Creative Writing Classes

I teach generative classes that help writers tap into the liberating power of constraints, the complexities of aliveness, and creative practices that nurture and inspire the artistic self.

This winter, I’m offering generative classes and workshops (all live and online):

• Spring Generative Writing Circle | Theme: TRANS- | 3 sessions, Tuesdays, April 15, 22, and 29; Online, hosted by me
  Writing circles are intimate hands-on sessions designed to generate new writing and conviviality. The next circle will explore TRANS- as in “across, through, on the other side of; beyond.” What dies, what is born, and what changes in the act of crossing over or through membranes and borders? What thrives in the ecotone between one thing and another—and what becomes possible when we linger in this space? Together, we’ll loosen the binary and fiddle with the predictable with the help of three liminal themes: translation, transmutation, and transhuman. $115 for the series. Contact me to be added to the waitlist.

• Potential Literature: Generative Writing with Oulipo Constraints | 6 sessions, Thursdays, Apr 24 to May 29, 2025, Online via Hugo House, 5 to 7 p.m. Pacific - Seats open
  Formed in France in 1960 by poet Raymond Queneau and mathematician François Le Lionnais, the members of Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle ~ Workshop for Potential Literature) found inspiration at the intersection of creative constraints and the freedom to break form. This course is a guide to the spirit and ethos of Oulipo and their collaborative experimental writing approach, designed to free the mind through creative constraints. Attendees will leave this hands-on course with a portfolio of new starts that can be developed further at hom. No prior knowledge or skills required other than a sense of curiosity and a desire to test, try, and experiment with new ideas.

• Following the Brush: Experimenting with the Zuihitsu Form | 6 sessions, May 6 to June 10, Online via Literary Arts, 5 to 7 p.m. Pacific — New!
  Zuihitsu, a Japanese literary form dating from 1000 AD, offers a flexible hybrid architecture for essaying—and poeming. Zuihitsu’s potency arises from its palimpsest of seeming randomness, contradiction, and disorder. Poet Kimiko Hahn calls zuihitsu “a fungus—not plant or animal, but a species unto itself.” In this generative class, we’ll explore the form’s history, then follow the brush into the ecotone between prose poem and lyric essay. Along the way, we’ll push, stretch, and experiment with the form’s possibilities for internal reflection. Writers will leave class with first drafts of zuihitsu on topics of their choosing, which can be further refined at home.

• Writing the Necropastoral: Generative Experiments in Occult Ecopoetics | 6 sessions, Thursdays, July 10 to August 14, Online via Morbid Anatomy, 4 to 6 p.m. Pacific / 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern
  In this generative writing class, poet Joyelle McSweeney’s vivid, pulsing notion of the Necropastoral will guide our artmaking into spectral nextness and uncanny entanglement—an ectoplasmic examination of ecology, mortality, poetics, and landscape. Each session will explore biological principles such as mutation, proliferation, contamination, and decay as creative forces for experimental and unexpected new writing.

  We’ll explore works by Don Mee Choi, Kim Hyesoon, Jane Wong, CAConrad, and Maya Jewell Zeller, whose hybrid and haunted poetry, prose, and translation expose the modern-day roots of the Necropastoral’s tentacles. We’ll consume heady draughts of inspiration in each session, then brew our own literary pharmakons.

• On Ghosts, Ghosting & Haunts | 6 sessions, Thursdays, September 18 to October 23, Online via Morbid Anatomy, 4 to 6 p.m. Pacific / 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern
  What is a ghost if not spirit energy yearning for form and expression? In our time together, we’ll create new writing in response to a mix of prompts and constraints that help us peer beyond the veil. Each week, we’ll explore a range of structures capable of hosting ghosts, from epistolary to erasure, concrete shapes, the haunted dialogues of contrapuntals, and the glorious twisting and (re)turning form of obsession: the sestina. What’s following us? What can we not bear to let go of? What can we finally put to rest? Let’s find out.

• Finishing School: Individual Writing in Community | Online
  Sometimes, to get writing done, we need camaraderie—and an appointment on the calendar. Finishing School is a space to work on individual projects in community. Think of it as study buddies, a virtual cafe, an accountability date… There’s no preparation, no homework, and no pressure to produce anything. Just show up, say a warm hello, and get crackin’ on whatever you wish. Finishing School is my gratis offering to the community of writers who join my writing circles each year.