Online Short Story Writing Courses

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

How do you distill love into 1,500 words or less? Zining Mok explains in this love stories flash fiction workshop.

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

Develop powerful and realistic settings in this generative three-hour workshop, with Jacquelyn Stolos.

In-depth character development using an ancient personality study of human motivation–the Enneagram.

Your unconscious can drive your writing or block it. Gloria Kempton will guide you in coaxing your shadow out of hiding.

Throughout her writing career, Gloria Kempton has met many anti-heroes. In this course, you’ll receive feedback on your story antagonists.

Write about love beyond trite sentiment and shallow fictions. Work down to the real thing: deep, powerful, destructive, exalted, fundamental.

Banish writer’s block, unearth fresh ideas, and sharpen your storytelling ability with the practice of fast, timed writing.

Not sure how to start building a literary career? By the end of this course, you’ll have tackled the author’s bio, C.V., LinkedIn, and more!

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.

Learn how to write emotionally resonant journeys that stick with the reader, using the power of character transformation.

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

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

Fiction or nonfiction? Article, short story, or how-to book? Do you want to write for children, teens, adults? There is a type of writing that is best suited for you, and the discovery process can be an adventure.

Write the entire first draft of a novella-length story, with plenty of feedback from stage to stage, and finish with a plan for revising toward a publishable manuscript.

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

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

Bring your characters to life in this in-depth character development class with Gloria Kempton.

In this fun, transformative four-week program, get tips and techniques to bring out your courage to publish a story in print or online.

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

During this six week program, you will work closely one-on-one with Kelly to finalize, refine, and polish your picture book into a manuscript ready to submit for publication or representation.

How do you get invited to read at literary conferences? Lyzette Wanzer shows you the ropes in this one day workshop.

The summer is the best time to get the ball rolling on your book. Join us if you really want to get your book into the world.

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

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.

Want to write about nature like Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, or Annie Dillard? Join us for this six week nature writing course.

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.

Take the whirlwind tour! Learn the conventions of eight major fiction genres, try them out, and figure out your niche.

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.

Instructor Sarah Aronson welcomes all writers who are working on manuscripts for kids and teens. This advanced workshop will focus entirely on the participants’ own work in progress.

Author Sarah Aronson leads this intermediate/advanced workshop on writing for children. It offers support, structure and detailed feedback on manuscripts.

In this course, you’ll work with the basic elements of fiction–the fundamentals that drive the story and determine the quality of the work.

A course for intensive practice and feedback in scene writing skills.

Dig deep into personal ritual while studying narrative poets, short fiction and non-fiction authors, and food writers.

Explore the border between prose poetry and flash fiction. For writers of fiction, poetry, essay and memoir.

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

Write like mad, read brilliant books & deepen your craft while exploring new paths to inspiration. With novelist and poet Anya Achtenberg, .

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.

Learn the basics of fiction writing and submit weekly writing for feedback from Shelley Singer, author of 13 novels. It’s time to start.

It’s an age-old art form—storytelling—and you can learn the craft.

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

Create new work with fresh language, universal themes, sustained mystery and memorable characters. Stimulate your imagination.

Many students have attended this 10-week online fiction workshop with Shelley Singer multiple times, completed novels, and come back to finish more books.

Relationships are an important feature of fiction—and not just romances! If your non-romance work has love involved, learn the ropes in this 5 week course, open to writers of all genres.

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

Join Susan in two writing circles each week: intimate spaces for writers to free-write together, saying yes to whatever shows up, followed by group read-arounds. These writing sessions are spontaneous, intimate, freeing, and transformative.

The artist’s statement is essential to applying for grants, fellowships, MFA programs and residencies. Writes yours in this one day workshop.

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

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.

Join our writing circle to form a writing community, find clarity in your words, and turn your untamed free-writes into poetry and/or prose.

Picture books have changed greatly over the last few decades, and the market is wide open for fresh ideas. Join us in this six-week intensive where we’ll take that idea of yours and turn it into a manuscript!

If you turn on to the absurd in life—to the ironic, edgy, bizarre, and grotesque—this is the course for you. Learn the key techniques of writing absurdist fiction, dark fiction, and satire.

Jump-start your creative juices, and explore a world of divination, symbolism, and imagery right at your fingertips: learn short story and novel writing through Tarot.