You're browsing Creative Writing Classes in Washington, DC

Looking for a one-stop shop to get your work closely read before submitting? This one-day workshop will be dedicated to generating a couple new poems, critiquing a few older poems, and creating a list of literary journals and contest to submit work. Please submit three poems to [email protected] for the workshop leader to review prior to the...

Generate fear and tension in your work, while daring your reader to plunge forth into the darkness you create! Participants will read and discuss three selected stories in the first session, considering the elements of horror, attending to suspense, character, violence, and fear. In the following meetings, writers will workshop their newly written...

Here's an opportunity either to improve your villanelle skills or to write your first one. With the help of a widely published author of villanelles and sonnets, participants will read several classic and contemporary examples to see why they work, and write one or more of their own.  Then, writers will see how a new poem can be improved by revision. (Feel...

Getting a first draft down on paper is just the first step. The revision process is where most of the work, magic, and satisfaction of writing poetry happens. In this class, participants will learn how to open up their early drafts to discover what the poem really wants to talk about. A variety of in-class exercises will help writers find the heart...

You’re sick of sitting alone in your room. You’ve reached a certain level of mastery with your fiction writing, but you want some feedback you can trust, and moreover, you want to see what other good writers are doing with their fiction.  This workshop will gather together people of like minds, working hard and willing to be supportive. Do...

How poets handle syntax—the arrangement of words in a sentence—is crucial to everything from establishing the voice of a poem to evoking a particular response from the reader.  In this workshop, participants will take a close look at how sentences are put together and how changing the structure can send a poem off in a new direction. Writers...

Works of fiction are often identified as either literary or genre, but this class will consider them both/and. Writers will identify what makes fiction "genre" or "literary," and look at contemporary short stories that combine aspects of science fiction with a literary aim. Participants will focus on an example and an aspect of craft each week. By...

Here's an opportunity either to improve your sonnet skills or to write your first one. With the help of a widely published author of sonnets and villanelles, participants will read several classic and contemporary examples and then write one or more of their own. Then, writers will see how a new poem can be improved by revision. (Feel free also to...

Clancy, Ludlum, Le Carre, Follett -- These authors write books with tension that barely eases from beginning to end. Their characters often play to type, but that doesn't keep them from being memorable. How do these authors do it? In this six-week class participants will take an up-close look at publishied spy novels, then create some characters and...

Flash fiction (stories told in 1,000 words or less) is an exciting genre attracting increasing interest in the publishing world. This two-hour course will provide an introduction to the genre, including model examples of flash, techniques of flash, and tips for writing your own. Participants will discuss where to read excellent flash, write multiple...

Why write a memoir? What is the truth? What makes a memoir engaging to read? These are the questions participants will explore during this one-day immersion in the dilemmas that plague the memoirist. Through conversation and writing exercises, participants will come away with greater clarity of mind and be inspired to move onward with their life stories...

Do you struggle to find a good title for your poems? Many poets do. A good title will expand the range of a poem, and deepen the reader’s experience. Join us to explore what makes a good title, and learn how to maximize such crucial “real estate” in your own poems. For class, please bring: a notebook, and 3 copies of two typed poems that you’ve...

This workshop is designed to help find the stories you were meant to write, and to begin to develop the craft you’ll need to tell them. Where do stories come from? To begin with, they come from memories, associations, and concerns within you. We’ll do some exercises to help you uncover these germs of an idea for a story, and turn them into fiction....

Whether you have a great idea, a few sample pages, or a finished manuscript, this workshop will help you bring it all together in a proposal that conveys your work and vision! In two two-hour sessions, participants will explore the proper structure and purpose of a nonfiction proposal, and the process for obtaining a literary agent. Classes will be...