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Creative Writing Classes Los Angeles

Unlock your creativity and hone your writing skills with a wide variety of creative writing classes in Los Angeles. From fiction to poetry, learn from industry experts and gain the tools and inspiration to bring your stories to life.

Unfortunately, no classes in-person in Los Angeles have spots left, but 15 classes live online are available.

Creative Writing 101: 6 Weeks

Gotham Writers Workshop

Are you eager to test the waters of creative writing but not sure where to start, or how? Have you written previously but been away for a while and hope to dip back in? Here you will be guided surely and safely into the writing life. There’s no pressure to work on a specific project or even settle on which type of creative writing you prefer. The idea is to explore—see with a writer’s eyes, spark ideas to life, gain confidence, and experiment...

Tuesday Oct 3rd, 12am–11:45pm Eastern Time

 (2 sessions)

$364

2 sessions

Intensive Creative Writing Weekend

Alaa Al Aswany Creative Writing Workshop - Virtually Online

This Creative Writing Weekend is designed for writers who want to learn the craft of exceptional storytelling in an intensive setting. In this  workshop course, students gain a high level of training in the craft of writing by mastering rhythm, tempo, tone, and brevity. They explore the process of developing lively characters, mapping out a plot, describing realistic settings, adding subtext and layers of meaning, and penning captivating fiction....

Saturday Oct 7th, 3–9pm Eastern Time

 (2 sessions)

$2,500

2 sessions

Intensive Creative Writing Weekend

Alaa Al Aswany Creative Writing Workshop

This Creative Writing Weekend is designed for writers who want to learn the craft of exceptional storytelling in an intensive setting. In this three-day workshop course, students gain a high level of training in the craft of writing by mastering rhythm, tempo, tone, and brevity. They explore the process of developing lively characters, mapping out a plot, describing realistic settings, adding subtext and layers of meaning, and penning captivating...

Saturday Oct 7th, 3–9pm Eastern Time

 (2 sessions)

$2,500

2 sessions

Creative Writing Workshop - All Genre

Los Angeles Writers Group

Add some creativity to your week from the comfort of your own home. This long-standing in-person generative (est. in 2003), creative writing workshop, which took place in West Hollywood, CA, for 15 years, has switched to an online format, so you can now join us from anywhere. Tap into your creative side, write work that will surprise you, and learn a few things along the way. Writes of any genre and any skill level are welcome, and you can use...

Saturday Oct 7th, 10am–12:30pm Pacific Time

Creative Writing Weekly via Zoom

The Writing Studio @ Live Online via Zoom

In this class, you will learn first and foremost that you can write—and write well! In fact you will surprise yourself by the work you’ll be producing. The class is designed to enhance your creativity, imagination and personal voice while also teaching the skills of creative writing—memoir and fiction. This is an ongoing class geared toward those who are committed to writing and will continue this practice overtime....

Monday Oct 2nd, 6:30–9:30pm Pacific Time

 (4 sessions)

Now:
$180
Was:
$200

4 sessions

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Saturday Creative Writing Workshop

The Writing Studio @ Live Online via Zoom

In the peaceful atmosphere of the Saturday workshop, and with the help of meditations that quiet the critical mind, writing becomes possible, cathartic, transformational. You can write memoir or fiction. Each workshop is focused around an inspirational theme or myth. You’ll write three times for about one hour each time, and receive constructive, respectful feedback on your work. You’ll surprise yourself by the material you’ll be producing. ...

Saturday Oct 21st, 9:30am–6:30pm Pacific Time

Writing Disability

SF Creative Writing Institute

This workshop will help you express your experiences with learning and physical disabilities in different mediums. People with disabilities have unique thoughts and feelings that come from their experience This class will serve as a creative, emotional, and mental outlet for writers who disabilities who want to  don’t know how to express the unique thoughts and feelings that come from the experience of being disabled.  We will discuss...

Thursday Oct 19th, 10am–1pm Pacific Time

 (4 sessions)

$425

4 sessions

Online Level 1 Intro to Fiction and Poetry

The Writers Studio

Our Online Level I workshop is an introduction to the philosophy on which The Writers Studio was founded in 1987 by Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Philip Schultz. Persona writing, a method of borrowing the voice and temperament of accomplished writers, offers writers the imaginative distance and perspective they need to overcome their negative inclinations, their fear of self-exposure and endless doubt. This method also helps writers try on different...

Tuesday Oct 3rd, 9–10pm Eastern Time

 (8 sessions)

$435

8 sessions

The 90-Day Novel Telecourse

L.A. Writers' Lab

The 90-Day Novel is a Live-on-Zoom workshop with Alan Watt that will take you from initial idea to the completion of your novel's first draft in 90 days. GET THE FIRST DRAFT DOWN QUICKLY The 90-Day Novel is about making a contract with your subconscious. Your subconscious is the seat of your genius, and there is a window of time that it can remain fully engaged in a creative task before it gets distracted, fatigued, or...

Monday Jan 8th, 12–1:30pm Pacific Time

 (14 sessions)

$650

14 sessions

Online Level 1 Intro to Poetry

The Writers Studio

Our Online Level I workshop is an introduction to the philosophy on which The Writers Studio was founded in 1987 by Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Philip Schultz. Persona writing, a method of borrowing the voice and temperament of accomplished writers, offers writers the imaginative distance and perspective they need to overcome their negative inclinations, their fear of self-exposure and endless doubt. This method also helps writers try on different...

Thursday Oct 12th, 7:30–8:30pm Eastern Time

 (8 sessions)

$435

8 sessions

Fiction Writing Level 1: 10-Week Workshop

Gotham Writers Workshop

Fiction is a wonderful conjuring act. With only words and the reader’s imagination, a work of fiction can sail across the world in pursuit of a whale, or time-travel to another dimension, or zero in on a few minutes in line at the local bank, enveloping the reader in a made-up story that feels real.   To pull off this feat requires a balance of craftsmanship, daring, and insight into human nature. Here you will learn the time-tested elements...

Tuesday Oct 3rd, 12am–11:45pm Eastern Time

 (2 sessions)

$464

2 sessions

Finish that Novel!

Santa Monica College

Do you have an unfinished manuscript under your bed or in an old computer file? Or maybe you have an idea you know would make a great story. This class is the place to bring what you've written or get started on your masterpiece. Receive professional advice, hear feedback, and develop a strategy for completing your novel to your satisfaction.  Students will have the opportunity to share their weekly writing in a fun and strictly supportive...

Tuesday Oct 24th, 6:30–7:30pm Pacific Time

 (6 sessions)

$108

6 sessions

Mystery Writing Level 1: 10-Week Workshop

Gotham Writers Workshop

Nothing quickens the pulse like a good mystery, which is why millions of readers surrender themselves to the page-turning exploits of their favorite sleuths. Mystery is an expansive genre, welcoming amateur detectives, intellectual puzzle-solvers, policemen, private eyes, lawyers, spies, even average folk caught in a web of suspense. If crime is a central element, consider it a mystery. To write riveting mysteries, you must merge the skills of a...

Tuesday Jan 9th, 12am–11:45pm Eastern Time

 (11 sessions)

$464

11 sessions

Reading Fiction: 6 Weeks

Gotham Writers Workshop

To excel at writing fiction, you must write regularly and also readstories from a writer’s perspective. Painters typically learn their craft by studying the work of masters, and most accomplished writers do the same. Who better to show you the ropes of great fiction than the best in the business?   Each week, students focus on an aspect of fiction craft in relation to a specific story. Like works of fine art, these stories are analyzed...

Wednesday Oct 11th, 12am–11:45pm Eastern Time

 (2 sessions)

$364

2 sessions

Poetry Writing Level 1: 10-Week Workshop

Gotham Writers Workshop @ Zoom Conference

Consider it the caviar of literature: tiny eggs with tremendous taste. Or the nitroglycerin: every drop explosive. Poetry's power has endured thousands of years, captivating the most passionate souls. If you hear mermaids singing or feel the winnowing wind or see the sun rising in ribbons, then you are one of these blissful few. To write excellent poetry, you must learn the art of packing the maximum punch with a minimum of words. Here you will...

Wednesday Oct 4th, 7–10pm Eastern Time

 (10 sessions)

$464

10 sessions

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Discover the Best Creative Writing Classes in Los Angeles

You probably spend more time than you want writing, although, for most people, that involves writing emails and reports for your job. Yet there are people who write willingly, even some who go home from the office and write into the wee hours of the morning. More often than not, they’re indulging in creative writing, in which you write about not sales projections but anything that might pop up in your imagination.

Creative writing is generally divisible into penning narratives, poems, dramatic works (plays or screenplays), or something called creative non-fiction, which amounts to telling a true story using literary techniques, as opposed to, say, journalism, which stresses the facts more than the way in which they are expressed. All four genres call for exercise of the imagination and creativity, which aren’t things that many day jobs require. The chance to put your creative faculties to use is the principal attraction for indulging in a spot of creative writing every now and then.

Why You Should Learn Creative Writing in Los Angeles

Using your imagination to escape from drab reality into a land of make-believe can be an enormously refreshing undertaking. Creative writing gives you the chance to make stuff up or, if you’ve already made stuff up, to put it into a medium that can be shared with other people. Contemporary life, with its computers, cell phones, and soul-sucking conformity, doesn’t exactly nurture the craft of the storyteller. There are, however, more creative people out there than you might think; only their innate creativity has been stunted by the pressures of modern life and bad instruction in school. Learning to write creatively will allow you the chance to give your imagination free play. You’ll find that to be liberating and beneficial to your mental health.

Gertrude Stein once postulated that you write for yourself and strangers. Writing just for yourself can be very satisfying: you needn’t get published by a major firm to be validated as a writer. Letting your imagination run away with itself can be pleasurable enough. Hoping to make it big as an author, on the other hand, often amounts to so much chasing rainbows, so don’t sign up for a creative writing class expecting to become the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. You should be in it for self-expression and the pleasure of the thing. If you get your work published, so much the better—and don’t forget that you can self-publish with remarkable facility these days if you want to see your efforts in the form of a bound book.

There is actually another upside to learning to write creatively: you’ll become a better all-around writer for it. That’s not to say that you should pepper your work emails with interesting characters and a breathlessly developing plot, but creative writing will make you more adept at putting thoughts into words, You become a better writer by writing, and you may be able to improve your business writing through a creative writing class as much as through a dry-as-dust business writing one.

In-Person Creative Writing Classes in Los Angeles

One place you can begin your odyssey toward becoming a creative writer is Santa Monica College. The school teaches Mastering the Art of Short Fiction at its Bundy Campus (if you know where the Santa Monica Airport is, you know where SMC’s Bundy Campus is located.) The class goes into successful examples of short fiction and shows students how they may tell their own stories based on the examples. The class also touches on how to sell your work.

Santa Monica College also offers a six-session Creative Writing Workshop that meets for six weekly sessions. Designed for authors with works in progress, the workshop shows students how to revise and polish their drafts. As with most workshops, peer critiques form part of the experience. The workshop is suitable for writers working on fiction and creative non-fiction projects.

If Santa Monica is a little westerly for convenience, you can consider classes at Los Angeles City College on Vermont Avenue between Hollywood and Downtown. The school offers a Creative Writing for Adults course that meets weekly for five weeks. It begins with an overview of what might be styled fictional best practices before setting students to work telling what stories they wish to tell. Work in all genres is welcome, as are writers at all levels of experience.

Also on offer from Los Angeles City College is a six-session class in Sketch Comedy Writing. This course teaches students the basics of penning comedy sketches and will leave them with a grasp on such concepts as story structure, comic characters, dialogue, and, of course, punch lines. Both these classes are offered by LACC’s not-for-credit Community Services program, which teaches courses in everything from beginning salsa dancing to Tai Chi for seniors.

Since 2003, the Los Angeles Writers Group has offered a variety of classes, workshops, and retreats, some of them online and some of them in person in various locations around the Southland. In its Thursday Creative Writing Workshop, participants are encouraged to push the bounds of their own creativity by answering stimulating writing prompts. Students can also offer their works in progress for group feedback.

Virtual Creative Writing Classes 

Many of the above classes meet after work on weekday evenings. That’s exactly when you least want to be out on Los Angeles’ impossibly congested freeways. At that hour, the metaphoric walls of Santa Monica are way more impenetrable than the real ones of Troy were. The thought of having to get anywhere but home after work may be keeping you from taking a creative writing class, but it needn’t. Avoiding traffic is just one of a number of very good reasons for choosing a live online class over a live in-person one.

The selection of live online creative writing classes is, in fact, more varied than what’s available locally since you have literally a world of providers at your disposal. You can follow these classes from any comfortable, quiet space you choose, provided that a stable internet connection is present. You’ll probably be using Zoom, which you’ve probably already encountered at your job, so there’s no learning curve about which to worry. All you need to do is get home, slip into something more comfortable, turn on your computer, and sit down in a comfortable chair to attend your class. You’ll still have a live teacher, and your fellow participants will be present in real-time as well, so the class unfolds just like one in a brick-and-mortar school. You don’t even need to worry about having any special equipment on hand to follow a creative writing class: you obviously already have a computer, so all you’ll need is some paper and a writing implement so you can take notes.

You can even take advantage of Santa Monica College’s Community Education division without having to cross the 405. How to Write a Novel is its class for budding novelists. In eight meetings, it shows students the highways and byways of longer narrative fiction. That includes plot, characters, and conflict to keep the story’s wheels turning. Feedback on what you’ve written is part of the class; an effort is made to ensure that critiques are positive and encouraging. By the course’s conclusion, students will have finished an outline (and possibly a first chapter) of their novels-to-be.

After a few months of procrastination, you may wish to sign up for SMCC’s Finish that Novel! There are seven meetings to the program, which begins by refreshing students’ knowledge of the basics of novel writing, and then nudges them along on the path to their magnum opus’ completion. You can submit what you’re working on for feedback; an extra 30 minutes after the end of the class are scheduled to allow for deeper evaluation of students’ efforts.

Something of a very different sort is to be had from New York’s 92nd Street Y. Their online division offers a class in Comics and the Graphic Novel. It meets for six sessions and delves into creating a storyline, developing characters, and putting them into an effective combination of words and images. The class covers drawing as well as writing, for which the purchase of some art supplies is necessary. Various comic book styles will be explored in the course of the class in an effort to help you find a combination of text and drawings that suits you and the story you want to tell. No previous experience in either writing or drawing is required.

Private Group Creative Writing Classes in Los Angeles

People overseeing large teams are frequently looking to find a novel (no pun intended) team-building activity that their employees will actually enjoy rather than tolerate because it gets them out of working for a couple of hours. Private group creative writing classes for Los Angeles businesses could be just what you’re looking for, as they enable your team members actually to use a part of their brains that their work activities generally neglect and invite them to create something far more personal and more enjoyable than a terrarium or a macramé terrarium hanger. You can’t write a whole novel in a brief workshop, but some well-chosen writing exercises can be an excellent means of relieving stress while bringing your team together. For further details, simply use the contact form on the CourseHorse website and a representative of the events fulfillment team will be in touch with you by end of business the next day.

If you’d rather, CourseHorse can also offer a course in a different variety of creative writing: a Virtual Calligraphy Workshop. Pens, paper and worksheets are mailed to all participants by the events fulfillment team two weeks prior to the event, which means you don’t have to worry about supplies. During the two-hour class, your team will be introduced to the nine basic strokes of calligraphy, and learn how to join letters, create bouncing effects and draw flourishes. Students will be able to apply their newfound skills to all manner of artistic DIY projects, so they’ll have learned something practical from the exercise.

CourseHorse’s event fulfillment team will contact you within 24 hours of booking, and then work with you to make the event the best such activity you’ve ever scheduled. They will take care of all the details: all you need to do is finalize your headcount within two weeks of the event, relax and show up the day of the event to make sure everything is in working order. Further advantages to booking with CourseHorse are no booking fees, a full refund if you cancel prior to two weeks before the scheduled event, and your choice of online platforms. For a modest fee, you can also have the event customized to suit any particular need or desire you might have.

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