Fiction Classes in Los Angeles, CA

Add some creativity to your week from the comfort of your own home This long-standing in-person generative, creative writing workshop, which took place in West Hollywood, CA, for 15 years, has switched to an online format so you can now join us from anywhere. Tap into your creative side, write work that will surprise you, and learn a few things along...

Fiction is a wonderful conjuring act. With only words and the reader’s imagination, a work of fiction can sail across the world in pursuit of a whale, or time-travel to another dimension, or zero in on a few minutes in line at the local bank, enveloping the reader in a made-up story that feels real.  To pull off this feat requires a balance...

Fiction is a wonderful conjuring act. With only words and the reader’s imagination, a work of fiction can sail across the world in pursuit of a whale, or time-travel to another dimension, or zero in on a few minutes in line at the local bank, enveloping the reader in a made-up story that feels real. To pull off this feat requires a balance of craftsmanship,...

Writing for comics demands a “very particular set of skills,” unlike any other form of writing, but sharing traits of screenwriters and playwrights. The key is being able to think in pictures, and visualize your story in a frozen moment in time of still, single images. Over the four-week class with acclaimed comics writer Ron Marz, you will learn...

Students will attend NYC Level 1 writing classes at their scheduled times via video chat (with or without cameras enabled) or by calling in to the live chat with your phone. Your exercises will be shared electronically, and the format of the live class will be the same as when you attend class in person, with students and teachers responding to your...

Learn the fundamentals of creating comic strips, graphic novels and cartoons in this class for writers and artists. Discover how to create a strong, compelling storyline, how to create characters and illustrate body language and facial expression, how to match words and pictures. Working in small groups to enable each student to receive individual...

Get words on the page and meet other writers in this online creative writing workshop that focuses on personal writing. Your Story Matters Add some creativity to your week from the comfort of your own home. Tap into your creative side, write work that will surprise you, get to know yourself and your own story in this personal writing workshop. This...

In the peaceful atmosphere of the Saturday workshop, and with the help of meditations that quiet the critical mind, writing becomes possible, cathartic, transformational. You can write memoir or fiction. Each workshop is focused around an inspirational theme or myth. You’ll write three times for about one hour each time, and receive constructive,...

Are you eager to test the waters of creative writing but not sure where to start, or how? Have you written previously but been away for a while and hope to dip back in? Here you will be guided surely and safely into the writing life. There’s no pressure to work on a specific project or even settle on which type of creative writing you prefer. The...

Every writer needs a good editor to push the work to its best possible state. But your work won’t reach a professional editor unless it’s already in excellent shape. A dilemma, to be sure. That’s why you need to be a skilled editor of your own work. Perhaps your great ideas and stories are clouded by such things as clunky language, pallid verbs,...

As Rhett tells Scarlett in the movie Gone With the Wind, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” (In the book version, there’s no “frankly.”) Either way it’s a good line, and you should give a damn about your dialogue. Dialogue is crucial to any kind of story—fiction, nonfiction, any kind of script. Bad dialogue can sink it like a...

Note: This is primarily a lecture class with some in-class exercises but not everyone will get to share their writing for feedback due to the seminar format. Have you dreamed about getting a short story published in a literary journal like McSweeney’s? Now’s your chance! In this 1-Day Online lecture format Short Story Intensive class, successful...

Every life holds many tales. Whether your life is wildly unconventional or relatively normal, there’s bound to be something fascinating about it. That’s why the contemporary memoir—everyday people telling their stories—has become such a popular phenomenon. A memoir covers an aspect of a life, whether it’s a short piece about, say, a bicycle...

Are you eager to test the waters of creative writing but not sure where to start, or how? Have you written previously but been away for a while and hope to dip back in? Here you will be guided surely and safely into the writing life. There’s no pressure to work on a specific project or even settle on which type of creative writing you prefer. The...

Writers often find their richest material in their everyday lives. This material is easy to overlook as too pedestrian because it’s hard to see what’s so close to us. The exceptional poet James Schuyler revealed his longing for home in writing about his breakfast and Yannis Ritsos revealed his and his fellow prisoners’ anguish in exile in writing...