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• Goldie Goldbloom - Sforzando ~ Suddenly Very Loud: The Role of Dynamics in Writing

  • When
    September 04, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  This session examines the dynamics of writing, the way some moments have tremendous weight and volume, and others are so tiny and quiet that they slide right past, barely noticed.

  Goldie will explore stories as if they are a piece of music that we are all learning to play with the assistance of a good conductor. How can we learn to use masterful dynamic phrasing in our own work? This craft talk will demystify some of these skills of  make them accessible to all of us.

  GOLDIE GOLDBLOOM is a writer, teacher and editor, author of four internationally award-winning books of fiction, most recently On Division (winner of the Prix des Libraires in France), and many articles, short stories and essays that have appeared around the world. For more than fifteen years, she was on the faculty at Northwestern University and/or the University of Chicago. She currently runs a developmental editing service for best-selling authors, celebrities and talented writers from all walks of life. She is the mother of eight children and an LGBTQ activist.

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• Fred Shafer - The Lessons of Miniature Stories (Session 1)

  • When
    September 11, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Fred Shafer's workshops at OCWW this year will explore miniature stories, their strategies and effects, and what they can teach us about longer stories, novel chapters, and our lives.

  Instead of viewing miniature stories, also called flash fiction, as a genre of their own, Fred has chosen to treat them as part of a continuum with longer forms of fiction. He'll discuss the areas of experience that receive close attention in miniature stories and are just as important in longer works, but that we often overlook when reading, studying, and writing more expansive stories and novels. Using a series of examples taken from published fiction, he'll also address the things in life covered by longer forms that are beyond the reach of miniature stories.

  Handouts will be emailed to registrants the day before each meeting, and added to confirmation notices for late registrations.

  Fred will review manuscripts after the series concludes. In keeping with this year's subject, he will read and mark manuscripts of six pages or less. Submissions are limited to one per person. When submitting part of a longer work, you can include two to three sentences describing the context from which it was taken.  Click here for additional information about manuscript submissions. 

  FRED SHAFER  is a literary editor and teacher of writing. He was an editor with TriQuarterly, the international literary journal published by Northwestern University, where he taught fiction writing in the School of Professional Studies for many years. He leads private workshops in short story and novel writing. 

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• Fred Shafer - The Lessons of Miniature Stories (Session 2)

  • When
    September 18, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Fred Shafer's workshops at OCWW this year will explore miniature stories, their strategies and effects, and what they can teach us about longer stories, novel chapters, and our lives.

  Instead of viewing miniature stories, also called flash fiction, as a genre of their own, Fred has chosen to treat them as part of a continuum with longer forms of fiction. He'll discuss the areas of experience that receive close attention in miniature stories and are just as important in longer works, but that we often overlook when reading, studying, and writing more expansive stories and novels. Using a series of examples taken from published fiction, he'll also address the things in life covered by longer forms that are beyond the reach of miniature stories.

  Handouts will be emailed to registrants the day before each meeting, and added to confirmation notices for late registrations.   

  Fred will review manuscripts of six pages or less after the series concludes. Submissions are limited to one per person, to be received no later than 9/19 at ocww.info@gmail.com. When submitting part of a longer work, you can include two to three sentences describing the context from which it was taken.  Click here for payment instructions and additional information about manuscript submissions.

  FRED SHAFER is a literary editor and teacher of writing.  He was an editor with TriQuarterly, the international literary journal published by Northwestern University, where he taught fiction writing in the School of Professional Studies for many years. He leads private workshops in short story and novel writing. 

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• Fred Shafer - The Lessons of Miniature Stories (Session 3)

  • When
    September 25, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Fred Shafer's workshops at OCWW this year will explore miniature stories, their strategies and effects, and what they can teach us about longer stories, novel chapters, and our lives.

  Instead of viewing miniature stories, also called flash fiction, as a genre of their own, Fred has chosen to treat them as part of a continuum with longer forms of fiction. He'll discuss the areas of experience that receive close attention in miniature stories and are just as important in longer works, but that we often overlook when reading, studying, and writing more expansive stories and novels. Using a series of examples taken from published fiction, he'll also address the things in life covered by longer forms that are beyond the reach of miniature stories.

  Handouts will be emailed to registrants the day before each meeting, and added to confirmation notices for late registrations.

  Fred will review manuscripts after the series concludes. In keeping with this year's subject, he will read and mark manuscripts of six pages or less. Submissions are limited to one per person. When submitting part of a longer work, you can include two to three sentences describing the context from which it was taken.  Click here for additional information about manuscript submissions.
  

  FRED SHAFER  is a literary editor and teacher of writing. He was an editor with TriQuarterly, the international literary journal published by Northwestern University, where he taught fiction writing in the School of Professional Studies for many years. He leads private workshops in short story and novel writing.  

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• Lindsay Hunter - Payoff: Or, What's In It for the Readers?

  • When
    October 09, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Catharsis in a book can happen anywhere from the sentence level to the plot, but it requires a pact with the reader that must pay off.

  How can writers create opportunities for this kind of lasting meaning in their work? We'll be examining the types of payoff, why they matter, and how to create payoff in your own work.

  LINDSAY HUNTER is the author of two story collections and three novels. Her latest novel, Hot Springs Drive, won the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award and was named a top thriller of 2023 by the Washington Post. She lives in Chicago with her family.  

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• Faylita Hicks - Spirit-Led Writing: Ritual, Ritualization & the Creative Process

  • When
    October 16, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  

  How do we invite spirit into our writing process—and why does it matter? In this generative and exploratory session, poet and creative strategist Faylita Hicks introduces the concept of spirit-led writing—where intuitive practices and ritual frameworks are used to access voice, deepen narrative resonance, and sustain creative energy over time.

  Participants will explore a blend of mystical tools (such as tarot, altar-building, and time-based rituals) and creative prompts that reframe the writing process as a sacred practice. Hicks will share examples from their own journey as a writer, activist, and spiritual practitioner—including how ritual has shaped their poetry collections, performance work, and upcoming memoir.

  This session is ideal for poets, memoirists, and hybrid genre writers looking to reconnect with their inner voice, ritualize their process and gain a deeper understanding of how intuition can shape the writing life.  

  FAYLITA HICKS (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx poet, Grammy-nominated recording artist, and spirit-led creative strategist based in Chicago. They are the author of A Map of My Want (Haymarket, 2024), winner of the 2025 Midwest Book Award, and HoodWitch (Acre, 2019), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Their debut memoir, A Body of Wild Light, is forthcoming in 2027.

  Founder of The Craft Career Studio™, Hicks helps artists build intuitive, liberation-centered careers through ritual and strategy. A 2025 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow and 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Living Legacy Honoree, their work has been supported by the Art for Justice Fund, Illinois Humanities, and the Ford Foundation. Their choreopoem Bar for Bar is a 2025 finalist for Definition Theatre’s Amplify Series.

  Hicks' writing appears in Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Yale Review, and more.

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• Eric Rampson - The Literary Improv Jam

  • When
    October 23, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Chicago is the home of improvisational theater. Sure, it’s mostly used for comedy, but at its core, improv is really just a framework for creativity. Can the ideas and “rules” of improv be applied to prose writing? Let’s hope so, because in this session by writer and improviser Eric Rampson, he's going to try to show you how to do just that. We'll play a few simple improv theater games and then discuss, as we go, how those same games show up in our writing. From the basic idea of "Yes, &..." to complicated improv forms like the Herald, the grounding principles of improv theater will hopefully give you many new tools for your writer's toolbox.

  ERIC RAMPSON  spent almost 20 years studying, performing, and teaching improv comedy before getting his MFA in Fiction from The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. His short fiction has been published in Change Seven Magazine, The Matador Review, Typishly, Metonym, The Gateway Review, and Broad River Review.

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• Diana Goetsch - 'Emotional Truth' in Multiple Genres

  • When
    October 30, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  Anyone who takes writing classes sooner or later encounters the concept of 'emotional truth,' along with the advice to “Lie to tell the truth.” Another variation: “What matters is not what happened.”

  Another variation (from Keats): “Beauty is truth… that is all ye need to know.” Still another: “The fact that something happened is the worst possible rationale for putting it in a poem.” That last statement came from a poetry mentor of mine, though I wonder if he would have given that advice in a nonfiction writing class.

  The reason capital “T” emotional truth is emphasized over small “t” literal truth has to do with the mission of the artist. Artists, unlike news reporters or scientists, must move their audience emotionally from point A to point B. The mission is always the same, yet the method of accomplishing it differs (as it should) among various genres, especially when it comes to nonfiction. This will be a dynamic workshop on how emotional truth is successfully (and unsuccessfully) produced in multiple genres, with examples, exercises, discussion, and reading suggestions.

  DIANA GOETSCH  is a poet, essayist, and journalist, author of eight collections of poems, dozens of nonfiction features and columns, and the acclaimed memoir This Body I Wore, listed among Memoirs that Changed a Generation at Oprah Daily. She’s written for The New Yorker, The American Scholar, and the Los Angeles Times. Her work has also appeared in The Iowa Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, LitHub, Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Yaddo, and The New School, where she was the Grace Paley Teaching Fellow.  

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• Julia Borcherts - De-Mystifying Book Publicity

  • When
    November 06, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  

  So, you've written a book. What happens next?

  When looking at the ABCs of writing, most of us are immersed in the A (art) and become skilled in the C (craft) of writing, but we aren’t often taught as much about the B (business) of it.

  In this workshop, we’ll look at how to identify your author brand, the best way to approach the ever-changing social media landscape, who your target audience is for your book and the many opportunities and channels for reaching them, how to determine whether or not to hire an outside publicist and tips for promoting your book without alienating your friends. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of your own book and the ways you can bring it out into the world.

  JULIA BORCHERTS is the founder of Julia Publicity, a literary PR agency. She previously served as Publicity Manager for Kaye Publicity from 2014-2025, where she led campaigns for more than a hundred authors and publishers. She earned her M.F.A in Creative Writing and her M.A. in the Teaching of Writing from Columbia College Chicago. She worked for ten years as a daily columnist for several Chicago Tribune publications and as a frequent contributor to Time Out Chicago, Windy City Times and many other media outlets. She is an adjunct professor in the Creative Writing and Publishing program at DePaul University, and speaks at conferences and workshops on the topics of publicity, marketing, social media and author branding.  

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• Cyn Vargas - Literary LEGOs: Constructing the Dynamic Story

  • When
    November 13, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  This generative workshop explores story development through voice, movement, and structure. Using in-class writing, creative exercises, and small-group feedback, participants will work toward crafting a compelling short story—one literary brick at a time.

  Along the way, we’ll explore strategies for revision, discuss how to give and receive meaningful feedback, and consider what it means to move a story from draft to publication, followed by a discussion of when a story ready to submit, where you should send it, and navigating the world of literary publishing.

  CYN VARGAS is the author of the award-winning short-story collection On the Way and the coming-of-age novel Nothing’s Ever the Same. Her work has appeared in  Split Lip, Hypertext, and Word Riot, and she has been featured on the Selected Shorts podcast. A winner of the Guild Literary Complex Prose Award and named Instructor of the Year at StoryStudio Chicago, Vargas holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and teaches fiction workshops throughout the country. Passionate about storytelling as both art and act of connection, she helps writers tap into their voice and shape bold, emotionally resonant work. Visit here for more info.  

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• Mary Ruth Clarke & Tonya Coats - The Crisis Decision: A Scene Competition + Get Your Work on the Radar

  • When
    November 20, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  "The crisis forces the protagonist to make a decision that will determine the outcome of the story’s central conflict. It’s a do-or-die moment with no room for error. " (Robert McKee, Story).

  A crisis decision is a revelation of true character because it is a choice made under pressure; one that could cause us to achieve our desire or lose what we want forever. The crisis forces your protagonist to face a true dilemma—to choose between two irreconcilable goods or the lesser of two evils in a situation of extreme urgency.  How to effectively represent that dilemma through dialogue is the objective of this session.

  Participants are invited to submit their scenes no later than Thursday, October 30  for consideration as examples to be read by professional actors at the workshop. If this is part of a larger work, participants should also send along brief bullet points that will get us up to speed on what we need to know.
  
  SUBMIT HERE FOR THE CONTEST: Manuscripts@OCWW.INFO

  We’ll jump right into reading your scenes, followed by a Bonus Presentation: Get Your Work on the Radar - Fast.   In this 20-minute talk,  award-winning screenwriter Dr. Tonya Coats shows how to target the right contests, package winning submissions, and leverage Intellectual Property (IP)—whether you’re adapting your own books or seeking partners. Learn where to find opportunities, avoid red flags, and build a submission plan that opens doors to reps, labs, and producers.

  Submission Criteria:

  • Plays, Screenplays, Teleplays
  • 2-3 characters preferred   
  • Maximum 6 pages

  Formatting Criteria:  

  Click here for formatting criteria for the Dramatists Guild.  

  Click here for formatting guidelines for screenplays or teleplays

  MARY RUTH CLARKE is a screenwriter and playwright, best known for Meet the Parents film franchise, starring Robert De Niro. She is on the faculty of the Second City Film School and heads up the screenwriting/television program at Chicago Dramatists and Story Studio. She is a screenplay consultant for clients in LA and Chicago. 

  Dr. TONYA COATS, OCWW's Vice-President is a native Chicagoan and semi-retired Family Physician. She has completed two novels available for publication that she is adapting to screenplays. Her poetry has placed 1 st in the Social Science category of the 2021 Poets & Patrons of Chicagoland contest.  She has placed essays in the New York Times, Riverteeth Journal and Memoir Magazine, to name a few.
  

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• Sarah Kokernot - Character-Driven Plots

  • When
    December 04, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  If plot is defined as the central, external events of a story, then character is the internal force animating the plot. In this session with writer Sarah Kokernot, you’ll learn to create vivid characters whose problem-solving abilities (or lack thereof) drive the plot forward, making for exciting, suspenseful fiction.

  SARAH KOKERNOT is a fiction writer and essayist. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, Tricycle, EPOCH, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, Front Porch, West Branch, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and other publications. She has taught creative writing as a visiting faculty member at Northwestern University and as an instructor at StoryStudio Chicago.  Learn more here about Sarah's writing and teaching here.

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• Juan Martinez - That Got Weird: Why You Need Horror and the Fantastical in Your Writing

  • When
    December 11, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  In this session we'll talk about fiction that engages with the supernatural, the fantastic, and the strange, using easy tools and exercises to try out these elements in your writing. We'll also explore the history of strange fiction, its relationship to our own lives, and how one can make sense of the other.

  Some of what we'll discover will be spooky, some of it will be funny. The goal is to see how these narratives give us mirror images—sometimes distorted, sometimes not distorted enough—of the world we find ourselves in.

  JUAN MARTINEZ is the author of the novel Extended Stay (2023) and the story collection Best Worst American (2017). He lives near Chicago and is an associate professor at Northwestern University. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Huizache, Ecotone, The Sunday Morning Transport, NIGHTMARE, NPR's Selected Shorts, Mississippi Review and elsewhere. 

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• Steve Almond - Crushing It: Why Desire Placed in Doubt = Story

  • When
    December 18, 2025
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  Why are novels such as The Great Gatsby and Prep and Little Women so enduring? Because the action is propelled by a character who is desperately in love with someone who doesn’t love them back.

  In this fast-paced session, we’ll explore how this kind of unbridled desire super-charges our stories. And we’ll do a free write that brings the lesson home.

  STEVE ALMOND  is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His new novel, All the Secrets of the World, has been optioned for television by 20th Century Fox. He’s the recipient of an NEA grant for 2022 and teaches at Harvard and Wesleyan. His stories and essays have been published in venues ranging from the Best American Short Stories and the Best American Mysteries to the New York Times Magazine. He lives outside Boston with his wife, his three children, and his anxiety.

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• Joseph Scapellato - I’m Finished! Revising Your Work for Literary Magazine Submission

  • When
    January 08, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  Are you eager to submit your fiction and nonfiction to literary magazines, but uncertain about whether or not the work is ready? (Does your work feel finished, or do you feel finished?) Not to worry! In this class, we’ll take a look at practical approaches and helpful guidelines for revising your work for literary magazines. We’ll also “peek behind the curtain” and discuss what literary magazine editors might be looking for in new work. The goal is for you to leave this class with clear advice that you can immediately apply to current drafts—and to get submitting!

  JOSEPH SCAPELLATO is the author of the novel, The Made-Up Man, and the story collection, Big Lonesome. He was born in the western suburbs of Chicago and earned his MFA in Fiction at New Mexico State University.  His fiction and nonfiction appear in Literary Hub, Electric Literature, North American Review, Kenyon Review Online, No Tokens, and other places.  Joseph teaches in the creative writing program at Bucknell University and lives in Lewisburg, PA, with his wife, daughter, and dog.

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• Dean Bakopoulos - The Art of Adaptation: Expanding the Story, Sharpening the Stakes

  • When
    January 15, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  In this session, you’ll get a crash course on adapting your short story for the screen AND a boot camp on story revision. We'll talk through the questions to ask when adapting a story for the screen and strategies for translating a deeply interior prose piece into a propulsive, scene-driven script.  We'll present these same adaptation methods as tools for revising a stalled or “failed” short story or novel opening, examining what can be accomplished by stripping down a scene, taking leaps in time and space, and lingering on the transformative moments in our fiction. You'll benefit the most by having a short story ready to adapt, or a stalled story or botched novel opening on hand. 

  DEAN BAKOPOULOS is the author of the novels Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), My American Unhappiness (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and Summerlong (Ecco/HarperCollins). The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and NEA fellowships in both fiction and creative nonfiction, Bakopoulos is an associate professor of cinematic arts and head of screenwriting at the University of Iowa and on the fiction faculty of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. A WGA screenwriter, he co-wrote the film adaptation of his first novel and is co-creator and executive producer of the HBO MAX series Made for Love. Bakopoulos is currently developing several original projects for television, including Little Dogs, based on his original short story The Dog.

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• Robert Anthony Siegel - Setting: A Multigenre Craft Talk

  • When
    January 22, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  Setting is the physical world your characters inhabit, the place where their stories play out. The temptation is to treat it like a simple container for the action, a stage set, but truly effective setting does many kinds of narrative work. It helps convince us of the physical reality of the story, its materiality, but it also expresses emotion, reveals character, shapes the action, and connects to theme, the big idea hovering unspoken behind events.

  Through a mixture of lecture, discussion and creative exercises, this session will show you how to create effective setting. We'll analyze how outstanding  fiction and nonfiction writers like Jack London, Raymond Carver, James Baldwin and Annie Dillard use setting to deepen character and story, followed by exercises designed to help you explore and develop your own use of setting. Open to all levels of experience and all genres, no preparation is  needed. Just come to class ready to write, explore, and share.

  ROBERT ANTHONY SIEGEL is the author of a memoir, Criminals, and two novels, All Will Be Revealed, and All the Money in the World. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, The Paris Review, The Drift, The Oxford American, and Ploughshares, among other publications, and has been anthologized in Best American Essays 2023, O. Henry Stories 2014, and Pushcart Prize XXXVI. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, a Mombukagakusho Fellow in Japan, a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Paul Engle Fellow at the Iowa Writers Workshop.

  Robert taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington for 22 years, advising MFA students on writing their first books. He has also taught at Hollins University in Virginia, Tunghai University in Taiwan, and the LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore, and is a regular at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and a BA from Harvard.  

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• Tim Bascom - Expand Your Essay Horizons: An Introduction to Multiple Forms

  • When
    January 29, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  The personal essay is perhaps the most flexible of literary genres, sometimes leaning toward fiction in a storytelling fashion but often leaning toward journalism or scholarship or even poetry. In this session we will reference examples that illustrate the options available to a nonfiction writer, including the narrative essay, the reflective essay, literary journalism, and the lyric essay. We will experiment with braiding and segmenting through guided exercises and prompts and discuss when one form or mode of writing might be more suitable than others. Our aim is to find inventive ways to generate new material or reimagine works in progress.   

  TIM BASCOM is the author of a novel, two collections of essays, and two prize-winning memoirs about years spent in East Africa as a youth: Chameleon Days and Running to the Fire. His essays have been selected for the anthologies Best Creative Nonfiction and Best American Travel Writing, receiving editor prizes from The Missouri Review and Florida Review. His short fiction has appeared in journals such as Zone 3, Front Range Review, and Flint Hills Review. Bascom received his MFA from the University of Iowa and taught creative writing for 20 years at the college level. He currently directs the Kansas Book Festival.

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• Michelle Hoover - Interiority: It’s All the Rage

  • When
    February 05, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  More than ever, publishers are looking for manuscripts with characters who have complex interior lives. But what is interiority? What is the difference between interiority and exposition? How much is too much? Or too little? When can interiority simply be implied?

  A characters’ interiority is not only what they think or feel, but how. And it’s often the uncomfortable, embarrassing glimpses of a characters’ inner life that makes for the best interiority, the very kind that writers attempt to hide in themselves. With examples and writing exercises, this course will help you understand not only your characters interiority better but get it on the page in a way that’s unique and engaging, without weighing down your manuscript.  

  MICHELLE HOOVER has taught writing for more than 25 years and currently leads the GrubStreet Novel Incubator program, which she co-founded in 2011. Her students have signed 50+ book contracts. She is a 2014 NEA Fellow and has been a Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University, a fellow at MacDowell, Bread Loaf, and Sewanee Writers Conferences, and a winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award. Her debut, The Quickening, was a 2010 Massachusetts Book Award "Must Read," a finalist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, and one of Susan Straight's 1001 "Library of America" Novels featured in the L.A. Times. Her second novel, Bottomland, was the 2017 All Iowa Reads selection and a 2016 Mass Book "Must Read." She is the creator of The 7am Novelist, the popular podcast and webinar series for writers. She is a native of Iowa and lives in Cyprus and Boston.

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• Mary Kay Zuravleff - Make 'Em Laugh

  • When
    February 12, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  There’s humor in every situation, even tragic ones, yet not enough writers make us laugh. This workshop shares techniques for capturing wordplay, absurdity, slapstick, and wit, as well as laughing in the dark or to keep from crying. Come ready to write, share, and laugh.

  MARY KAY ZURAVLEFF is the award-winning author of American Ending, chosen for Oprah's Spring Reading List and inspired by the fact that in 1908, her American-born grandmother lost her American citizenship for marrying her Russian-born grandfather. Her novel Man Alive! was a Washington Post Notable Book. She has taught at Johns Hopkins, George Mason, and American University graduate programs; workshops such as Chautauqua, Key West, and Interlochen. She lives in Washington, DC. 
  

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• Sarah Stone - The Art of the Secret: Puzzle Boxes and Narrative Engines

  • When
    February 19, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  Secrets can drive plots and subplots, complicate relationships, activate slow moments, and reveal characters’ psychological make-up, as well as highlight the constant tension between who we wish we could be and who we are. If not handled well,  this fundamental fictional element can feel manipulative or unbelievable, turn readers against our characters, and call too much attention to the story’s machinery. We will discuss successful examples and have quick writing exercises to discover new secrets for our characters and make deeper use of those we already have. We'll explore secrets in long and short narrative arcs and in both stories and novels. We will consider what secrets can be left unexploded, how to nest secrets, and how to make the connections between secrets, yearnings, and satisfaction.

  SARAH STONE (she/they) is the author of Hungry Ghost Theater, a finalist for the 38th annual Northern California Book Awards, The True Sources of the Nile, and Marriage to the Sea (forthcoming in March 2026), as well as co-author, with Ron Nyren, of Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. Sarah has taught for UC Berkeley, the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, and Stanford Continuing Studies, and has written for Korean public television, reported on human rights in Burundi, and looked after orphan chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute.

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• Jeannie Vanasco - To Tell the Truth in Memoir, Study Poetry

  • When
    February 26, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

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  How can  poetic techniques help memoirists tell the truth as accurately as possible? While some writers argue that fixating on facts contradicts the aims of art, I believe that facts—as best we can access them—can further the artistry of nonfiction, serving as formal constraints. Of course memory fails and self-deception exists, but memoirists are less likely to get to the experiential and emotional truths by deliberately inventing details.

  Poetic techniques can help us fasten passages together that resist the cause-and-effect relationship popularized by Western notions of plot. This session is tailored to memoir writing and will include close readings, discussion, generative prompts, and Q&A. 

  JEANNIE VANASCO  is the author of the memoirs Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Her third book, A Silent Treatment, will was published in September 2025. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University.

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• Sue Brown Moore - The Root Fear Factor: Make Your Characters' Deepest Fears Resonate with Readers

  • When
    March 05, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CST)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

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  This workshop invites you to pause and look beneath the surface of your stories, honoring the vulnerabilities and dreams that move both your characters and yourself. This isn’t just a craft lesson. You’ll be guided through gentle exercises that reveal the core fears at the center of your protagonist’s arc.

  With practical tools, empathetic coaching, and thoughtful self-reflection, you’ll see how tapping into these emotional truths unlocks deeper conflict, richer transformations, and the kind of scenes that stay with readers long after The End.

  Whether you’re revising a romance, plotting fantasy, or exploring any genre where character evolution matters, this session provides a framework for mapping emotional arcs, linking them to meaningful plot moments, and working with your writing style instead of against it.

  SUE BROWN MOORE is a sought-after book revision coach. One of LA Weekly's 15 Book Coaches to Watch, she specializes in teaching character-first fiction writers to craft their best stories in the fewest drafts.  Working one-on-one and in small groups, work, she empowers romance authors to their breakthrough career moment. Sue is the founder and host of the Wanna Write Romance conference and The HEA Sessions live workshop series. Her work as a former acquiring and freelance developmental editor has been featured in Publisher’s Weekly and recognized through industry awards like the Vivian, the Lambda, and the Golden Heart.  

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• Small Press Panel: What Makes a Successful Submission

  • When
    March 12, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

  Register

  

  Editors from Fomite Press (Donna Bister). Sibylline Press (Vicki DeArmon) and Grand Canyon Press (Marylee Macdonald), will describe their respective publishing models and share advice about what makes a successful submission. These presses welcome submissions without an agent.

  Donna Bister, Managing Editor at Fomite is a photographer, quilter/quilt historian, community activist, voracious reader and co-author (with Richard Cleveland of Plain and Fancy: Vermont’s People and Their Quilts as a Reflection of America.

  Vicki DeArmon has been in the book industry for forty years as a respected publisher, bookseller, and innovator. She started Foghorn Press at 25,  growing it to a $2 million enterprise before selling it fourteen years later. She also later served as the marketing and events director at Copperfield’s Books and as consultant to California’s independent bookstores. Vicki is one of the founders of Sibylline Press and serves as its publisher.  

  Marylee MacDonald is the award-winning author of Montpelier Tomorrow, Body Language, Bonds of Love and Blood, The Rug Bazaar, and The Big Book of Small Presses and Independent Publishers. Her short stories have won the Barry Hannah Prize, the Ron Rash Award, the ALR Fiction Prize, and many others.

   

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• Vu Tran - A Taxonomy of Desire

  • When
    March 19, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    REMOTE - ZOOM ONLY

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  As writers, we often say that good characters must want something important, that they’ll only come to life if we make their desires convincing and compelling. But what exactly do we mean by desire? Given overlapping motivations, goals, urges, compulsions, needs, etc., how do know we’re focusing on the right ones for our characters and writing about them in the right way?

  In this talk, we'll take a more personal approach to these questions,  defining and categorizing all the desires our culture has given name to. This taxonomy is more subjective than scientific, an encouragement for you to create one for yourself. When we can organize the nuanced and elusive ways we want things, we can see the deeper complexity and humanity of our characters while expanding the palette we use to paint them and their desires.  

  VU TRAN is the author of Dragonfish, a NYT Notable Book, and a forthcoming novel, Your Origins. His other writing has appeared in publications like the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, Ploughshares, and Virginia Quarterly, and he also guest- edited (with Thi Bui) the Spring 2025 issue of McSweeney’s. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the NEA, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bread Loaf. Born in Vietnam and raised in Oklahoma, Vu completed his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD at the Black Mountain Institute. An Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Chicago, he is director of undergraduate studies in creative writing.

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• Abby Geni - Heighten the Tension

  • When
    March 26, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Fiction needs tension. Without it, a story will not hold the reader’s attention for long, regardless of how beautiful or profound the writing may be. This is as true for literary fiction as it is for thrillers.

  In this class, we will discuss how to create and use tension in our own writing. We will explore what it means to put a character in danger—great or small, real or imagined, internal or external. We will talk about how to use setting, dialogue, plot architecture, character descriptions, and many other elements of story to heighten the tension in our work.  

  ABBY GENI is the author of The Wildlands, The Lightkeepers, The Last Animal, and a short story collection, The Body Farm. Her books have been translated into seven languages and have won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Chicago Review of Books Awards, among other honors. Her short stories have won first place in the Glimmer Train Fiction Open and the Chautauqua Contest and have been published or are forthcoming in numerous journals, including The Missouri Review, Epoch, Ninth Letter, and New Stories from the Midwest. Geni is a faculty member at StoryStudio Chicago and frequently serves as Visiting Associate Professor of Fiction at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

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• Peter Orner - Animating Place: Ground your Story (Somewhere, Anywhere) Without Overdoing It

  • When
    April 09, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Through examples and exercises, this class will cover the myriad ways to create a sense of place on the page without falling into travel writing. No offense to travel writing. But the point here is to create a vivid setting for your characters without over explaining or over describing. We'll cover a range of writers from John Edgar Wideman to Mavis Gallant to Stuart Dybek to Raymond Chandler to Juan Rulfo to Marilynne Robinson, and bring in some new writers as well including the Rwandan/ Namibian writer Remy Ngamije and Mexico's Fernanda Melchor. Bring your own favorite places, cities, towns, lakes, mountains, and we'll try and give them life on the page. 

  PETER ORNER is the author of eight books of fiction and non-fiction, including Maggie Brown & Others; Love and Shame and Love; Esther Stories, a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award; and Am I Alone Here?, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A new novel, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, will be out in August from Little Brown. He has edited four volumes of oral history for Voice of Witness and McSweeney's. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, The Believer, and Best American Short Stories and been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. A Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Orner is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. Chicago born and raised, he lives with his family in Norwich, Vermont.  
  

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• Kathleen Rooney - The Fantastic Mongrel: Getting Started on Prose Poetry

  • When
    April 16, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Prose poetry is far more than just verse without line breaks. Borrowing from a variety of forms and genres, including questionnaires, conversations, dream narratives, and art installations like those of Joseph Cornell, these little blocks, patches, scraps, chunks, fragments—whatever you want to call them—are tiny boxes that can contain big things.

  Through brief in-class readings by such foundational authors as Aloysius Bertrand and Charles Baudelaire up to present-day practitioners, students will see how the prose poem represents an exciting intersection among nonfiction, fiction, drama and poetry. After discussing how these blocks are structured—and talking about where to read and submit these popular genre-bending forms—we'll do in-class exercises, and walk out with rough drafts of a few prose poems we can continue to hone, as well as with a new sense of how to bring innovation to writing of all lengths and genres.

  Kathleen will judge a themed contest: Best Prose Poem with a Surreal Element.  2 page limit; 12 Entries: must be received no later than March 25.

  Please see the Manuscript and Contest Page for details.

  

  KATHLEEN ROONEY is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press and a founding member of Poems While You Wait. She is the author of the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, and From Dust to Stardust. Her poetry collection Where Are the Snows, winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize, was released in Fall of 2022 by Texas Review Press. Her picture book Leaf Town Forever, co-written with her sister Beth Rooney was released in Fall 2025 and her latest novel, Man Overboard! will be published in Summer 2026. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches at DePaul.   

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• Rebecca Makkai - I Can't Remember How to do This: Writing Memory in Fiction and Non-Fiction

  • When
    April 23, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

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  One of the most frequent questions I get from students is about transitioning into and out of memory or "flashback" or narrative backstory. Given that most of our consciousness is memory (who we are, who we're married to, how we got here, what we're supposed to be doing today), you'd think it would be an easier proposition to approach memory on the page. And it is easy! I promise!
  

  But we tend to overthink things, and either mimic unhelpful film techniques or neglect memory altogether or present it in unwieldy chunks. Let's talk about how to avoid these pitfalls, how to represent memory accurately, and how not to write yourself into a flashback corner.

  REBECCA MAKKAI is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel I Have Some Questions for You as well as four other works of fiction. Her last novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize among other honors. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca teaches graduate fiction writing at Middlebury College, Northwestern University, and UNR Tahoe, and serves as Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago. 
  

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• Steve Trumpeter - The “Final” Draft: Getting Your Stories Ready for Submission

  • When
    April 30, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  Submitting our stories to literary magazines is an exercise in unbridled optimism. We’re throwing our work into the fray against hundreds, if not thousands, of other stories, hoping that it catches the eye of an overworked, underpaid reader and eventually finds its way to print. And while it’s easy to sell ourselves on the idea that publishing in the lit mag world is a numbers game, the truth is that at some level, good stories will find a home.

  In this session, short story writer Steve Trumpeter will explore the craft elements that help stories stand out in the crowd. We’ll consider how to evaluate our own work as objectively as possible so we can be confident that we’re taking our best shot when we send our stories out into the world. We’ll learn strategies for breaking out of the eternal revision cycle and recognizing when we can call our drafts “final.”

  STEVE TRUMPETER is a writer, artist, and musician from Chicago. His recent fiction has appeared in The Southern Review, Salamander, American Fiction, Chicago Quarterly Review and others. He was a finalist for the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award and took 2nd place in Zoetrope: All-Story’s 2019 fiction contest. He teaches creative writing classes at StoryStudio Chicago.  Discover his stories, paintings, music, and more here.   

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• John McCarthy - Crafting the Perfect Literary Submission

  • When
    May 07, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  In this session, we’ll explore the end-to-end experience of submitting  to literary magazines. We’ll go behind the scenes of popular submission platforms like Submittable and CLMP to understand how editors receive and review your submissions. Next, we’ll cover how to properly format your own work. You’ll receive cover letter templates and learn best practices for presenting your writing professionally. We’ll also discuss how to identify which literary outlets are a good fit for your work—and which ones might not be.  Finally, we’ll reflect on the philosophical aspects of submitting creative work, including questions of ethics, readiness, and the rapidly evolving impact of AI on the literary landscape. Bring your questions and curiosity. 

  JOHN MCCARTHY is the author of three poetry collections, including Scared Violent Like Horses (Milkweed Editions, 2019), which won the Jake Adam York Prize. He is also the author of This Brutal Vanishing (Texas Review Press / Sam Houston State University, forthcoming 2028); and Ghost County (MG Press, 2016), which was named a Best Book of 2016 by The Chicago Review of Books. His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Best New Poets, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review and North American Review among many others. He is currently the Managing Editor of RHINO. Outside of poetry, John has spent the last decade in content design, researching and writing content for some of the world's biggest brands.

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• Christina Clancy - How to Optimize Feedback You Give and Receive

  • When
    May 14, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  

  Sharing creative writing with friends, mentors, editors, and writing groups is an act of extreme vulnerability. It's hard sometimes to separate criticism of the work from criticism of ourselves, since it's our thinking and perspective on the page.

  In this session, we'll discuss the role of feedback at various stages in a manuscript's journey, and cover some artist-centered strategies that don't demoralize the writer, but help make the writing less wobbly and more emotionally impactful. We'll go through the various types of feedback and ask: what sorts of comments and line edits truly help? What should you tune in and out? Who should we listen to? How is your writing influenced by your fear of criticism? How do you find a writing community? And once you're published, how should you respond to ratings and reviews?  

  CHRISTINA CLANCY is the author of The Second Home, Shoulder Season, and The Snowbirds (out Feb. 4, 2025). Her stories and essays have appeared in The Sun Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, The Minnesota Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. She has a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She lives in Madison. 

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• JP Solheim - Chicago: Writing Setting

  • When
    May 21, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

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  In poetry, lyric, and sloganeering, Chicago is often described as a town of swagger and bluster, violence and blight. But in storytelling, whether fiction or nonfiction, Chicago often appears to be a place of subtle contrasts, ever changing, and the city setting is often baked into narrative like character, influencing action and plot.

  In this class we’ll look at some examples of Chicago as setting, and write from prompts inspired by our readings to generate our own settings.

  JP SOLHEIM has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, MQR: Mixtape, Midwest Weird Audio Literary Magazine, The Pinch and The Southampton Review. They hold a PhD in French from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Writing and Literature (fiction) from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and taught at the University of Michigan, Université de Paris VII  and University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as writing centers across the United States. They serve as the Associate Director of the BookEnds novel revision fellowship at The Lichtenstein Center of Stony Brook University. 

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• Michael Zapata - Revision for Artistic Vision and Publication

  • When
    May 28, 2026
  •  
    9:30 AM - 12:00 PM (CDT)
  • Location
    ONSITE - 620 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL /REMOTE

  Register

  As the musician, actor, painter, and all-around artistic vagabond John Lurie once said about making art: “See what it gives you.” In this class, we’ll go through and discuss the process of revision for publication. We’ll cover and discuss wholeness, cohesiveness, exactitude, clarity, excavating material, and, perhaps most importantly, staying true to your artistic visions and the possibilities they may still contain.

  Additionally, we’ll consider and discuss what various editors have to say about the endlessly exciting, if occasionally sticky, matter of putting your work out into the world. The class will also include a Q&A.

  MICHAEL ZAPATA is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is on the faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop-out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.

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