Creative Writing Classes

I offer generative classes that help writers tap into the liberating power of constraints, the complexities of aliveness, and creative practices that encourage lifelong learning, risk-taking, and artistic expression. My classes are always convened live and mainly offered online, which allows us to gather from around the world in a common space.

My upcoming classes and workshops include:

• Spring Writing Circle: Manifesto! | Tuesdays, March 10, 17, and 24, 5 to 7 p.m. PT | Online
  Writing circles are intimate creative cohorts designed to spark new writing and convivial critical discussion. This circle focuses on the form of the manifesto: a public declaration that illustrates reasons and motives for actions done or planned. To manifest is to bring to light—to make clear, apparent, and palpable. The manifesto is a communication and organizing tool for expressing and consolidating an ethos that guides and frames physical action, whether constructive or destructive. Our current moment challenges us to reconsider our values: what we believe in and the actions we’re willing to take. In this series, we’ll explore a range of manifestos, write several of our own, and share our evolving philosophies with each other. Two seats open! Email me at gATgabrieladenisefrankDOTcom to register.

• Hybrid and Haunted: Exploring Occult Ecopoetics | Thursdays, Apr 9 to May 14, 5 to 7 p.m. PT | Online via Literary Arts

  In this generative writing class, poet Joyelle McSweeney’s vivid notion of the Necropastoral will guide us into creative engagement with environmental writing, mortality, spells, and unconventional poetics. Biological principles such as mutation, contamination, and decay are transformed into artistic forces in works by McSweeney, Don Mee Choi, Kim Hyesoon, Jane Wong, CAConrad, and Maya Jewell Zeller. Their hybrid and haunted poetry and prose will help us explore the paradoxic beauty and harm of climate change, species loss, eco grief, and environmental disruption. What is the power of poetry in decadent times? “It’s what Plato wants to put back in the bottle,” McSweeney says, “the pharmakon—the cure that harms, the poison that heals.” We’ll consume heady draughts of inspiration from readings and discussions, then brew our own unexpected literary elixirs.

• Forms of Care: Writing the Mortal Body | Wednesdays, Apr 15 to May 6, 5 to 7 p.m. PT | Online via Hugo House 
  A study of mortality is a close reading of life: what we hold most dear and what we make of the time we’re given. At some point, we will offer care to someone experiencing ill-health and we will require such care ourselves, whether though aging, disease, or disability. This exchange of tenderness and acknowledgement of our shared mortality—the foundation of what it means to be human—is a fruitful landscape for creative reflection, risk-taking, and art making. This generative class offers opportunities for artistic expression related to health, disability, illness, senescence, and the mortal body in a supportive learning environment. In each session, will read and discuss a central text, write with in-class prompts, and share our freshly drafted words as a practice of self-care and care for each other. Writings from Victoria Chang, Alice Wong, Richard Siken, and Martha Silano will be our primary guides. Registration open soon.

• Thanatopoeisis: Generative Poetics of Death | Tuesdays, May 19 to June 16 ~ 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET | Online via Morbid Anatomy - seats open
  “The duty of the writer is to remind us that we will die—and that we aren’t dead yet,” notes poet Solmaz Sharif. This generative class is a mix of close reading, in-class writing, and critical conversation. Together, we will explore a range of literary forms, constraints, and creative approaches inspired by and related to death, including narrative, lyric, and hybrid works by Joyelle McSweeney, Victoria Chang, Denise Riley, Martha Silano, and Elias Canetti. Attendees will leave each session with new writing starts, a sense of self-exploration, and artistic experimentation on and off the page with this greatest of mysteries.

• Oulipian Experiments in Generative Writing | June 29 to 30 | In Person at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology
  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. We’ll explore the history of Oulipo and a range of constraints and nontraditional forms with a spirit of experimentation through readings and generative prompts. Attendees will leave this hands-on workshop with a portfolio of new starts that include lipograms, palindromes, anaphora, erasure, “found” texts, intaglio portraits, sestinas, and other constraint-based writing. Together we will become, as Queneau described, “rats who construct the labyrinth from which they plan to escape.” Registration open soon.

• Finishing School: Writing in Community | Online
  Sometimes, to get writing done, we need camaraderie—and a calendar appointment. Finishing School is a space to work on individual projects in community. Think of it as a supportive virtual cafe or an accountability date. We show up, say a warm hello and share what we’re working on, and get crackin’. Finishing School is my gratis offering to the community of writers who join my writing circles each year.
  

• Sales tax for Washington residents: Beginning October 1, 2025, a new Washington state law (ESSB 5814) requires sales tax to be collected on live and recorded classes and workshops taught by cultural organizations and freelance educators. Sales tax for online classes hosted by me will be calculated based on the student’s billing location. (If you live outside of Washington state, no sales tax is applied.) As a small business owner, I truly appreciate your patience and continued support as I navigate this unexpected impact to our creative ecosystem. Note: This sales tax does not apply to one-on-one coaching or editorial consulting services.