Writing Fear

Saturdays: January 16 – February 6, 2027
1 - 3:30 p.m. EST

Led by MEGAN STIELSTRA
with guest authors Lidia Yuknavitch, Matthew Salesses, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, & Parneshia Jones

$420 $370 (until Dec 1)

So many of us are scared. There’s an endless loop of desperate news cycles, an escalating risk to our bodies and our communities, an aching planet, and through it all, each of us is moving deeply personal mountains that no one else can see.

How do we show up to the page when it feels like the world is on fire? How do we write in and through our fear, and how do we render that fear in our essays, memoir, fiction, and poetry? The writer Lidia Yuknavitch (one of our guests!) says our bodies can’t possibly hold everything we’ve been given to carry—but the page can.

In this four-session course led by acclaimed essayist Megan Stielstra, we’ll spotlight different ways to channel this raw emotion into skillful prose, examining the tools and techniques that other luminary writers—Parneshia Jones, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Matthew Salesses, and Lidia Yuknavitch—have used to wrestle with such demons into their art. In addition to these weekly author conversations, we’ll engage in exercises to get our fears out of the body and into the page, encouraging risk and discovery and examining literary craft in new ways. How much distance is needed between the experience and the writing? How can craft—tone, place, character, scene-building, research—help us crack down the walls we put up for ourselves around the fears that we really want to write about? And how can these fears propel us–a positive release into art and change?

In this course, students can expect to:

• Engage with renowned authors about writing through fear in their own unique creative practice

• Examine tools and approaches for writing about fear in different forms of writing including essay, memoir, fiction, and poetry

• Practice and implement strategies for navigating the fear involved in sharing their writing, including the publication process

• See how deeply not alone they are in this work

• Gain understanding of why this work matters in our current cultural and political dialogue

This is a craft intensive, not a workshop. While there’s no direct feedback on your writing, you’ll generate plenty of new material through customized prompts and weekly assignments. This course will take place live on Zoom, but is designed for asynchronous value if you are unable to participate in all sessions; recordings will be shared each week.

About the Instructors

A limited number of scholarships for this course are available. Please fill out this form by December 12, and we’ll get back to you within a week after the deadline, and you’ll have one week after that to register. (Please hold off on registering until you have received a scholarship decision.)

Payment plans are available at checkout via ShopPay.

There is a 10% cancellation fee if you cancel your enrollment more than 1 week before the start of the course. No refund will be given if cancelling within less than a week of the course start date (or after the course has begun).

FAQs →

Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses that delve deep into a specific writing topic by harnessing the expertise and craft tactics of a renowned writer in a particular niche, plus four celebrated authors. Participating writers gain a wealth of advanced techniques while benefiting from a cohesive community of disciplined writers.