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This 4-month nonfiction workshop will focus on working together to shape and revise your writing.
The class starts on August 27, 2026, Thursday, and will meet every other week until December 17, 2026, 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 Trip Whitfield, trip dot whitfield 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; if you’re interested in both, you can learn more here.
This 4-month nonfiction workshop will focus on working together to shape and revise your writing.
The class starts on August 27, 2026, Thursday, and will meet every other week until December 17, 2026, 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 Trip Whitfield, trip dot whitfield 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; if you’re interested in both, you can learn more here.