Upcoming Courses

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Writing Essays for Magazines

Tuesdays: March 10 - 31
7:30 - 10 p.m. EST

$420

The personal essay is one of the most intimate and electric forms of writing we have—where craft meets vulnerability and truth meets structure. But turning a lived experience into something that moves readers (and grabs the attention of editors) takes more than courage. It takes strategy, clarity, and a deep understanding of what makes a personal experience worth sharing. Essayists of all stripes will find guidance in this course, and we’ll arm you with the know-how and tools you need to place your work in magazines.

Writing Your Queerness

Mondays: April 6 - 27
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

$420

As queer writers, we are often writing against normative narratives…So, what do we want to write towards? What are the constricting stories and expectations that we can release to forge our own queer literary paths? How do we write in alignment with our own power, experience, and desire? How do we resource the queer imagination to create our stories? This course is an invitation to step into your authenticity as a queer writer.

Writing the Mundane

Tuesdays: April 7 - 28
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

$450

Nonfiction so often gravitates toward the loudest, most dramatic moments in life: illness, trauma, transformation. But what about the small, glimmering ones? Trying to coax a child to sleep, buying candy at the corner store, the way light falls across a kitchen table. These daily, seemingly insignificant experiences can hold surprising aesthetic and political power. To write the mundane is to look again at what usually escapes notice, and to find meaning in the ordinary.

Writing Motherhood

Tuesdays: May 5 - 26
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

$420

How does a writer broach the topic of motherhood, an experience as large as life itself and as personal as the deepest flesh of our physical selves? How do we write toward the ineffability of maternal love, transformation, rage, sacrifice, and ecstasy? This Masters’ Series course provides the conversations, community, craft, and courage needed to approach every aspect of motherhood—conception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and caretaking.

Writing Hybrid Memoir

Mondays: June 8 - 29
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

$420 $370 (until Mar 19)

Many of the most powerful memoirs go beyond the author’s own experience, bringing the reader a deeper, more multi-faceted story. Why shouldn’t memoir encompass more than the personal? After all, we’re defined not just by what happened to us, but also what we read, what we obsess over, what we love. Hybrid memoir, or “memoir-plus,” elegantly reflects that multiplicity within the self, while also lending readers the chance to transcend the particulars of one person’s life. 

Past Courses

2026

• GENERATING THE PERSONAL ESSAY with BRIAN BENSON

• WRITING FOOD 2026 with ALI FRANCIS
  featuring Ruby Tandoh, Alicia Kennedy, Tejal Rao, & Soleil Ho

• WRITING RAGE with MEGAN STIELSTRA
  featuring Dan Sinker, Maggie Smith, Ashley C. Ford, & Carmen Maria Machado

2025

• GENERATING THE PERSONAL ESSAY with BRIAN BENSON

• BUSINESS OF FREELANCING with ALI FRANCIS
  featuring Jess Tran, Elyse Inamine, & Chloé Caldwell

• WRITING PEOPLE: THE ART OF PROFILE & BIOGRAPHY with MAYUKH SEN
  featuring Doreen St. Félix, Jiayang Fan, Julie Phillips, & Julianna Escobedo Shepherd

• NONFICTION RE-VISION INTENSIVE with MARGO STEINES

• WRITING MOTHERHOOD with RACHEL YODER
  featuring Lidia Yuknavitch, Michelle Tea, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson & Rivka Galchen

• MODERN LOVE SUBMISSION WORKSHOP with LAVINIA SPALDING

• WRITING GRIEF with MEGAN STIELSTRA
  featuring Samantha Irby, Lulu Miller, Matthew Salesses, & Vauhini Vara

• FUCK THE BIG FIVE with CHLOÉ CALDWELL
  featuring Mia Arias Tsang, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Christoph Paul, and Brian Gresko

• WRITING HUMOR with GREG MARSHALL
  featuring Sloane Crosley, Ben Philippe, Parini Shroff, & Curtis Sittenfeld

• WRITING THE BOOK PROPOSAL with RAKSHA VASUDEVAN
  featuring Elisa Gabbert, Lauren Markham, Noelle Falcis-Math, & Anni Liu

• WRITING THE BODY with MARGO STEINES
  featuring Sarah Manguso, Krys Malcolm Belc, Porochista Khakpour, & Christina Cooke

• RETHINKING TRAVEL WRITING with FAITH ADIELE
  featuring Carey Baraka, Bani Amor, Pier Nirandara, & Noo Saro-Wiwa

• WRITING PICTURE BOOKS with KYO MACLEAR
  featuring Minh Lê, Matthew Burgess, X. Fang, & Jillian Tamaki

• WRITING AUTOFICTION with AUBE REY LESCURE
  featuring Zinzi Clemmons, Laura van den Berg, Alexander Chee, & Andrew Sean Greer

• WRITING DESIRE with STEVE ALMOND
  featuring Camille Dungy, Megha Majumdar, Sarah Manguso, & Anthony Doerr

• THE PRACTICE OF IMAGINATION with RACHEL KHONG
  featuring Shruti Swamy, Ruben Reyes Jr., Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, & Hilary Leichter

2024

• HYBRID MEMOIR with LILLY DANCYGER
  featuring Nicole Chung, Elissa Washuta, Jeanna Kadlec, & Chelsea Biondolillo

• NAVIGATING LITERARY PUBLICITY with LAUREN CERAND
  featuring Dan Sinykin, Kathleen Schmidt, Sonya Chung, & Andre Banks

• RESEARCH FOR WRITERS with JULIA COOKE
  featuring Álvaro Enrigue, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, May Jeong, & Jerry Saltz

• SCRAPPY: HOW TO BUILD AN ALTERNATIVE LITERARY LIFE with CHLOÉ CALDWELL
  featuring Courtney Maum, Alex Alberto, M. M. Carrigan, & Lidia Yuknavitch

• WRITING ABOUT FAMILY with PRISCILLA GILMAN
  featuring Safiya Sinclair, Maggie Smith, Dani Shapiro, & Casey Gerald

• WRITING FOOD with ALI FRANCIS
  featuring Bettina Makalintal, Mayukh Sen, Jaya Saxena, & Alicia Kennedy

• WRITING THE MODERN LOVE ESSAY with LAVINIA SPALDING
  featuring Susan Yoon, Kevin Renn, Staceyann Chin, & Miya Lee

• WRITING MOTHERHOOD with RACHEL YODER
  featuring Angela Garbes, Louisa Hall, Sabrina Orah Mark, & Erika Morillo

• WRITING TRAUMA with MARGO STEINES
  featuring Stacey Ramsower, Athena Dixon, T Kira Māhealani Madden, & Lacy M. Johnson

• WRITING THIS WARMING WORLD with MEERA SUBRAMANIAN
  featuring Emily Raboteau, Helen Macdonald, Elizabeth Rush, & J. Drew Lanham

2023

• HYBRID MEMOIR with LILLY DANCYGER
  featuring Melissa Febos, Esmé Weijun Wang, Jeannie Vanasco, & Tyrese L. Colemen

• WRITING THE BODY with MARGO STEINES
  & featuring Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Melissa Febos, Natalie Lima, & Leslie Jamison

2022

• HOW TO BEGIN with LESLIE JAMISON & COLLEEN KINDER