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Fiction Class - Spring Term
This 4-month generative fiction class will focus on writing new material for those working toward a novel, stories, or other fiction.
The class starts on February 5, 2026, Thursday, and will meet every other week until May 28, 2026, 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; if you’re interested in both, you can learn more here.
This 4-month generative fiction class will focus on writing new material for those working toward a novel, stories, or other fiction.
The class starts on February 5, 2026, Thursday, and will meet every other week until May 28, 2026, 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; if you’re interested in both, you can learn more here.