All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.

Have you been working on a memoir seemingly forever without much forward progress? (Or not working on your memoir and beating yourself up for it?) Commit to this 11-week momentum-generating intensive container, where we’ll figure out what your next steps need to be and support you in making them happen.

In this 9-hour virtual intensive, learn tools for drafting activating trauma scenes, break down the micro-level craft choices essential to writing about rape or molestation, and get clear on what it means to you to add your voice to the cultural conversation, all with the support of an intimate community of like-minded survivors.

In this eight-week asynchronous class for prose writers, we’ll dive into how scenes work and what they accomplish, exploring how scenes develop characters, seed tension, establish place and time, facilitate flashbacks, soften research, and build deeper themes in a story/essay.

The first fifty pages of a memoir have the power to snag (or lose!) the attention of agents, editors, and readers. In this 6-week workshop, we'll read the first 50 pages of four published memoirs, excavating the ways authors set up their primary tensions, structures, and voice, coming to understand the craft choices that build propulsivity, and channeling this into your work-in-progress.

Have you been working on a memoir seemingly forever without much forward progress? (Or not working on your memoir and beating yourself up for it?) Commit to this 11-week momentum-generating intensive container, where we’ll figure out what your next steps need to be and support you in making them happen.

Come find me at the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Saturday, May 20!

How can a memoirist build vibrant scenes from foggy memories? In this 6-week workshop over Zoom through Hugo house, writers will complete generative challenges intended to help them recover material from previous periods of their lives, learning strategies for turning this material into rich, riveting prose.

Have you been working on a memoir seemingly forever without much forward progress? (Or not working on your memoir and beating yourself up for it?) Commit to this nine-week momentum-generating intensive container, where we’ll figure out what your next steps need to be and support you in making them happen.

In this 6-hour intensive hosted by Seattle’s Hugo House, explore whether your story is best told as an essay collection or in a memoir by identifying potential "centers of gravity," considering the arc of your narrator’s change, reckoning with repetitive elements, discussing unifying features, pinpointing your work's central questions, and confronting whether shame, fear, or an aversion to the work of dismantling existing essays could be shaping your book.

Our most powerful stories can be the most brutal to write, leaving us frustrated, traumatized, and stuck. What gets in the way? How can we push forward without damaging our mental and physical health? In this 8-week nonfiction class online through Catapult, we’ll build a craft toolbox for unlocking urgent stories that have so far resisted telling.

Do the holidays tend to throw off your writing practice? Commit to writing in community over Zoom for four weeks this December and January. Generate new work, discuss craft components of published essays, and enjoy peer feedback on one short essay, gaining rather than losing writing momentum in the midst of cocktails, cookies, and in-laws.