Upcoming Courses

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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.

Ask an Agent: How to Sell Your Nonfiction Book

Monday, May 11
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

$110

Can you sell a memoir on proposal? What is the market for essay collections and how do I go about selling mine? How do I know I’m ready to start querying agents? These are some of nonfiction publishing's most vexed questions, but they do have clear answers––if you know where to look. This one-day course run by powerhouse NYC literary agent Alia Hanna Habib (who specializes in nonfiction) offers a comprehensive overview of how to develop and then sell a literary nonfiction book in today’s challenging market. 

Think Like an Editor: Revising Essays for Publication

Sundays: May 31 - June 21
12 - 2:30 p.m. EST

$420 $370 (until Apr 14)

This course, led by Condé Nast Traveller editor Matt Ortile, offers rare insight into how top magazine editors shape stories from rough cuts to finished pieces, providing the conversations, community, craft, and professional fluency writers need to move their work forward. Students will hear directly from working editors—from The New York Times, Elle, The New Yorker, and Orion—about what they look for on the page, how they approach structural revision, and how essays evolve through multiple rounds of edits. By the end of the course, participants will leave with a stronger, more polished essay, a refined pitch, and a clear understanding of how editorial relationships work—equipped not just to submit their work, but to revise with rigor, confidence, and intention.

Finding Your Book (SOLD OUT)

Mondays: June 1 - July 20
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

$780

As writers we often hear about “finding your voice.” But what about finding something we don’t have to be or perform, something we can relate to and be in dialogue with, something that can transform us and grow along with us, something that feels like a home we can come back to again and again? What would it take to bring your many ideas and aspects of practice into alignment with a single project? That is what this course is all about—finding your book. This might be the book that only you can write, and it might be the book you’ve been wanting to write all your life.

Writing Hybrid Memoir

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

$420

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. 

Writing Heartbreak

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

$420 $370 (until Apr 30)

What if heartbreak was a place, in addition to a feeling? What if it was a driving force, a lifestyle, a way of being? In this course, we will explore writing not just about heartbreak, but writing from heartbreak in ways that move beyond the cliché. Through experiments with somatic writing exercises, memory, and weekly readings that  integrate and illuminate heartbreak in surprising structures and ways, students will deepen their craft and writing confidence. We will also examine and challenge what heartbreak can be and look like on the page. 

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

• WRITING ESSAYS FOR MAGAZINES with JESSICA CIENCIN HENRIQUEZ
  featuring Daniel Jones (Modern Love), Jennie Tung (Oprah Daily), Jen Ortiz (The Cut), & Jessica Reed (The Guardian)

• WRITING QUEERNESS with JOSS LAKE
  featuring Benedict Nguyễn, Andrea Lawlor, Zefyr Lisowski, and Denne Michele Norris

• WRITING THE MUNDANE with HEATHER RADKE
  featuring Ross Gay, Leslie Jamison, Elissa Gabbert, & Aimee Nezhukumatathil

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