Framing Experience: Flash Nonfiction for Self-Discovery
with Joanna Penn Cooper
August 19, 2026
Length: 5 Weeks
Open to AllText-Based
Original price was: $395.00.$340.00Current price is: $340.00.
Original price was: $395.00.$340.00Current price is: $340.00.Enroll Now
Our lives have their big themes, arcs, and turning points—and are also made up of small moments that are rich in detail and particularity. Flash nonfiction invites us to discover these greater themes within the vividness of the particular—and to see ourselves with greater clarity and self-compassion.
In this course, we will explore the memories and scenes you feel called to put a frame around, examining how life’s everyday details reveal larger patterns, questions, and emotional truths. In a series of flash nonfiction pieces, you’ll learn how to approach these moments as doorways into deeper self-understanding. As you delve into the writerly techniques that provide new shape to past experiences, you’ll begin to see how craft can help you care for and make meaning from the material of your own life.
The short pieces you create in this course could become foundations for longer works of essay or memoir, or remain standalone flash pieces. Alternately, you might see them as writing practice: a way to loosen up, access your creativity, and follow your attention toward what matters. Together, we’ll explore the parameters and promises of creative nonfiction, and how the particular conventions of flash nonfiction can become a rich source of inspiration.
You’ll receive feedback from both me and your peers on at least two weekly writing exercises of around 500 words each. Toward the end of the course, I’ll also offer private, in-depth feedback on a portfolio of up to five polished flash nonfiction pieces you submit, for a total of up to 3,000 words, or about twelve double-spaced pages.
Throughout the course, we’ll study short nonfiction pieces by other writers to see how brief prose pieces can hold large questions in a small space, and how compression, image, voice, and structure allow writers to explore resonant moments with precision and depth. Some of the authors we’ll read include Sabrina Orah Mark, James Tate, Allison Kirkland, Jasmine Sawers, Sonja Livingston, Diane Seuss, Lydia Davis, and Claudia Rankine.
The class is asynchronous, meaning you’ll be able to read, write, and respond to course materials on your own schedule. You’ll come away with a collection of new flash nonfiction pieces, and a deeper understanding of how writerly craft can lead you to greater self-understanding.
Who This Course Is For
This class is for any writer seeking to explore new ways to approach autobiographical material. You may be interested in genre experimentation, or you may be primarily interested in writing as a way of reframing life events, understanding the self, and clarifying what’s important to you. All levels are welcome. If you already write in another genre or you’re returning to writing after a hiatus, this may be a good class to help you refresh your creative spirit.
Learning and Writing Goals
Learning Goals
In this course, you will learn:
- How other writers have approached short autobiographical writing.
- How to focus on judicious use of concrete detail and development of your individual writing voice(s).
- How to engage in creative play and discovery, even as you delve into serious subjects.
Writing Goals
In this course, you will:
- Produce short life-inspired vignettes in response to at least two writing exercises per week.
- Gain practice in offering critiques to peers.
- Have the option of developing a portfolio of flash pieces for private instructor feedback.
Weekly Syllabus
Week 1: What It Is
This week, we will examine how specific memories, details, or scenes from everyday life can tug at a writer and be a way into both creative production and understanding of what bears returning to. We will also look at how we might ground introductions in image.
Week 2: Diving Down
This week, we’ll examine how strategies such as drawing on our inner knowing and “going for the jugular” in our writing (to use Natalie Goldberg’s words) can open up new insight. We’ll also examine repetition as a strategy for illuminating a story’s nuances.
Week 3: Estranging the Familiar
In this week’s lesson, we’ll explore ways to see experience with fresh eyes through the technique of “defamiliarization.”
Week 4: Writing It Colder
In this lesson, we’ll build upon previous weeks’ strategies, looking at ways to create “space” for both writer and reader when writing about difficult topics.
Week 5: Composing Our Lives
What next? This week, we’ll explore writing as a way of living in alignment with our values and as a way of imagining possible futures (both individually and communally).
Original price was: $395.00.$340.00Current price is: $340.00.Enroll Now
Student Feedback for Joanna Penn Cooper:
This course was a great experience! I write for a living, but not personal essays, so I was challenged and learned a lot in a safe and judgment-free environment. Joanna is great at introducing new concepts and ways of writing in an easy-to-understand way. Her feedback and line edits are concise and helpful. It was also nice to give and receive comments from other writers taking the course. I’ll be back for more! Alexis Damen
Joanna was thoughtful, positive, and encouraging in her feedback and all interactions. I appreciated not only positive feedback, but more so the areas where I could improve and need to grow as a writer. Susanna Graham
This was a great course and Joanna provides wonderful materials, resources, and thought provoking and encouragement feedback. Sandra Kennedy
Joanna was fabulous. She took great care in explaining the topics. She was always available if anyone had questions and she varied the delivery which was nice, too. Janet Farley
Fantastic course. I loved all the generative writing prompts, particularly the focus on different perspectives and experimenting with approaches/style. Readings were interesting and enjoyable. And Joanna’s feedback on my writing was invaluable. One of the best courses I’ve taken through Writers.com! Jennifer Gresham
This course was a great experience! I write for a living, but not personal essays, so I was challenged and learned a lot in a safe and judgment-free environment. Joanna is great at introducing new concepts and ways of writing in an easy-to-understand way. Her feedback and line edits are concise and helpful. It was also nice to give and receive comments from other writers taking the course. Alexis Damen
Joanna was probably the most attentive and conscientious teacher I have had in my courses. She was transparent about when she was (and would not be) available, and she was quick to read and respond to each student. She started thought-provoking discussions and enhanced the learning with video as well as bringing in new material as our class comments warranted. She was a wonderful teacher and I fully intend to take future classes with her. Nancy LaChance
August 19, 2026
Length: 5 Weeks
Open to AllText-Based
Original price was: $395.00.$340.00Current price is: $340.00.
Original price was: $395.00.$340.00Current price is: $340.00.Enroll Now
