes access to several courses, including:

Outlining Your Novel: Five Methods for Plotters and Pantsers

Show, Don't Tell: A 30-Day Challenge to Increase the Emotional Impact of Your Writing

Editing Your Manuscript: Go From First Draft to Done

Monthly subscription $49 per month or $499 per year

14. Reedsy Learning: How to Write a Suspense Novel

In this free, 10-day course, taught by award-winning novelist, book editor, and author coach Christina Kaye, you'll learn the art of writing suspense, including:

The different suspense subgenres

How to create characters for suspense

How to nail the twist or surprise reveal

15. R.L. Stine Teaches Writing for Young Audiences

Award-winning novelist R.L. Stine (author of Goosebumps and other faves from your childhood) teaches a masterclass on writing for young audiences. In this class, you'll learn how to come up with ideas, how to turn ideas into immersive plots, and how to overcome the dreaded writer's block.

16. Romance Road Map: How to Write a Romance Novel Step by Step On Demand Course

Would you like pointers to help you write an engaging romance novel? In this course, taught by veteran romance novelist Adrienne deWolfe, you'll learn the successful formula to writing a romance that your readers will love. This course will help you identify the proper narrative structure for your romance and develop intriguing characters.

17. Save the Cat! Online Novel Writing Course

This course, taught by traditionally published author Jessica Brody, makes a huge claim: Learn how to write a best-selling novel in 15 steps. While there's no guarantee that your novel will become a bestseller, this course will provide you with all of the components to a successful outcome. Discover the blueprint of good storytelling by analyzing real-life examples from books and movies. This course will help you craft an outline for your novel from scratch.

$12 per month or $125 per year

18. Start Writing Fiction

In this 8-week, self-paced course from The Open University, learn how established fiction writers approach writing. In this course, you'll successfully develop ideas and learn how to create characters.

Starting from $0

19. The Story Course by Sarah Selecky

In this inspiring course by writer, novelist, and creative writing mentor Sarah Selecky, you'll learn how to unlock the story that only you can tell. Even Margaret Atwood recommends it. It's a self-paced curriculum that offers exercises, assignments, and even an anthology to see lessons in action. The course also comes with an audiobook for those wanting to study on the go.

20. The Story Equation Mini-Course

In this mini-course, taught by prolific best-selling author Susan May Warren, you'll learn how to turn one question into the plot of your next novel. Use these tips to build a taut story with a satisfying character arc.

21. Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

Wired for Story: How to Become a Story Genius

In this popular class by Lisa Cron, you'll learn how to find your story and write a better first draft. This course is meant to boost your confidence as a writer by explaining the steps it takes to write a compelling story.

$99 or join CreativeLive and pay $11 per month

22. Worldbuilding NaNo Prep Course

In this brief but powerful course taught by Rebekah Loper, you'll receive three lessons a week over 9 weeks, taking you through the ABCs of world-building. Learn everything from architecture to zoology.

Free, available in September and October

23. Write a Book! Creative Writing Skills for Beginner Writers

In this best-selling course created by Brian Jackson, you'll spend 17+ hours learning to write a novel or non-fiction book. It goes over the fundamentals of English writing, and helps you tell the story that you're carrying.

24. Write Academy: How to Write Fiction Books

In this beginner-friendly writing course, you'll learn how to write successful novels. The course starts you off with a look at different fiction genres and then moves you from ideation to understanding character, setting, point of view, and story structure. The course also helps you carve out your author voice. By the end of this course, you'll feel empowered to start your career as a writer.

$199 for one-time payment (payment plan is available)

25. Writing Character & Plot with Hannah Kent and Rebecca Starford

Finally, a course about killing your darling characters. In this course, taught by Hannah Kent and Rebecca Starford, you'll learn how to create proper, three-dimensional characters. You'll also discover how to balance these characters with action to keep your story moving forward.

Final Thoughts

Which of the above classes are you most interested in taking? Let us know in the comments below!

Enter your email for your FREE 7-Day Bootcamp and learn:

• 5 Unconventional Techniques to help you finish your Draft
• The Key to Getting Readers to Care About Your Characters
• How to Master Dialogue, even if you’re a First-Time Writer
• What You Need to Know to Hold Your Reader’s Interest

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The 8 Best Platforms for Online Writing Courses in 2021

Looking to improve your writing skills? Then check out these online writing courses.

Good writing skills are an asset to any industry. Reaching a decent level of expertise, however, takes time and practice. Reliable training makes the process easier and faster, especially if you do it online.

Luckily, there are some excellent platforms that offer some of the best online writing courses in 2021. They provide training for a wide range of writing styles. Let's have a look at what they are.

1. Masterclass

Masterclass is one of the best resources for online training in several fields and has a slew of famous teachers. You will be learning from experts who write novels, short stories, poetry, and TV scripts.

You have the likes of Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Aaron Sorkin showing you the ins and outs of their craft. And it’s mostly done through video lessons which will make you feel like you're face-to-face with your favorite writers.

Because of its prestige, Masterclass doesn't come free, but its plans are reasonable and include a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

You can also organize writing courses alongside any learning management systems for training employees . Businesses that buy five or more Masterclass memberships can get group discounts of up to 35%.

2. Coursera

Websites like Masterclass are popular because they branch into various industries and are usually cheaper than services that are entirely focused on writing. Coursera offers these perks too, along with reliable qualifications.

Whether you pay for a subscription or do the free courses, your lessons come straight from universities and official bodies from around the world, including Google.

Coursera’s lessons are high-standard, suitable for everyone from beginners to advanced students, and creative writers to academics. You can expect flexibility, great content, and a certificate at the end of each course.

These writing courses might demand a bit more work than those on other platforms, but they’re worth it.

3. ProWritingAid Academy

You may already know the ProWritingAid app, a digital writing assistant. Well, it also offers online creative writing courses and tools through its Academy service.

With a monthly or annual subscription, you get loads of courses, regular writing challenges, and special live workshops. You can learn everything from outlining and fleshing out your novel to editing and marketing it.

If you’re looking for a well-rounded package and community for creative writers, ProWritingAid Academy is a great option.

4. The Novelry

Another website to consider for online writing courses is The Novelry. It’s specifically for creative writers who need help with their novels.

Unfortunately, The Novelry has no free services and is one of the most expensive course providers, but you do get discounts if you buy in bulk. How much you spend depends on the skill level you’re at and what type of perks you want.

For example, there are individual, intensive courses with their own fees, the lowest being $149 per month. On the other hand, you can do all The Novelry's courses with a 15% discount if you get the annual Book in a Year package for $1,999.

The highest tier also gets you a manuscript assessment. These are steep prices, but you walk away with a novel ready for publication. Alternatively, you can choose a cheaper course and complete it in tandem with one of the best manuscript assessment services to perfect your book .

5. Writers’ Village University

If you like the idea of an online community dedicated to writing and enjoy different kinds of projects, the Writers' Villiage University might be just what you need. It offers online courses related to fiction, short stories, poetry, essays, non-fiction, flash fiction, vignettes, and writing structure.

Each course follows a specific schedule and can last two to eight weeks, so it really is like following a class, just online.

What the service lacks in flexibility, it makes up for in benefits. Whatever membership you choose—which is significantly cheaper than The Novelty—you get access to over 300 courses alongside extra tools for creative writers. They also offer certification.

6. CreativeLive

CreativeLive is another multifaceted platform to consider with a lot of online courses for writers. It will require you to do some research, however. You'll need to look into each teacher’s qualifications, reviews, and offerings to ensure you get your money's worth.

On the plus side, there are usually discounts available, and the cost of a course can be as low as $8. CreativeLive also welcomes different kinds of writers, whether they compose memoirs, songs, write essays, or create marketing content.

We couldn't exclude Udemy from this list. It’s suitable for both creative and business interests, and the pricing, discounts, and flexibility are similar to that of CreativeLive.

You’ll find great online writing courses for every booming industry of 2021. Whether you want to start a book or blog, take your copywriting to the next level, or produce more effective reports, Udemy will have a teacher for you.

Once again, you should explore each course in detail before investing. If you want to practice these tips for becoming a successful content writer , for example, it’s best to go for a lesson plan with plenty of exercises.

8. Skillshare

Skillshare’s system caters to several fields. There's a seven-day free trial, but you'll need to pay for a subscription when it runs out. After signing up, you’ll have access to all the writing courses you could possibly need.

The courses are created by independent tutors, and you can filter through them based on factors like staff pick, class level, length, skills, and when they were created.

You can also hit the Follow button on your favorite writing category to be notified when new courses are added. Keep in mind that creative and business writing is in different categories.

Improve Your Skills With Online Writing Courses

There’s no shortage of online writing courses available in 2021. No matter what field interests you, the internet has plenty of platforms and teachers for you to pick from.

While developing your writing skills, you also need an efficient workflow to keep you focused and motivated; it's time to look at the ways you can overcome writer's block.

Steamy in Seattle

May 10 3PM-5PM at Wisteria Hall Tea & Conversation with Fantasy Romance Authors L. Penelope and Melissa Marr A Clarion West Fundraiser!

On-Demand Classes

Building Trans Inclusive Worlds with SA Chant Explore how trans and nonbinary people exist in systems—legal systems, magic systems, & epic sci-fi bureaucracies alike.

April Class Highlight

Introduction to Writing YA Speculative Fiction with Diana Ma Tips, examples, and writing exercises to help you start your journey to writing speculative YA.

Workshops for people who are serious about writing

Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year.

At Clarion West, you’ll be among award-winning and best-selling writers in science fiction, fantasy, games, horror, and more. Our workshops and classes are taught by world-class instructors from across the field of speculative fiction. Wherever you may be in your career, whether novice or sage, we offer a diverse listing of classes that is packed with valuable information to take your writing to the next level.

What is speculative fiction? There are as many definitions for speculative fiction as there are authors working under its broad umbrella. Learn more about how our community defines speculative fiction.

Our Mission

We support emerging and underrepresented voices by providing writers with world-class instruction to empower their creation of wild and amazing worlds. Through conversation and public engagement, we bring those voices to an ever-expanding community.

We aim to set writers on the path to success, foster greater equity and inclusion in the speculative fiction world, help bring quality speculative fiction to light, and bring writers and readers together.

Speculative fiction—science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, and slipstream—gives voice to those who explore societal and technological change, along with deeper considerations of underlying archetypes of human experience. Although there are fine science fiction and fantasy writers of all ethnicities, races, and genders, historically the field has reflected the same prejudices found in the culture around it, leading to proportionately fewer successful writers of color and women writers than white male writers. Within the limitations of the workshop, Clarion West is dedicated to improving those proportions.

Looking for the Clarion West Six-Week Workshop? Every summer, the Six-Week Workshop offers time away from everyday distractions and encouragement to experiment and take artistic risks. The critique sessions are the heart of the workshop: students learn not only by receiving critiques, but by reading others’ work and constructing their own critiques. Instructors work directly with attendees to present group critiques of newly written stories, participate in discussions about writing techniques or professional concerns, and hold individual or small-group conferences.  Learn more about the Six-Week Workshop.

In addition, we offer instruction throughout the year with workshops and classes that vary in intensity, topic, and number of sessions. We invite prominent authors from across a broad range of speculative fiction to teach our classes and workshops. A few of our most recent instructors include N. K. Jemisin, Samit Basu, Cat Rambo, Ted Chiang, P. Djèlí Clark, Karen Lord, Daniel Abraham, Elizabeth Hand, Cadwell Turnbull, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Amal El-Mohtar, Nicola Griffith, Karen Joy Fowler, Kij Johnson, and Nisi Shawl. Learn more about our online classes and workshops.

You can support Clarion West’s mission to forge new voices in speculative fiction in many different ways.  Learn how you can get involved with the Clarion West community!

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• College of Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Division
• College of Liberal and Professional Studies

Courses for Fall 2021

Please note that the course selection period concludes tuesday, september 14th..

English 010.301    Intro to Creative Writing: Writing Asian American Lives     Piyali Bhattacharya    TR 10:15-11:45  English 010.302    Intro to Creative Writing: Fiction and Memoir      Weike Wang     M 10:15-1:15   

English 010.303    Intro to Creative Writing: Memoir and Creative Nonfiction     Carmen Machado     MW 3:30-5:00

English 010.304    Intro to Creative Writing: Sports Narratives     Jamie-Lee Josselyn     M 1:45-4:45    

English 010.305     Intro to Creative Writing: Extreme Noticing      Sam Apple     T 5:15-8:15

English 010.307    Intro to Creative Writing: Poetry and Memoir      Sebastian Castillo     W 1:45-4:45

English 110.401     Writing for Television      Scott Burkhardt     W 5:15-8:15

English 112.301    Fictional Friendships: Writing Ardor and Amity      Piyali Bhattacharya     TR 1:45-3:15  

English 112.302     Fiction Writing Workshop: Flash Fiction      Carmen Machado     MW 12:00-1:30   

English 113.301     Poetry Writing Workshop      Rachel Zolf     T 1:45-4:45

English 114.401     Playwriting     Anne Marie Cammarato     F 12:00-3:00

  English 115.301    Advanced Fiction Writing     Max Apple     T 1:45-4:45  

English 115.302     Advanced Fiction Writing: Autofiction      Weike Wang   M 1:45-4:45   

English 116.401    Screenwriting     Kathleen DeMarco Van Cleve     M 1:45-4:45   

English 116.402    Screenwriting     Scott Burkhardt     W 1:45-4:45   

English 116.403     Screenwriting     Scott Burkhardt     R 5:15-8:15   

English 117.301     The Arts and Popular Culture     Anthony DeCurtis     R 1:45-4:45  

English 121.301    Writing for Young Adults      Nova Ren Suma     W 1:45-4:45

English 129.401    Across Forms      Rachel Zolf , Sharon Hayes     W 1:45-4:45

English 130.401    Advanced Screenwriting     Kathleen DeMarco Van Cleve     W 1:45-4:45  

English 135.301    Creative Nonfiction Writing     Max Apple     R 1:45-4:45 

English 138.401     Writing Center Theory and Practice     Stacy Kastner    TR 10:15-11:45

English 144.301    I Was a Teenage Monster: Coming of Age in Speculative Writing      Jeff T. Johnson     W 3:30-6:30

English 145.301    Advanced Nonfiction Writing: Xfic     Jay Kirk     M 5:15-8:15   

English 158.301     Advanced Journalistic Writing: Journalistic Storytelling      Dick Polman     M 1:45-4:45

English 162.301    Political Journalism: The Biden Era      Dick Polman     W 1:45-4:45

English 165.301    Writing through Culture and Art      Kenneth Goldsmith     R 3:30-6:30

Descriptions

English 010.301 Intro to Creative Writing: Writing Asian American Lives Bhattacharya TR 10:15-11:45

“ Kids know more about dinosaurs than they do about Asian Americans.” So says Dr. Karen Su, founding director of PAACH (Pan-Asian American Community House) at Penn, and though she’s talking about children’s literature, her sentiment might apply to adults, too. Who are the Asian Americans? What does it mean to be non-Black POC in this country? How do religion, ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, and immigration status define this group? How do we discuss all this while being inclusive of both “us” and “them”? This course will explore these questions through the lens of an introductory fiction, nonfiction, and poetry creative writing workshop. We’ll follow the traditional workshop format of critiquing each other’s short stories, essays, and poems in class, along with close reading works by authors as established as Jhumpa Lahiri, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Amy Tan, and as contemporary as Lisa Ko, Bushra Rehman, Ocean Vuong, and Mira Jacob. We’ll use these texts as springboards to examine representations of identity, inclusion, and exclusion, and we’ll be invited to consider these representations in the media around us as well as in our local communities. Finally, we’ll think through how we can contribute to discussions of these topics with our own artistic voices. 

English 010.302 Intro to Creative Writing: Fiction and Memoir Wang M 10:15-1:15

In this course, students will read contemporary fiction writers who are blending the genres of fiction and memoir. Students will be introduced to the craft of writing through discussions on plot, character, dialogue and voice. Students will also be encouraged to explore different kinds of fictional writing from flash to ‘pseudo-memoir’ to the short story. The first half of the semester will be dedicated to short exercises (1-2 pages) and mini workshops.  The second half of the semester, each student will work towards a longer piece (8-12 pages) to be workshopped.  There will be weekly response papers (1-2 pages) to the readings.

English 010.303 Intro to Creative Writing: Memoir and Creative Nonfiction Machado MW 3:30-5:00

This workshop-style class is an introduction to the pleasures of the writing nonfiction. Students will read in a wide variety of subgenres, forms, and traditions (including memoir, criticism, lyrical and hermit-crab essays, and travel- and food-writing) and respond creatively with their own work. They will also learn how to mine their experiences and memories, do family-based historical research, generate brand-new material, discuss published and unpublished nonfiction in a critical way, and access the creative, playful side of their psyche that so many people leave dormant. We will talk about the craft of nonfiction and do periodic in-class exercises. No writing experience is necessary, but students must be willing to participate, revise their work, take risks, and be generous with themselves and others.

English 010.304 Intro to Creative Writing: Sports Narratives Josselyn M 1:45-4:45

We use sports to shape our lives as individuals, as families, and as communities. Whether a runner completing a marathon for charity, a high school hopeful’s quest for a scholarship, or a pro team clinching — or falling short of — a title, the highs and lows of an athletic journey, when combined with literary devices, insightful reflection, and occasionally just the right amount of indulgence, make for stories that teach and inspire. Even those of us who are true amateur athletes, exclusively spectators, or even sports skeptics can tap into the emotions that sports evoke. And as we have seen recently, sports provide a crucial platform for social, political, and cultural issues via circumstances both on and off the court, field, or track.

Over the course of the semester, students in our workshop will compose a personal essay from the perspective of an athlete or fan, a reported piece on an athlete, team, or sporting event, and a short story that centers around athletics. For their final project, students will complete a longer piece in one of these modes, along with a revision of an earlier draft. As students work on their own sports stories, we will be joined by several in-class guests and we will read the work of impactful storytellers like Grantland Rice, Toni Cade Bambara, Roger Angell, John McPhee, Leslie Jamison, Bill Simmons, and Penn’s own Buzz Bissinger, Sam and Max Apple, and Dan McQuade. We will also look to professional athletes whose words and gestures have made an impact like Kathrine Switzer, Mary Cain, Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe, and Colin Kaepernick. And, of course, we’ll watch  Rocky .

English 010.305 Intro to Creative Writing: Extreme Noticing Sam Apple T 5:15-8:15

In the words of novelist Alice LaPlantte, “our first job as writers” is “to notice.” We all notice the world around as we make our way through each day, but “noticing” as a writer is different. Whether working on fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or any other genre, the writer has to pay attention to the very small, to zoom in on the specific detail or insight that can make even the most mundane moment feel entirely new. Noticing in this way is a skill that, like most skills, is developed with practice. In this class, we’ll practice paying attention to the small with weekly writing prompts and take occasional “noticing excursions” around campus. Along the way, we’ll review student writing as a group and read works by great contemporary noticers, including Karl Ove Knausgaard, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ben Lerner, and Miranda July. Questions? Contact me at  [email protected] .

English 010.307 Intro to Creative Writing: Poetry and Memoir Castillo W 1:45-4:45

This is a course for students who are interested in exploring a variety of approaches to creative writing, including poetry, memoir, and hybrid texts. Readings will include poetry and memoir, and will represent various approaches to writing from life, including works by: Sawako Nakayasu, Marosa Giorgio, Gertrude Stein, Harryette Mullen, and Lyn Hejinian, among others. Students will be encouraged to discover new territory, to cultivate a sense of play, to collaborate, and to unhinge conventional assumptions regarding what is possible in writing.

English 110.401 Writing for Television Burkhardt W 5:15-8:15

This is a workshop-style course for those who have an interest in writing for television. The course will consist of two parts: First, students will develop premise lines, beat sheets and outlines for an episode of an existing television show. Second, students will develop their own idea for a television series which will culminate in the writing of the first 30 pages of an original television pilot.

Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email briefly describing their interest in the course and their experience as a writer to course instructor email: Scott Burkhardt . This course is cross-listed with CIMS 117.

English 112.301 Fictional Friendships: Writing Ardor and Amity Bhattacharya TR 1:45-3:15

How many kinds of love exist among friends? What is the difference between friendship and romance? In what ways do the ideals of femme, masc, trans, and cis complicate friendship? What are sisterhoods and what are bromances? What is a frenemy? In what ways do we dissolve the boundaries between queer friendships? And what role does family play in making friends: that is, can one ever dilute blood? What do race and class have to do with ardor and amity? How do we define our friends outside and inside our communities? This fiction workshop will explore not only how we experience friendship, but also how we write it. We will examine novels famous for their takes on friendship (Toni Morrison’s Sula , Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend , Tanwi Nandini Islam’s Bright Lines , Nicole Dennis Benn’s Patsy , Justin Torres’s We the Animals ) and interrogate the sticky, blurry lines between friendship and love, between loyalty to a person and loyalty to a community. We’ll also be writing our own short stories, creating characters who have to make difficult decisions because of their friendships and particularly because of relationships that teeter on the edge of fidelity and fondness. 

English 112.302 Fiction Writing Workshop: Flash Fiction Machado MW 12:00-1:30

Keats called poetry “infinite riches in a small room,” and the same can be said of short-short-form fiction. Where does the art of fiction fit into this age of condensed information? Short-form fiction (also called flash fiction, sudden fiction, or microfiction—stories under 1,000 words) is more than just “really short stories.” Every word in a piece of microfiction is the proverbial ant, carrying fifty times its own weight. In this course, we will learn how to deliver plot, character, mood, and epiphany in the most succinct way possible, and explore what a story truly needs to be a story. Students will read short-short narratives from a variety of traditions, do prompt-based exercises, submit weekly stories of their own for workshop, and explore how the resurgence of the short form has coincided with technology’s integration into every facet of our lives.

English 113.301 Poetry Writing Workshop Zolf T 1:45-4:45

There’s a reason Plato banned all poets from his utopian Republic: poetry is wild, uncontainable, ungovernable. The poetic is a force that upends not just language but all fixed ideas and categories. In this course we’ll explore your poetic potential. Students are welcome in our language lab no matter what your experience with the poetic has been. You can even be a fiction or creative nonfiction writer—or an artist—interested in working with the force of the poetic and improving the rhythm, diction, sound, and arrangement of your work with language. In this course, you’ll read and respond to a range of poetic works, write every week, be workshopped by your peers, and work on a poetic portfolio that is just as wild as you can be.

English 114.401 Playwriting Staff Cammarato F 12-3

This course is designed as a hands-on workshop in the art and craft of dramatic writing. It involves the study of new plays, the systematic exploration of such elements as storymaking, plot, structure, theme, character, dialogue, setting, etc.; and most importantly, the development of students' own short plays through a series of written assignments and in-class exercises. Since a great deal of this work takes place in class - through lectures, discussions, spontaneous writing exercises, and the reading of student work - weekly attendance and active participation is crucial.

English 115.301 Advanced Fiction Writing Max Apple T 1:45-4:45

The class will be conducted as a seminar. Every student will write four stories during the semester; each story will be discussed by the group. The instructor will, from time to time, suggest works of fiction that he hopes will be illustrative and inspirational but there will be no required books. Attendance and active class participation are essential. Permit from the instructor is required. Please submit a brief writing sample to [email protected] .

English 115.302 Advanced Fiction Writing: Autofiction Wang M 1:45-4:45

Often what we write can feel close to home. Our characters and events, some firmly rooted in the real. But what is the overlap between writer and character? Writer and story? In this course, students will study the modern tradition (and trend) of autofiction, or fictionalized autobiography. We will read writers such as Li, Cusk, Heti, Nunez, Hempel, and Galchen, among others, and study autofiction in both short and long forms. In our discussion, we will attempt to pull apart the layers that go into a truthful story that is also a lie. Throughout the semester, students will have a chance to write autofiction of their own. Each student will be expected to turn in 4 short pieces (5-6 pages) that will culminate in a final portfolio of work.  There will be weekly response papers (1-2 pages) to the readings.  

English 116.401 Screenwriting DeMarco Van Cleve M 1:45-4:45

This is a workshop-style course for those who have thought they had a terrific idea for a movie but didn't know where to begin. The class will focus on learning the basic tenets of classical dramatic structure and how this (ideally) will serve as the backbone for the screenplay of the aforementioned terrific idea. Each student should, by the end of the semester, have at least thirty pages of a screenplay completed. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class, and students will also become acquainted with how the business of selling and producing one's screenplay actually happens.

Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email briefly describing their interest in the course to the instructor: Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve . This course is cross-listed with CIMS 116.

English 116.402 Screenwriting Burkhardt W 1:45-4:45

Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email briefly describing their interest in the course to the instructor: Scott Burkhardt . This course is cross-listed with CIMS 116.

English 116.403 Screenwriting Burkhardt R 5:15-8:15

English 117.301 The Arts and Popular Culture DeCurtis R 1:45-4:45

This is a workshop-oriented course that will concentrate on all aspects of writing about artistic endeavor, including criticism, reviews, profiles, interviews and essays. For the purposes of this class, the arts will be interpreted broadly, and students will be able—and, in fact, encouraged—to write about both the fine arts and popular culture, including fashion, sports and comedy. Students will be doing a great deal of writing throughout the course, but the main focus will be a 3,000-word piece about an artist or arts organization in Philadelphia (or another location approved by the instructor) that will involve reporting, interviews and research. Potential subjects can run the full range from a local band to a museum, from a theater group to a designer, from a photographer to a sculptor.

English 121.301 Writing for Young Adults  Suma W 1:45-4:45

Young adult literature is powerful, inventive, and worthy of respect—and those writing it have enormous potential in their hands. Part workshop and part seminar, this class will explore the craft of YA literature through creative assignments and readings of texts by both giants in the field and emerging voices, and discussions of student work in a constructive environment. Students will focus on craft concerns crucial to writing about and for teens, such as: voice, point of view, immediacy, pacing, and opening hooks, and we will look beyond straightforward prose into forms such as epistolary and verse novels and other experimental mashups. Students will create writing of their own that pushes the boundaries of form and content, drawing on some of the many possibilities in YA literary fiction such as blurred genres, retellings, and issues of identity and self-discovery. Authors we will study as inspirations and models may include Elizabeth Acevedo, Libba Bray, Malinda Lo, Samantha Mabry, Kekla Magoon, Jennifer Mathieu, Anna-Marie McLemore, Emily X.R. Pan, Randy Ribay, Nicola Yoon, and Ibi Zoboi. Come ready to challenge any preconceptions you may have about YA literature and examine what some believe is its greatest potential: to offer young readers a vehicle for recognizing themselves, and for reflecting and even transforming the world around them. Students will write short pieces throughout the semester as well as the opening chapters of their own YA novels. They will produce a final portfolio of creative work that showcases their unique YA voice, with potential for further exploration beyond the confines of this class. 

English 129.401 Across Forms Zolf, Hayes W 1:45-4:45

What if a poem spoke from inside a photograph? What if a sculpture unfurled a political manifesto? What if a story wasn’t just  like  a dance, but  was  a dance—or a key component of a video, drawing, performance, or painting? Many artists employ writing in their practices, but may not look at the texts they create  as  writing. And many writers have practices that go beyond the page and deserve attention as  art . In this course, which is open to all students interested in art and writing, regardless of experience, students will develop multiple creative projects that integrate the forms, materials, and concerns of both art and writing. As a class we will employ critique  and  workshop, pedagogic methodologies from art and writing respectively, to support and interrogate cross-pollinations between writing and art practices. We will also study a field of artists and writers who are working with intersections between art and writing to create dynamic new ways of seeing, reading, and experiencing. This course is cross-listed with Fine Arts 315/615. Permission to enroll is required; please submit a short description of your interest in the class to [email protected] .

English 130.401 Advanced Screenwriting DeMarco Van Cleve W 1:45-4:45

This is a workshop-style course for students who have completed a screenwriting class, or have a draft of a screenplay they wish to improve. Classes will consist of discussing student's work, as well as discussing relevant themes of the movie business and examining classic films and why they work as well as they do. Classic and not-so-classic screenplays will be required reading for every class in addition to some potentially useful texts like What Makes Sammy Run? Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email. Please send a writing sample (in screenplay form), a brief description of your interest in the course and your goals for your screenplay, and any relevant background or experience.

Students will be admitted on the basis of an application by email briefly describing their interest in the course to the instructor: Kathy DeMarco Van Cleve .  This course is cross-listed with CIMS 130 .

English 135.301 Creative Nonfiction Writing Max Apple T 1:45-4:45

Each student will write three essays and the class will offer criticism and appreciation of each. There will be some discussion of and instruction in the form, but the course will be based on the student writing. Attendance and participation required.

English 138.401 Writing Center Theory and Practice Kastner TR 10:15-11:45

This course is intended for capable writers who possess the maturity and temperament to work successfully as peer tutors at Penn. The course emphasizes the development of tutors' own writing through the process of collaborative peer-criticism, individual conferences, and intensive sessions on writing, from mechanics to style. The class meets twice weekly; tutors also work two hours weekly in the Writing Center or elsewhere, and confer regularly in small groups or one-on-one meetings with the instructor. Tutors are required to write five short papers, eight one-page peer reviews, and two responses to readings. Additionally, students keep a journal and give two class presentations.

English 144.301 I Was a Teenage Monster: Coming of Age in Speculative Writing Johnson W 3:30-6:30

This writing workshop explores representations of adolescence, growing up strange, and becoming other. How can fantastic exaggeration and conceit accurately represent coming-of-age experiences and the trials and tribulations of teenhood? How does becoming a monster map onto becoming an adult? How can we draw from cross-media representations of teenage monsters to write our own monsters? What do the monsters we make say about our societal and cultural concerns? We’ll examine monstering in TV, film, comics, novels, and poems, building on references students already have on hand. We will also read and discuss monster theory. Along the way, we will write and revise our own speculative stories, poems, or essays of the strange and the monstrous.

English 145.301 Advanced Nonfiction Writing: Xfic Kirk M 5:15-8:15

This advanced creative nonfiction class gives student writers the chance to earn course credit and get published at the same time in Penn’s newest online literary journal --  XFic . Taught by award-winning longform “gonzo” journalist,  Jay Kirk ,  XFic  is devoted to innovative, boundary-defying nonfiction. While toying with the conventions, and inventing as we play, though, we will also look hard at the fundamentals of successful storytelling. Students will learn to pitch, develop, and edit stories, and each piece will be crafted with the end-semester goal of publication. The class itself will take the form of a workshop/weekly editorial meeting, where we will discuss the “art of experience,” and learn to report unflinchingly on that ever elusive entity known as  reality . Each student will be assigned an editorial role, so if you’re enrolling, definitely take a look at the website masthead and let either  Jay Kirk , or this year’s managing editor,  Chelsey Zhu , know what position you might be interested in. And let us know if you already have any story ideas in mind!

English 158.301 Journalistic Storytelling Polman M 1:45-4:45

The key issue: “How does the writer hook the reader, and how does the writer keep that reader hooked to the end?” English 158 is about mastering the mechanics of effective nonfiction narrative storytelling. Imagine that you are writing general-interest feature articles for a general-interest publication or website: What are the best ways to put the reader into your story? What are the elements that make a piece work? What are the elements of a good opening? When is it better to “show” as opposed to “tell”? When is it best to use first, second or third person? When is it best for the writer to use your own voice—or keep that voice at a distance? When is it best to use humor, and when to avoid it? When is it best to use anecdotes and scenes—both of which are staples of narrative storytelling? What are the “universal” themes that exist between the lines? We’ll work in different genres: observational pieces, profiles, personal pieces, long-form third-person pieces—and guest professionals will visit to share their expertise. An editor of mine used to say, “Good writing can be nurtured, cultivated, and encouraged.” That’s what I try to do. And I always say, “Journalistic writing is the most fun you can have working hard, and the hardest work you can do while having fun.”

English 162.301 Political Journalism: The Biden Era Polman W 1:45-4:45

Ben Bradlee, the legendary editor of  The Washington Post , once said that political journalism is “the first rough draft of history”—an opportunity to report and write about the tumultuous civic life of this nation as it happens in real time.

Indeed, national politics is a 24/7 staple on streaming sites, on social media, and in the minds of tens of millions of Americans who struggle to make sense of the noisy news overload. Political journalists have a great challenge: seemingly by the hour, they are tasked with making smart judgments, supporting their analyses with empirical reportage, and communicating those judgments in clear language. They have to cut through the clutter and engage the reader—smartly, and entertainingly—in a climate where journalists are still derided in some circles as “enemies of the people.” And in this era of “alternative” facts, even the dictionary definition of “truth” is widely under assault.

Political journalists are tasked with holding the new Biden administration accountable—properly so, as traditional watchdogs—while still seeking to cover the Trump movement-in-exile without amplifying its misinformation. Students in this course will get a taste of these challenges, while tackling some broader issues, such as: is objective “both sides” journalism up to the task of watchdogging an era when democracy itself is under serious threat?

So this course could not be more timely.

Only true “junkies” of national politics—and those who aspire to write about it—are likely to love this course, which challenges students to write in two formats that are often difficult to delineate: “news analysis” (which assesses the meaning of events, without editorial advocacy) and “commentary” (an opinion column). Students who are passionate about writing and politics will track the national news week by week and write timely posts that will be workshopped in class.

At a time when Americans are more awash in political news than ever, the goal of this course is to help students master the craft of writing clear, responsible, incisive, substantive, and engaging political journalism—and backing it up with factual research/reporting. The hope is that students can develop their “earned voice” via effective writing, effective reporting, and, above all, effective thinking.

English 165.301 Writing through Culture and Art Goldsmith R 3:30-6:30

The greatest unfinished book of the twentieth century was philosopher Walter Benjamin's  The Arcades Project  which, when finally published decades after it began, was nearly 900 pages of notes, annotations, and anecdotes about Paris, which Benjamin called, the "capital of the nineteenth century." The book was a sort of anti-history, focused less on the typical recordings that define a period--wars, politics, and economics--than it was on daily life: theater, cabarets, brothels, shopping, advertising, food, and entertainment, slathered with a dose of twentieth-century concerns like surrealism, modernism, and psychoanalysis. The result was an urban "history" unlike any other ever written, more of a dreamscape that doubled as literature.

In order to write it, Benjamin spent fifteen years in libraries, copying out passages from books in longhand that he found interesting, then organizing them by subject. Before he could finish the book, Benjamin killed himself, fleeing the Nazis. And, after the war, when it was finally published exactly as Benjamin had left it, scholars pondered whether this collection of notes was intended as a new kind of radical literature or whether it merely a study for a more conventional work of philosophy. We'll never know.

For this year-long class, given in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we'll attempt to rewrite  The Arcades Project  for colonial Philadelphia, America's capital of the eighteenth century. Using Benjamin's identical methodology, we'll immerse ourselves in the city's vast archives, libraries, and museums, seeking out and copying down those ephemeral bits of culture and daily life that we find interesting. Then, as a group, we'll stitch them together into a massive collage, writing an epic, 900-page prose poem of the city of Philadelphia unlike any other that's ever been written.

Part American history, part archeology, part anthropology, part art history, and part literature, this class will touch on collaborative ways of constructing alternative narratives. Using information management of as  our guiding poetic device, this class will engage with the intensive archiving and research practices that resonate with the way we parse  information in the digital age. Not only will we have the vast historical resources of Philadelphia at our fingertips, but we'll also have full access to the collections, treasures, and curatorial staff of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The class will culminate in a lavish publication of our work. Note: This is a two-semester course. Students will enroll in 165 in the fall and then re-enroll in 165 in the spring.

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We Are All Storytellers

Fun, structured writing workshops in person, via zoom, and online. private editing and coaching services., in the writing workshops, beginners, avid writers, and published authors:.

• Devote time to writing
• Overcome writer’s block
• Receive helpful feedback
• Join the writers’ community

Write fiction, poetry, nonfiction, memoirs, essays, plays, and screenplays.

Gift certificates for birthdays and holidays.

Show your loved one how much you support their dreams and endeavors by gifting them a workshop, private editing, or coaching.

If you struggle to make writing a habit, this program gives you the accountability we all need. Write to a prompt you receive via email for fifteen minutes and return your writing to your partner. You and your partner provide each other with basic, encouraging feedback. It’s simple and it works.

The Winter 2024 Zoom Tuesday Night Workshop

A fun, structured environment designed to help you tame your inner critic and develop your unique voice. Write during the workshop, and if you choose, submit up to 5,000 words for constructive discussion. A small Zoom workshop appropriate for writers of all levels who write in any form or genre.

The Spring 2024 Tuesday Night Writing Workshop in Flourtown

A fun, structured environment designed to help you tame your inner critic and develop your unique voice. Write during the workshop, and if you choose, submit up to 5,000 words for constructive discussion. An in-person workshop appropriate for writers of all levels who write in any form.

Editing and Coaching for Writers

Private coaching nurtures writers through the highs and lows of creative productivity. private editing guides you through the phases of preparing your project for publication..

Working one-on-one with Rachel Kobin, the Founder and Director of The Philadelphia Writers’ Workshop may be the best way to forward your project.

Choose up to 6 Wednesday nights of all writing via Zoom with author Danette Laver.

Wednesdays in January and February 2024 via Zoom from 7-9:30 PM. This writing workshop lets you write in the company of others from the comfort of your home. Danette Laver has been a writer in The Tuesday Night Writing Workshop for years and recently released her first novel.

The Manuscript Workshop

The Manuscript Workshop via video conference and in person , which meets on three Thursday evenings of every month, is designed to support writers who have made significant headway toward completing a full-length book.

Currently seeking participants for fall 2024.

Writers Review the Workshops

Read participants’ own words about their experiences in the workshops.

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Literary Arts

The Multnomah Arts enter offers a variety of writing classes for adults and youth year-round. Our program consists of a variety of genres and topics, allowing students to build skills as they create a body of work. Students take one-day workshops or ten-week classes to explore their written voice. Quarterly public readings of student and faculty work bring our community together to celebrate the written word.

Literary Arts Coordinator: Patrick Browne

Core Writing Classes

MEMOIR Anyone can write a memoir. We all have stories-young and old, rich and poor, famous and not so. Participants will use prompts and other exercises to trigger and unlock their memories in order to zero in on those moments that are both rich and significant. Draw inspiration and craft secrets from other authors and address and put aside the inner critic, so that you may engage your creative process in a safe and encouraging environment.

FICTION Do you have a story to tell? Have you dreamt up characters who you want to know more about? Do you want to use your imagination to create fictional worlds? Whether you have great ideas for stories but no idea how to start, or drafts of stories that don’t feel quite finished, this class is for you. Together we’ll explore how character, language, and narrative structure work in each other’s writing as well as in published works.

CREATIVE NONFICTION The blank page’s potential can intimidate some writers into silence. Bring an empty notebook and be guided through the writing process from its messiest beginnings to a completed story. This genre includes memoir, essay, narrative journalism, interviews, and all other true stories.

POETRY Poetry as a means of expression, exploration, and experience is available to everyone. Take time in class to write poems in response to prompts, prompts, and more prompts, leaning into your imagination and following the impulses of your right brain. Read and respond to one another’s work in this supportive setting, suggesting and sharing revisions.

Past Offerings

The Writer Within

Writing Our Lives as Story

Reading & Writing About Oregon

Poetry Collage

So, You Want to Write a Novel

Writing the Ten-Minute Play

Revision: Getting Beyond I Like It

Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography

Writing Through Loss

Reading & Writing About Nature

Getting Your Work Out There

Being Your Own Publisher

Writing Characters into life

Interviewing for Personal Histories

Writing from Art

Reading Your Work Out Loud

WRITING CLASSES FOR YOUTH

Writing Creative Stories

Writing Poetry

Young Artists Book Camp

Literary Arts Post

The Literary Arts Post was a collaboration with artists: Jerry Harris, woodwork; Greg Wilbur, metalworks; Christine Colasurdo, calligraphy; Nicole Rawlins, copper etching; and Tracy Wolf-Paquin, glass. Poet Kim Stafford contributed the inscription. Thanks to everyone, including the Multnomah Arts Center Association, for this wonderful addition to our community. Visit the Literary Arts Pole monthly to be inspired by new works from MAC faculty, students, and community members.

CREEES Professional Resources Forum

Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin

Grad Program: MA in Creative Writing in Russian (Moscow)

Application opens February 2019

For fiction/non-fiction writers in Russian.

MA “Creative Writing”  is:

• Practical and theoretical/historical courses, such as  Creative Writing Workshop ,  Storytelling in Different Media ,  Literary Editing , Poetics of Novel and Screenwriting ;
• Unique professors and teachers, among them famous Russian writers, screenwriters and critics –  Marina Stepnova ,  Lyudmila Ulitskaya ,  Lev Danilkin ,  Sergey Gandlevsky  and  Maya Kucherskaya  as well as prominent philologists, authors of academic and non-fiction books  Oleg Lekmanov ,  Ekaterina Lyamina  and  Alexey Vdovin ;
• Participation in open readings, discussions and  literary expeditions ,  publications in students’ projects ;
• International exchange  – lectures and workshops of the leading specialists in Creative Writing, students’ exchange in the best world universities;
•  Help and support in the process of  employment  in various publishing houses, editorials, Mass Media, high schools and universities and PR;
• Creation and participation in  cultural projects ;
• Flexible timetable  enabling students to work while studying.

Our graduates already work in the best publishing houses, universities and schools in Moscow. Their writing is published in the authoritative literary magazines. Their projects (such as prize  “_Litblog”  for the best literary blogger and first Creative Writing Internet resource in Russian  “Mnogobukv” and collections of prose) have gained much attention.

Language of instruction: Russian

You can apply to non-paid place as a foreign student in February. Looking forward to seeing you at Higher School of Economics!

More information about the programme:  https://www.hse.ru/en/ma/litmaster

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Updated: March 30, 2024 @ 8:25 am

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----MOSCOW A one-week workshop in advanced poetry writing the week of Oct. 8 to 12 begins the University of Idaho visiting writer workshops. William Matthews, poet

POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP BEGINS IN OCTOBER

• Sep 14, 1990
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----MOSCOW A one-week workshop in advanced poetry writing the week of Oct. 8 to 12 begins the University of Idaho visiting writer workshops.

William Matthews, poet and writer-in-residence at Columbia University, will conduct the workshop. Matthews is the author of four poetry collections, ''Blues If You Want,'' ''A Happy Childhood,'' ''Rising and Falling'' and ''Flood.''

Enrollment to the workshop is limited to 15 and selection is based on the quality of writing. Anyone interested in the workshop may send three to five poems for consideration to the UI English office by Sept. 28. The workshop class time will be from 7 to 9:30 p.m.

Matthews will give a reading of his work at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 10 in the UI Law Building Courtroom. The UI reading series begins Oct. 3 with Gary Gildner, a poet, short story writer, essayist and passionate amateur baseball player reading at 7:30 p.m. in the faculty lounge of Brink Hall.

Further information is available from Tina Foriyes, director of creative writing at the UI.

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• Post published: March 26, 2024

WRAC Faculty and Graduate Students Collaborate to Teach Undergraduate Writing Courses

Before enrolling in a writing course at MSU, undergraduates might view writing as a solitary act: performed alone by a creative professional, or as a one-way conversation between an author and invisible readers. But across the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures (WRAC), faculty invite their students to challenge these traditional notions. 

In both graduate and undergraduate settings, WRAC courses push beyond one-dimensional conceptions of writing in favor of collaboration and community-building. Whether they’re pursuing a Minor in Writing (MiW), a Professional and Public Writing (P2W) degree, or simply fulfilling a writing requirement, students from all majors have the opportunity to develop their definitions of writing and apply them to their professional aspirations. 

In the spirit of collaboration, Assistant Professors Dr. Margaret Morris and Dr. Bree Straayer teamed up with Ethan Voss and Mary Murdock , both graduate students in the Master of Arts (MA) in Rhetoric and Writing program , to teach two P2W courses this spring semester: 

• Writing in Corporate Contexts (WRA 333), taught by Dr. Morris and Voss
• Writing in the Public Interest (WRA 331), taught by Dr. Straayer and Murdock

These graduate-faculty partnerships enrich the experiences of undergraduates and the learning outcomes of all involved. 

WRA 333: Writing in Corporate Contexts

In WRA 333, Dr. Morris and Voss invite students to read, analyze, and produce the kinds of writing that function as “glue” in corporate communications: from public-facing messages and crisis response to business emails and even group chats. 

Through a series of four projects, students reflect on prior experiences and apply their unique knowledge sets to their future roles, professional contexts, and responsibilities. Together, Dr. Morris and Voss engage students in a mixture of audience analysis, writing production, and presentations, with a continual emphasis on professionalism and corporate leadership.

Dr. Morris frames conversations about corporate work with Dare to Lead , written by researcher, professor, and storyteller Brené Brown . After reading Brown’s book, students are asked to present core concepts from the text and articulate their strengths and opportunities for leadership development. Through this work, “students begin to take on their own markers of leadership, and hopefully begin to understand that leadership – and writing – isn’t about being perfect, but rather vulnerable and self-correcting,” Dr. Morris said. 

These aims are reinforced by the students’ final two projects, which ask them to create plans for success as future leaders and writers in corporate environments. Each student reflects on the course in a letter, in which they articulate their intentions as young writers entering a fast-changing workforce.

A Partnership Built on Past Experiences

Dr. Morris brings real-world corporate experience and over twenty years of teaching experience to her classroom. This is her second time teaching WRA 333 as well as collaborating with Voss; last fall, the duo co-taught WRA 370, an introductory course in grammar and editing.

As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, Voss’ two favorite courses were “Technical and Professional Writing” and “Editing, Critique, and Style.” In addition to sharing relevant knowledge from his undergraduate years, Voss offers his perspectives as a young adult and current student to connect with undergraduates in WRA 331, many of whom are seniors. 

“I was in their position not too long ago, so I’m often asking: ‘How can we prepare these students to launch into the next phase of life?’” Voss said. 

As a former writer in a corporate setting, Dr. Morris also understands the particular nature of corporate environments that many of her students will enter after graduating this spring. 

“When students get to the workplace, they’re going to be writing a lot,” Dr. Morris said. “In a corporate setting, you have to be in good relationships with people across the organization, so you can gather the information you need and write it up in a way that meets the needs and expectations of your audience.”

In anticipation of these demands, Dr. Morris and Voss ask their students to write across different modes of writing while attending closely to their audiences, which involves analysis and research to better understand the needs of hypothetical readers. In the classroom, peers function as readers and supporters, so Dr. Morris and Voss strive to foster a communal space where students feel comfortable sharing, brainstorming, and writing together. 

“One of my primary aims as a P2W Professor is to create a small community in every classroom where people really know each other, their strengths and weaknesses, and trust in the process of sharing their writing,” Dr. Morris said. 

Intentional community-building is especially vital in classrooms with varied academic interests. In WRA 333 alone, represented majors include Neuroscience, Textile and Apparel, Japanese, Communications, Political Science and Theory, and Experience Architecture. Students often enroll in P2W courses like WRA 333 to fulfill requirements for the MiW or complete a writing elective, so P2W faculty – and teaching assistants like Voss – work with students from diverse backgrounds.

By getting to know these students “on a more granular level,” Dr. Morris said, she can tailor their activities and teams to align with their educational goals and personal needs. “Every class, we check in and try to be honest with each other. We share a lot of laughter, and then we forge forward.”

Co-Teaching = Co-Learning

Collaborating with Voss – who will complete his MA in Rhetoric and Writing this spring and begin a Ph.D. program next fall – “lets me perceive new ways to come into the classroom and infuse it with life and knowledge,” Dr. Morris reflected. She attributes the success of their collaboration to shared pedagogical values, enthusiasm, and overall “synergy.” 

“Ethan and I have complementary values of building community, listening to students, and centering students in our pedagogy,” Dr. Morris described. She contends that the students in WRA 333 also benefit from their collaboration, as they get to work with both a long-time professor and former corporate professional and a younger educator with newer theory and praxis. 

Both Dr. Morris and Voss bring their enthusiasm for relationship-building via writing, as well as their shared belief in the value of pedagogical partnerships in higher education. “In teaching settings, there’s so much value in observation, but even more in the process of actively engaging your ideas and putting them into practice,” Dr. Morris said. “Most of the time, students are so eager to learn that they’re forgiving about your learning process as a teacher.” It can take years to develop one’s “teacherly identity,” Dr. Morris noted – and she’s still doing it alongside Voss. 

Preparing Students for Future Work – and Future Writing

The impending job search can feel daunting for many students, so Voss and Dr. Morris take measures to ground their class in the present moment with supportive check-ins and a “Dumb Question of the Day” – usually supplied by Voss – that imbue the classroom with honesty and a therapeutic dose of humor. 

These pedagogical moves support the professional and personal success of undergraduates, as well as Voss’ personal journey as a graduate student. After completing his Ph.D., Voss sees himself teaching in a First-Year Writing Program and eventually working as a Director. From there, he plans to eventually transition into other leadership roles, but always circling back to his original love for higher education, classroom community, and the students who define this work.

In this specific course and across his pedagogy, Voss views the classroom as a space to gather and “foster the development of genuinely good people: ones who can leave as leaders and understand the importance of engaging with other people, exactly as they are.” 

“Regardless of whether they go into a corporate setting or somewhere else, we want students to make genuine changes in the spaces they enter,” Voss said. 

Voss and Dr. Morris recently submitted a presentation proposal to talk about their co-teaching experience at the Spring 2024 Teaching and Learning Conference , hosted by the Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation. They look forward to completing the semester together and sharing about their collaboration with a larger community of teachers, researchers, and writers.

WRA 331: Writing in the Public Interest

Across the hall, Murdock and Dr. Straayer teach undergraduates about nonprofit writing in WRA 331. While acknowledging their roles as teachers first, they also wear “the hats of clients, such that students are creating deliverables that would be used in a nonprofit communications strategy or a real community,” Murdock reflected. 

Dr. Straayer offered a similar sentiment. “As a class, we’re really invested in understanding what reading and writing look like in community spaces, and not just in higher education.” 

In keeping with this community-centric vision, Dr. Straayer and Murdock incorporate a mixture of projects and learning modalities into WRA 331. Across assignments, they emphasize hands-on creation and thinking about the complexities of writing for nonprofit organizations, especially compared to corporate settings. 

The course is structured around five assignments, beginning with an introductory project that asks students to analyze and adjust an example of nonprofit communication with significant room for improvement. Students get a chance to play with design in a low-stakes environment, familiarize themselves with writing in the nonprofit sphere, and “make constructive changes and see what challenges arise in the process,” Dr. Straayer described. Students find that while “it’s easy to critique a writing sample, it’s much harder to make it ‘right,’” she said.  

This foundational assignment prepares students for the remaining four projects, which collectively ask them to consider the role of audience, storytelling, and personal values when communicating on behalf of a nonprofit organization. The course simulates the challenges and affordances of writing for nonprofits, whether on a freelance or in-house basis: through case studies, rhetorical analysis of common documents, project management, and ongoing reflection. 

In the students’ third project, which explores the role of storytelling in the nonprofit world, Dr. Straayer asks students to consider the ethics of communicating other people’s stories. “We consider what it looks like to give others agency in the composition practice – because in the nonprofit world, so much of writing is storytelling,” Dr. Straayer said. In this specific project but also throughout the course, Dr. Straayer and Murdock focus on preparing students to enter a nonprofit setting with care and intention. 

“We want to prepare students to listen and understand their own positionality and lens through which they view the world, so when they’re working with communities, they understand how to work with a certain kind of sensitivity and thinking,” Dr. Straayer described. “When we tell stories in nonprofit spaces, we want to honor the people we’re working with and show them in the fullness of who they really are, and ensure that we’re not just shedding one light.”

Replicating Community Work in the Writing Classroom

Prior to teaching in WRAC, Dr. Straayer worked for three years at the Literacy Center of West Michigan and oversaw their program for parents learning English. As a graduate student at MSU, Dr. Straayer worked with English Language Learners at Bethany Christian Services; and during the summers, she taught at Grand Rapids Community College as an English Fast Track Instructor. These highly immersive experiences – centered around one-on-one relationships – continue to inform Dr. Straayer’s teaching philosophy in WRA 331.

Dr. Straayer also has ample experience mentoring younger professionals like Murdock, who originally got involved in WRA 331 to fulfill the internship requirement for her MA concentration in Professional Writing and Technical Communication. On a more personal level, Murdock views this internship as an opportunity to expand the definition of teaching, particularly as it relates to her professional interests in nonprofit work.

“Teaching happens everywhere,” Murdock said. “Even though I’m not currently interested in classroom teaching as a career, I find that teaching happens across professional spaces and roles: in nonprofit leadership, project management, even user experience and design work.”

Murdock incorporates various pedagogical tools and experiences from her work in the Cube – a publishing and user experience research center in WRAC – to give undergraduates in WRA 331 an experience she called “workplace-light.” 

“When you’re presenting something to a client, explaining ‘here’s what we did, and here’s why,’ or running workshops to get feedback on a prototype – these conversations are pedagogical in a lot of ways,” she said. 

Collaboration, Community, and Cross-Cultural Communication

This Spring semester, the majority of students in WRA 331 are non-writing majors, ranging from Studio Art to Political Science. The course bridges a range of learners and experiences, enhancing the relevance of collaboration and cross-cultural understanding in the classroom. 

Outside the classroom, Dr. Straayer and Murdock collaborate regularly to plan for their next class and reflect on the last. “We’re both learning to teach this class for the first time,” Murdock explained. “It’s been really cool to bring my knowledge and experiences to this setting and see students practice project management, especially since undergraduates don’t usually get asked to take on these roles in their classes.”

As she looks forward to graduating in the spring, Murdock is actively applying to communications roles in mission-driven organizations. Reflecting on her development as a writer and professional, she loves helping undergraduates recognize and honor their passions, interests, and abilities. “A lot of this co-teaching experience has involved confidence-building: helping students recognize their own affinities and leverage them for class projects,” Murdock said. 

Dr. Straayer plays a parallel supportive role for Murdock and other young professionals. As a former graduate student, Dr. Straayer was recognized for her mentorship of new teaching assistants ; and now, as a working teacher, she maintains her commitment to advising new educators. “I want to help them develop curriculum, see their strengths as teachers, and ultimately lean into what they’re good at and not try to be something they’re not in the classroom,” she shared. 

Figuring out “your window into pedagogy” takes time, Dr. Straayer said, but these semester-long collaborations give graduate students like Murdock and Voss the time, space, and community to explore their pedagogical values – and, perhaps most challengingly, how to translate them into structured classroom activities. “How do you funnel all of your teaching values into one moment?” Dr. Straayer mused. “It’s a tough question.”

Dr. Straayer makes time at the end of each day to sit with this question, reflect on what went well in the classroom, and consider which areas might call for revision or more structured collaboration with Murdock or other teachers in the department. “It’s so fun and helpful working with Mary, getting to know the students, seeing their energy, and hearing their discussions,” Dr. Straayer said. 

In both WRA 331 and WRA 333, the lines between teacher, learner, and writer are productively blurry – and in these collaborative communities, moments of teaching and learning are always unfolding. 

For more information about the MiW, P2W major, and the graduate program in Rhetoric and Writing, please visit the WRAC website . 

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Our October 2021 classes are now enrolling in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and more. Here is a snapshot of what we have coming up:

8-Week Online Introduction to Personal Essay with NYT Columnist Diana Spechler (10/18)

8-Week Zoom Advanced Fiction Workshop with Jenny Bhatt (10/18)

In Bloom: Nature Writing 6 Week Zoom Workshop with Dana De Greff (10/18)

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