Current Workshops

Writing Workshops for Everyone

We offer a variety of ongoing, weekly workshops to encourage you in your writing practice and explore craft topics, and one-day or half-day workshops packed with craft tips—all taught by experienced WIP faculty. Our online workshops offer the same quality instruction, intimate community and inspiration as our in-person workshops.

Half-day and Full-day workshops

Morning Jumpstarts, with Dori Ostermiller

Even the most seasoned writers have difficulty carving out time and summoning inspiration. This popular, productive morning workshop provides quiet, structured writing time among peers, some fabulous prompts to get you rolling, thoughtful, encouraging feedback on your work, and inspiring advice and craft tips. If you’re longing to make serious headway on your projects, or looking for a shot in the arm in a supportive community of writers, bring your coffee or tea and Jumpstart your writing this season! Sells out fast!

Tues, Thurs, or Friday mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.; 10-week Spring Session starts week of May 31st ($425)

Tonight We Write Down the Moon: A Poetry Workshop, with Sarah Browning

Our lives might be busy, our minds distracted. But once a week, for eight Tuesdays, we will cultivate our powers of observation, writing poems that deeply engage our senses. Each week, we’ll explore an element of poetry craft/form, generate new writing together in response to exercises and prompts, and receive supportive feedback from the group. We’ll study published examples and learn essential craft tips. Participants will also receive constructive written feedback from the instructor on up to two poems.

Tuesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., 8-week session begins May 3 ($395)

Crafting Your Memoir, with Emily Lackey

This eight-week generative online craft workshop is intended for writers who want to explore a variety of memoir-specific craft challenges, including creating dual narrative voices; the challenges of writing about real people in your life; dealing with characterization in memoir; ‘inventing’ dialogue for scenes when you may not remember precisely what was said; handling memory (or lack thereof); navigating narrative time; and believing in and owning your story.

Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.; 8-week workshop begins June 1st ($325)

The Art of Narrative, with Sarah Earle

In this 8-week weekly workshop, we’ll start each class with a brief craft discussion, then have time to practice that element with generative writing prompts. We’ll finish each class with a short discussion of student work: each writer will have the opportunity to submit approximately 10-15 pages of writing once per session and receive in-class feedback and professional written comments from the instructor. If you’re in need of regular deadlines, thoughtful feedback, a working knowledge of craft and time to generate work, this is the workshop for you!

Thursdays, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.; eight-week session begins June 2. ($425)

Writing from Life, with Emily Lackey

In this weekly generative workshop, writers will receive a series of prompts to help them tap into their deepest material and move them into a sustained period of writing. Afterward, we’ll have the opportunity to share our work and receive thoughtful feedback from the group. Weekly craft tips!

Mondays or Wednesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.; 10-week session begins the week of October 3rd ($395)

Revision Intensive: A Six-Month Series, with Emily Lackey

Revision is a critical step of every writer’s writing process. It’s where meaning is made, stories are shaped, and craft is refined. In this six-month Revision Intensive, writers will meet twice a month to study strategies for mastering the parts of their drafts that need the most work, discuss innovative ways to see their drafts anew, set goals for the month ahead, and dive deep into the work of revision. This intensive will help writers of all genres to master the craft elements that will make their drafts stronger, give them time and space to put these lessons to use, and provide the accountability and support to get their drafts done.

Second and fourth Sunday of each month, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.; six-month session begins October 8 ($500)

Half-Day & Full-Day Workshops

Mini Blueprint Your Book, with Susanne Dunlap

Ever wish you could get a quick, bird’s-eye view of the story you’re writing? Or discover the essence of a story you’re just thinking of writing? This brand-new Mini Blueprint™ workshop helps you step back and see your story, wherever you are in the process. No matter your genre—fantasy, historical, mystery, thriller, even memoir—no matter how much or how little you’ve written, the Mini Blueprint can clear the debris away and give you a big picture, wide-angle view of the important elements: character arc, motivations, plot points, crisis… Participants will come armed with their completed worksheets and be live-coached during the workshop on what’s working and what needs more attention. The workshop is led by novelist and Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach, Susanne Dunlap.

Saturday, May 21, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ($75)

How to Find an Agent, with Emily Lackey

Finding the right agent for your book is one of the most important and thrilling steps on the way to publication. But the world of literary agencies can be overwhelming, even intimidating. Which agencies might be right for your project, and how do you find a perfect match for your genre? In this workshop, writers will work through the steps of navigating this important partnership, from research to query letters, from book concept to submitting your book to editors. Through discussion, examples, tools and tips, you’ll learn what agents are seeking, how to keep them reading, and the do’s and don’ts of queries.

Saturday, May 28th, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST ($75)

The Inside Outline: A Two-Part Workshop, with Susanne Dunlap

In this workshop (taught over two consecutive Saturdays), you’ll be able to start tying the external, plot-based events of your story to the internal, emotion-based truths that inform it. You’ll be able to share your work and get feedback so you can go forward and complete the entire picture of your book. This workshop is great for both writers who like to outline and writers who don’t. It’s ideal if you’re just starting a manuscript, are partway through your draft, or are about to launch into a revision.

Saturday, June 11, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. & Saturday, June 18, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ($150)

Beyond Central Casting: Writing Characters Alive with Archetypes, with Tzivia Gover

They populate literature and you meet them every night in your dreams: the archetypes of the explorer, the sage, the warrior, the fool, and more. Understanding Jungian archetypes and how to identify them in literature, and in our own imaginations, can enliven our writing and open us to a far richer understanding of character development. Participants will write from prompts, engage in discussion, and have the opportunity to share ideas and writing. Appropriate for writers of all genres and levels, whether you remember your dreams or not.

This workshop will take place in-person.

Thursday, July 7, 6-9 p.m. ($75)

Scene Building Intensive, with Kira Rockwell

Within the macro-structure of your story is a series of scenes with their own micro-structure. The pacing of each scene is crucial to the momentum. In this workshop, you’ll learn tips, tricks, rules for breaking and the best ways to break them. Through the use of playful writing experiments, you’ll practice how to build more satisfying scenes. Feel free to bring in a project you’re currently working on, a fresh idea, or even a blank page.

Saturday, July 16, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Strengthen Your Story’s Saggy Middle, with Jacqueline Sheehan

Most writers have a good sense of their story’s beginning, and they might even know the end, but it’s the saggy middle that can bog down the works. In fact, the middle is every bit as important as a compelling first page and transformative ending! In the mid-section of a story, the main character makes choices and confronts obstacles that alter the course of events. The middle is where the stakes have to rise and the true grit of your character is revealed. In this half-day workshop, we will explore the essential elements–such as conflict, rising action and causality–that make the midsection of your story riveting enough to propel readers all the way through. Participants will leave with an assortment of craft tools and a plan for how to tighten the center of their stories!

Saturday, July 16, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ($75)

Community Writing Workshops

Community Writing Instructors:

January 2: Michael Mercurio

February 6: Dori Ostermiller

March 6: Sarah Browning

April 3: Emily Lackey

May 1: Sarah Earle

June 5: TBD

Community Writing Workshops—Now Online!

Come join us for a morning of writing among peers! After a short warm up, we’ll engage in a sustained writing period in response to a variety of prompts. We’ll share some of our work and receive supportive feedback. Rotating instructors. A great way to jumpstart your writing projects! Suggested donation of $10.

First Sunday of every month, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m

Please use the form to the right to RSVP for our Community Writing Workshops. All Community Writing workshops will be held online for the foreseeable future.

Manuscript Intensive Series, with Dori Ostermiller

“I never would have completed my manuscript without the structure of this group and Dori’s loving guidance. She holds an incredibly safe, nurturing yet critically honest space for creativity and the pages to emerge. It’s impossible to measure the value of this program!”

Carla Savetsky

Writing a book in isolation can feel like climbing Mt. Everest with no oxygen and no guide! In order to support and guide writers through this daunting task, we offer the Manuscript Intensive Series, a year-long program for writers with prose manuscripts in progress that call for critical response and new writing. Writers can be working on novels, short story collections, memoirs or essay collections. This group will provide the structure, support, inspiration and critical feedback to help writers complete a book-length manuscript.

This is serious work that gets books written! Dozens of finished manuscripts have emerged from this process, and many have gone on to publication, including Dinah Mack’s Pirates of Cologne, Dusty Miller’s Alice Ott Mystery Series, Ruth Lehrer’s Being Fishkill, JoAnne Jones’s Headstrong, Steve Bernstein’s Stories from the Stoop, and Dori’s Outside the Ordinary World, among many others…