Online Memoir Writing Courses

We know you have a story to tell. Wherever you're currently at on your memoir project, we're here to support you with our online memoir writing courses.

You’ll get weekly instructor feedback on your work, ongoing collaboration with other memoirists, and a supportive course structure that will help you set and meet your writing goals.

Learn from published authors who have spent decades perfecting their craft, and are dedicated to supporting you and your work. Don’t miss out: find the online memoir writing course for you today!

memoir writing courses

Upcoming Online Memoir Writing Courses




March Courses

Write Your Memoir in 12 Weeks

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March 20 | 12 Weeks | $995

Writing a full memoir takes energy, momentum, and moral support. Find all three in this memoir writing intensive.

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Get Your Book Noticed: Writing Loglines That Sell

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March 22 | 1-Day Webinar | $115

Your logline helps you query agents, market your book, and figure out the story itself. Hone your logline and set your book up for success in this Zoom workshop.

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Show and Tell: How to Write Captivating Memoir and Nonfiction

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March 27 | Single-Day Webinar | $115

Your true story of healing or transformation can captivate and empower your readers. Learn how to balance showing the vivid details of your own journey with telling the broader themes for readers to apply in their own lives.

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April Courses

Let It Rip: The Art of Writing Fiery Prose

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April 3 | 6 Weeks | $445

You'll write prose that gets folks so hot and bothered they won't be able to put it down, even if it isn't about sex.

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From the Source: Journaling for Self-Knowledge and Creativity

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April 24 | 6 weeks | $445 | NEW!

Journal to discover yourself, find a wellspring of creativity, and produce publication-ready pieces.

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May Courses

Writing Our Grief: How to Channel Loss into Creative Expression

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May 1 | 8 Weeks | $545

Writing about grief is a powerful healing tool. Turn pain into power in this personal essay course, with instructor Rudri Patel.

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Toying with The Truth: A Generative Nonfiction Workshop

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May 8 | 8 Weeks | $545 | NEW!

Experiment with creative nonfiction forms and find the best way to tell your personal stories. Write a short piece each week, and choose one draft to polish. 

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Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Use Story and Premise Development for Writing Success

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May 15 | 5 Weeks | $395

The premise line is the only reliable tool that can tell you, BEFORE you start writing, whether or not your story will “work.” In this class participants will learn how to master the process of premise line development—the essential first step in any book or screenplay’s development process.

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It Starts with Play: Get (Back) into Writing

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May 22 | 6 Weeks | $445 | NEW!

Harness the joy of creativity in this inspiration-focused class, where we'll uncover new ideas for writing projects and draft loads of new material. 

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June Courses

Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Telling True Stories

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June 19 | 6 Weeks | $445

How do you tell your stories beautifully and authentically? Learn the fundamentals of creative nonfiction with Nicole Hardy.

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Finding Inspiration in Dreams

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June 26 | 6 Weeks | $445

Our dreams are fertile fields of inspiration, meaning, and creativity. Learn how to use your dreams as doorways to future writing.

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Observing What’s Vivid in Prose and Poetry

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June 26 | 4 Weeks | $345

Learn how to spotlight beauty through fresh, vivid, and surprising language, in this four week mindfulness writing course.

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Story Lab: The Story-Subplot Connection

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June 26 | 6 Weeks | $445

Subplots are key to maintaining narrative pace and tension in a story. Drive your story forward with this deep dive into the elements of good storytelling.

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August Courses

Rapid Story Development: A Master Plan for Building Stories That Work

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August 14 | 10 Weeks | $645

In this 10 week story writing class, Jeff Lyons pairs the Enneagram with story development techniques to revolutionize your writing practice.

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September Courses

A Writerly Life: Develop a Writing Routine that Works for You

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September 4 | 5 Weeks | $395

What does a writer's life look like? Build a productive writing habit in this course for writers of all backgrounds.

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Unscheduled Courses

These online writing classes don’t currently have a next session on our calendar, but will soon. If you see a course you’re interested in, use the “I’m Interested” button to let us know, and we’ll follow up with you when the course is on our calendar next.

Want to reach us or our instructors with questions about our online writing courses? Contact us at writers@writers.com, or visit the contact form.

(Live Workshop) Dream Writing

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Single-Day Webinar | $115

How can writers harness the power of dreams? Let your slumber supercharge your creativity in this three hour dream writing workshop.

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(Live Workshop) Get Clear on Your Story and Voice

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Single-Day Webinar | $115

What is your story about? What is your voice? Whether you write poetry, fiction, or nonfiction, hone your writing in this 3 hour workshop.

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(Live Workshop) Writing Beginnings and Endings

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Single-Day Webinar | $115

How do you write a story that's compelling to start and satisfying to finish? Sarah Aronson explains in this comprehensive one-day workshop.

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*Private Class | Embodied Writing: Improve Your Writing with Full-Body Creativity

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January 1 | 6 to 10 Weeks | $545 | NEW!

Have a grand time with specific physical exercises that honor your health, generate imaginative ideas, explore deeply and make your creative writing entertaining.

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*Private Class | Embodied Writing: Somatic Practices to Improve Your Work

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January 1 | 6 to 10 Weeks | $545

Have a grand time with specific physical exercises that honor your health, generate imaginative ideas, explore deeply and make your creative writing entertaining.

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*Private Class | Using Bullet Journaling to Achieve Writing Goals

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January 1 | 3 to 7 weeks | $345

Looking to keep your writing goals organized? Make it happen in our bullet journaling course. Learn the art of the BuJo with Rudri Patel!

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Boost Your Imagination and Reap the Literary Rewards

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4 Weeks | $345

It happens to all of us: life gets in the way and our creativity falters. Get back on track with this four-week creativity boosting class!

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Branches of Creative Nonfiction

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8 Weeks | $545

What are the different types of creative nonfiction? From the personal essay to the hermit crab, learn the ropes of CNF in this 8 week class.

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But What Is Your Story Really About? Finding the Core of Your Short Memoir, Story, or Personal Essay

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4 Weeks | $345

Take a four-week writing adventure deep into the core of your story, to find the true theme of your personal essay, short story, or short memoir.

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Claiming Our Stories: Autobiography, Memoir & Autobiographical Fiction

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10 Weeks | $645

Turn your experience into fiction, autobiography, or creative memoir. Bring forward stories with a powerful truth at their core. Instructor Anya Achtenberg.

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Craft Your Story: Short Fiction and Memoir Live Workshops

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8 Weeks | $545

Get tailored advice and inspiration for your fiction or nonfiction stories, in this weekly live workshop with award-winning instructor Margo Perin.

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Crafting the Poetry Novel: Advanced Workshop

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5 weeks | $395

Want to make headway on your poetry novel? This workshop offers the structure and resources to get it done, with instructor Kelly Bingham.

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Creating the Visual Journal

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8 Weeks | $545

Go beyond narrow definitions of “journaling" to include visual images and let writing give what is seen a new voice. Surprise yourself.

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Deepening and Organizing Our Stories: Memoir/Creative Nonfiction and Autobiographical Fiction

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10 Weeks | $645

For writers of memoir, creative nonfiction and fiction, with some experience. Particularly helpful to writers in the midst of a longer work.

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Embodied Writing: Improve Your Writing with Full-Body Creativity

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6 Weeks | $445

Have a grand time with specific physical exercises that honor your health, generate imaginative ideas, explore deeply and make your creative writing entertaining.

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Embodied Writing: Somatic Practices to Improve Your Work

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6 Weeks | $445

Have a grand time with specific physical exercises that honor your health, generate imaginative ideas, explore deeply and make your creative writing entertaining.

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Finding the Real Story: Essential Elements of Story in Fiction and Memoir

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10 Weeks | $645

Address the larger issues of writing story through a look at the essential elements of narrative in fiction and memoir.

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Food Writing: Food-Focused Memoir

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8 Weeks | $545

The food we eat and enjoy tells volumes about our lives and experiences. Write it all down in this food memoir course, with Jennifer Billock.

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From Memory: Writing Fiction or Memoir from Lived Experience

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4 Weeks | $345 | NEW!

In this class, you'll use a nearly infinite resource—your own memory—to craft compelling fiction or nonfiction stories.

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From Pitch to Publication: Writing Narrative Journalism

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8 Weeks | $545

Explore literary journalism as a powerful means to share fascinating characters, stories, and perspectives. Learn all you need to start pitching, landing, and writing reported essays and features.

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Get Back to That Book

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2 Single-Day Webinars | $195 | NEW!

For any number of reasons, the book we want to write gets waylaid. Get back to it in this motivational two part workshop.

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Get It Done: Create the Scaffolding to Start (and Finish) a Writing Project

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2 Single-Day Webinars | $195 | NEW!

Get your butt in the chair, your mind roaming freely, and your creative juices flowing in this motivational, all-genres writing class.

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How to Firm Up the “Mushy Middle” of Any Story

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5 Weeks | $395

Ensure a strong middle throughline for any story. Say goodbye to the "mushy middle," and hello to stories that work.

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Humor Is The New Black!

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4 Weeks | $345

Ready to add a splash of fun to your writing life? Join us for a four-week humor writing class. We’ll read. We’ll laugh. We’ll write. We’ll experiment.

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I’ve Drunk Your Poisoned Nectar: Writing with the Goddess

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8 Weeks | $545

Dig deep into the rich mythology of South Asian goddesses to find new inspiration for your work in this generative, open-genre writing class.

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In Your Own Words: Transforming Life Into Memoir and Fiction

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8 Weeks | $545

Learn how to draw inspiration and material from your life experiences or those of people you know, or want to know, to craft compelling, publishable memoirs, personal essays, autobiographical novels and short stories, and/or narrative poetry.

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Make Your Prose Sing

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Single-Day Webinar | $115

Enrich your prose with techniques from poetry. Bring paper and pens; leave with a better ear and lots of ideas about how to make your prose sing.

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No More Excuses! Four Weeks to Finish and Submit Your Personal Essay or Short Memoir

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4 Weeks | $345

Join us for this insightful four-week “get the writing done” program, give and receive thoughtful comments from your fellow writers and the instructor, and enjoy heaps of encouragement and writing wisdom along the way.

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Oral Storytelling Techniques for Writing Flash Nonfiction

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6 Weeks | $445 | NEW!

In this class, you'll harness the power of oral storytelling to craft exceptional pieces of written nonfiction.

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Overcome Writing Anxiety: Boost Your Storytelling Confidence in Four Short Weeks!

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4 Weeks | $345

"Who are you to want to write?" Someone great, that's who! Politely ask Mr. or Ms. Fear to step aside while you sign up for this fun, freeing and functional adventure.

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Scene Study: Strengthen Your Writing with Compelling Scenes

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5 Weeks | $395

Great stories are constructed with great scenes. Immerse your reader in your stories by learning the ropes of scene development.

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Secrets & Confessions: Writing Deeply Personal Nonfiction

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8 Weeks | $695 | NEW!

In this fully anonymous class, we will write and share the secrets we hold closest to our chests, and turn those secrets into compelling creative nonfiction. 

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Suspense Sells! Power Up Your Writing With Conflict, Tension and Emotion

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4 Weeks | $345

Inject suspense into your stories to keep readers turning pages. For writers of all kinds of fiction: thrillers, mysteries, romance, humor, literary and memoir. A four week class with Giulietta Nardone.

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Tales From The Memory Palace: 6 to 250 Word Memoirs

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4 Weeks | $345

Course full. Contact us to join waitlist.

If you want to be an in demand storyteller in the digital age, you need to get in, get out and get going. In this "short" four-week memoir writing adventure, you'll learn to scope out, swoop down and snatch up important memories from your life then speed write them into miniature masterpieces.

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Techwashed!: Writing with AI, Data, and Surveillance

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2 Saturday Workshops | $205

Raise a mirror against society's relationship to technology in this two part workshop series where we will learn how to write about tech.

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The Chronology of Mind: From Journal to Poem or Prose

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10 Weeks | $645

Gather material through writing and experimenting with journaling, researching and taking notes to develop into poems or prose works.

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The Soundtrack of Your Life: Writing About Music, Memories and Mix Tapes

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5 Weeks | $395

In a song inspired class, write several essays about the music that has moved you through life: the emotions, the relationships, the events, the outcomes.

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The Surprising Sentence: Honing Your Prose Style

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2 Single-Day Webinars | $195 | NEW!

Great sentences stack up into great stories. Learn how to hone your style and voice at the most basic unit of writing, the sentence, in this workshop.

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The Wandering Heart: Tales of Connection

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3 Weeks | $295

Wander through the rooms of your own life to discover stories of deep connection, reconnection or loss of connection and fashion your findings into stories suitable for blog posts, essays, short memoirs, short plays, scenes in screenplays, or chapters of novels.

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Using Your Poetry Skills to Write Memoir

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Single-Day Webinar | $345

How do poets tell their stories in prose? Take the leap from poetry to memoir in this hybrid writing workshop.

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Word Flashes & Eye Snapshots: Sketching Your Life Awake

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8 Weeks | $545

For any writer wanting to root writing in vision and vision in the body: for poetry, fiction, essay, memoir & pleasure.

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Writing About Family

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8 Weeks | $545

Family is complicated, and so is writing about it. Navigate the complexities of writing about real relationships in this generative essay class.

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Writing Autobiographical Fiction

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8 Weeks | $545

Learn to depart from "what really happened," and write compelling fiction from your own life experiences.

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Writing Chronic Illness

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6 Weeks | $445 | NEW!

Creative nonfiction offers a container for the sharing and exploration of illness. Tell the story of your body in this healing-oriented workshop.

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Writing Circle Workshop: Writing for Happiness, Healing, and Health (Monday/Friday)

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6 Weeks | $445

Course full. Contact us to join waitlist.

Expressive writing can be a powerful elixir for what ails you. Learn and practice tools for writing expressively, including two virtual writing circles each week, turn raw writing into poetry or prose, and come away with a better understanding of how writing can lead toward wellness.

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Writing Circle Workshop: Writing for Happiness, Healing, and Health (Tuesday/Saturday)

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6 Weeks | $445

Course full. Contact us to join waitlist.

Expressive writing can be a powerful elixir for what ails you. Learn and practice tools for writing expressively, including two virtual writing circles each week, turn raw writing into poetry or prose, and come away with a better understanding of how writing can lead toward wellness.

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Writing Place in Creative Nonfiction

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5 Weeks | $395

In Creative Nonfiction, place is a character in itself. Deeply explore a narrative and a place of your choosing, and make weekly progress on your essay or memoir.

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Writing the Memoir-in-Essays

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2 Single-Day Webinars | $195

Learn how to tell your story through the memoir-in-essays, a form that allows writers to interweave the facts of their lives in interesting and evocative ways.

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Writing with Consistency and Courage

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Single-Day Webinar | $115

What makes a successful writer? It's not talent, craft, or even the right connections—it's consistency and courage.

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