This 4-month generative fiction class will focus on writing new material for those working toward a novel, stories, or other fiction. The next spring class starts on February 4, 2027, Thursday, and will meet every other week until May 27, 2027, Thursday, from 4-6:30pm PT / 7-9:30pm ET.

I like to approach generating material by quieting inner critics and putting aside inhibiting self-doubt. To do this, we will incorporate practices like (1) writing by hand, typing while covering our screens, and more, (2) coming up with detailed, personalized, adjustable writing schedules, (3) maintaining sustained accountability systems, and (4) learning how to establish the routines and writing rhythms that work best for each participant. Since hope is a verb and a practice, I believe in acting as if: writing as if you already have full faith in your work, as if your novel or stories already feel completely alive to you. This faith, I have found, can make itself true. Desire begets ability; obsession breeds talent.

We’ll explore assignments accordingly. For instance, you'll practice paying attention to the world through your characters' senses (such as by going on a long walk and taking notes on what you see, then going on that same walk and noticing what one of your characters sees), with the idea that what you notice is also who you are. We will generate entirely new work as well as revisions of your writing.

I believe that our characters are at least as complicated, multilayered, and astonishing as we are, and that one of the great lessons of fiction—as is one of the great lessons of love—is that other people, very much including our fictional creations, are as alive as we are to ourselves. One of the tasks of writing fiction, and one of its profound joys, is learning how to bring these complexities, layers, and surprises to life.

Through the close reading of others' published work as well as your own, you’ll work toward becoming the best possible reader of your writing. Over the course of the semester, you will deeply practice becoming as alert as possible to what particularly excites you about reading, and therefore what especially excites, moves, and pulls you along in your own writing. We’ll explore different paths toward understanding what we most feel called to write.

At the start of the class, we’ll talk about what you hope to take away from this course, whether you’re working on a book, stories, or something else entirely. We will make plans together that best suit your hopes, and over the course of four months we’ll continue checking in to see how your work is going and what about your plan could want changing. By the end of this class, you’ll have practiced many methods and varieties of generating fiction, and you’ll carry these practices forward into the rest of your writing life.

For those who want it, we’ll talk about some of the more outward-facing parts of making a life in writing, including publication, agents, editors, and more.

You can read testimonials from previous students here. If you’re interested in a critique-based workshop, there’s more about the fall term here. FAQs and contact information are here, and there’s more about Ministry faculty here.

This 4-month generative nonfiction class will focus on writing new material for those working toward a memoir, essay collection, or other nonfiction. The next spring class starts on February 4, 2027, Thursday, and will meet every other week until May 27, 2027, Thursday, from 4-6:30pm PT / 7-9:30pm ET.

I like to approach generating nonfiction by writing in layers of memory, of truth, and fact. The rigors of nonfiction are tied to working with evidentiary materials, yet within communities that have faced erasure or the pressures of colonization, other versions of truth remain. Rather than responding to the pressure of seeking one truth, we will construct nonfiction that acknowledges variegated strata of truth and the murk and inexact quality of memory. In this course, we will construct drafts that work toward the personal essay, memoir, and the reported piece, by building in layers. We will write the personal in layers of emotion—angry versions versus compassionate versions—write the self and characters along similar lines, and investigate versions of truth by asking how different people in the story might tell of what happened. In this way, we will reach for unexpected lenses and come as close to the truth as we can, and then after the writing is done, we will decide on a place of truth-telling that best serves the story.

Pages generated in this class will remain private to you (though there will be regular share-outs during class) so that you can best write without inhibition.

At the start of the semester, we will create individual plans—word count, page count, or notebook page count—and create goals that we will then be accountable to the group to. We will also look at a general shape of the project you are undertaking. What is the general shape of the memoir that you want to draft? What are its major themes and minor ones? What essays or subject matter are you plunging into, and what might be the scenes/stories populating that work?

I will also give assignments that involve fact-gathering, and these fact-gathering assignments will range from using traditional methods (such as the interview and the counter-interview) to nontraditional methods (such as seeking the truth in unexpected places, and using divining tools).

For this semester, we will write the story as deep and close to the emotion as possible, keeping in mind all the questions of truth in nonfiction, and the malleability of memory and of fact. We will also discuss being a secretary to the work, laying plans toward publication, and the more strategic parts of getting your work out there—including seeking agents and awards and fellowships—for all who seek that information.

You can read testimonials from previous students here. If you’re interested in a critique-based workshop, there’s more about the fall term here. FAQs and contact information are here, and there’s more about Ministry faculty here.

This 4-month fiction workshop will focus on working together to shape and revise your writing. The class starts on August 26, 2027, Thursday, and will meet every other week until December 16, 2027, Thursday, from 4-6:30pm PT / 7-9:30pm ET.

Please note: this class is application-based on a rolling basis. Before signing up for the fall term, please send a 10- to 20-page writing sample and a paragraph describing what you hope to get out of the workshop to Nicholas Hart, theministryofwords dot assistant at gmail dot com. We’ll get back to you soon with next steps.

In the fall workshop, we will spend much of our time in the careful analysis and discussion of participants’ works-in-progress. We will approach workshop with a spirit of inquiry and curiosity, moving toward meeting a story or excerpt on its own terms. There are no absolutes in writing fiction; I believe this so strongly that even such a declaration is suspect, as it’s also an absolute. A central priority with each workshop will be making sure you walk away feeling excited to revise, intrigued by the potential to deepen and explore.

Which shouldn’t, in the slightest, prevent the possibility of rigor and play, and of joy. I heartily believe that we can learn as much, if not more, from one another’s workshops as we do from our own, from the practice of reading closely and deeply. You’ll receive extensive margin notes on your manuscripts from other participants, as well as from me.

We’ll discuss a wide range of revision practices and possibilities, along with what to do after you believe you’re done. Toward the start of the class, we’ll talk about writing schedules and routines, accountability systems, and possible ways to set up sustained writing habits. For those who want it, we’ll also discuss working toward publication, as well as other outward-facing aspects of a life in writing.

You can read testimonials from previous students here. If you’re interested in a generative class, there’s more about the spring term here. FAQs and contact information are here, and there’s more about Ministry faculty here.

This 4-month nonfiction workshop will focus on working together to shape and revise your writing. The class starts on August 26, 2027, Thursday, and will meet every other week until December 16, 2027, Thursday, from 4-6:30pm PT / 7-9:30pm ET.

Please note: This class is application-based on a rolling basis. Before signing up for the fall term, please send a 10- to 20-page writing sample and a paragraph describing what you hope to get out of the workshop to Nicholas Hart, theministryofwords dot assistant at gmail dot com. We’ll get back to you soon with next steps.

In workshop, our primary focus will be the careful analysis and discussion of participants’ works-in-progress. To supplement our understanding of craft, throughout the semester, we will survey different elements of story in nonfiction. We will look at the intersection of audience and power, story tension, and learn to edit for elements that are working on a micro-scale (in a line, a paragraph, a page, or a chapter) and on a macro-scale (how they are accumulating and weaving a prolonged narrative). We will look at building meaning through metaphor, scene, and adjacent narratives we can bring into the text.

Critique sessions are author-vision led. Each author will submit along with their workshop an artist statement. As readers of their work, we will practice de-centering ourselves and centering the author—this means thinking beyond our reactions and individual taste. We will study and analyze the style, imagery, and pattern of each nonfiction piece, as well as the engineering of its sequence, plot, and story elements, guiding ourselves from what the author wishes for the work and what the work itself seems to want to be in order to give the best feedback possible.

We will also discuss being a secretary to the work, laying plans toward publication, and the more strategic parts of getting your work out there—including seeking agents and awards and fellowships. 

Workshop is a special place, one where we can come together as artists and share a practice of meaning-making. 

You can read testimonials from previous students here. If you’re interested in a generative class, there’s more about the spring term here. FAQs and contact information are here, and there’s more about Ministry faculty here.