See also:
Creative Writing 101 Intensive

Creative Writing 101

Creative Writing 101

Creative Writing 101 is a 6-week class, which includes a mixture of lectures and exercises. It’s for beginners or anyone who wants a refresher. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.

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 idea is to explore—see with a writer’s eyes, spark ideas to life, gain confidence, and experiment with both fiction and nonfiction.

Creative writing is one of the most fulfilling ways to express yourself, and you’re never too young or too old to give it a try. Come on in. The water’s fine.

About Creative Writing 101
Creative Writing 101

It helped tap the mine of creativity in me.

Jane Clark

retired

Notes

This course includes both fiction and nonfiction prose.

The 101 courses do not include workshopping of student projects, but students write and receive feedback on writing exercises and assignments.

Upcoming Classes

InfoNYC classes are being scheduled. Please check back soon.

Price

Registration fee $25, paid once per term

6-Week

Syllabus

This course explores fiction and types of creative nonfiction, and the techniques that go with them. Course components:
     Lectures
     Writing exercises

New York City/Zoom classes
The syllabus varies from teacher to teacher, term to term. Many topics will be similar to those covered in the Online classes.

Online classes 
Week 1
OIL: The importance of having fun with writing. Exploration of the cornerstones of creative writing—observation, imagination, language.

Week 2 
Show and Tell: Understanding the difference between showing and telling. Techniques for showing—sensory, specificity, scenes.

Week 3
Individuality: The power of a journal. Writing what you know. Writing what you want to know. Finding your individual voice.

Week 4 
Fiction: The types and forms of fiction. Where to find fiction ideas. The basics of creating a story—characters, plot, point of view.

Week 5 
Nonfiction: Exploration of three types of creative nonfiction writing—memoir, personal essays, narrative nonfiction. Where to find nonfiction ideas.

Week 6 
Getting Better: Good habits. Battling the blank page. Revision. Reading as a writer. Where to go next?

Note: Content may vary among individual classes.

Teachers

Angie Chatman
Angie Chatman

Angie Chatman has told stories on The MOTH Radio Hour, StoryCollider, Stories from the Stage (The World Channel), and Boston's Fugitive Stories. Her essays and short fiction are forthcoming or have appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Taint, Taint, Taint, Pangyrus, the Rumpus, Blood Orange Review, Hippocampus, and Business Insider, among others. She has taught for the Boston Public Library and the University of Hartford. She holds an MBA from MIT-Sloan, and an MFA in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from Queens University of Charlotte.

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Divya Sood
Divya Sood

Divya Sood is the author of the novels Find Someone to Love and Nights Like This (both Riverdale Avenue Books). Her short stories have won the New Jersey Arts and Letters First Prize for Short Fiction and appeared in The Masters Review. She has taught at Rutgers University and Southern New Hampshire University. She holds a BA from Rutgers University, an MA in English, and an MFA in Fiction, both from New York University. 

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Erica Magrin
Erica Magrin

Erica Magrin has published short stories and essays in Aphros, Our Town, and Teen Ink, among others. Her play Make Believe was produced and staged at the Bridge Theater and the American Theatre of Actors, and her play Conversion was produced Off-Broadway at Theatre 54. She is an editor at Lamplight Publishing, and has worked for Persea Books, Macmillan Publishers, Disney Publishing, and Simon & Schuster. She holds a BA and an MS in Publishing from Pace University.

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Kesi Augustine
Kesi Augustine

Kesi Augustine is the author of the picture books Faith Takes the Train (HarperCollins), Hope for the Honeybees and Whales of Wonder. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts, Crawl Space Journal, Winter Tangerine, TulipTree Review, and For Harriet, among others. Her essays have appeared in USA Today and Connected Academics, the blog of the Modern Language Association. When she was 14, she won the New York MTA’s Poetry in Motion contest, and her poem “Sleepless” was featured on subway trains throughout the city for a year. She teaches K-12 Language Arts in a Florida special education program, and formerly taught at the Bard High School Early College Program, New York University, and as a writing assistant for Williams College. She holds a BA from Williams College, and an MA and a Ph.D in English (Children’s Literature) from New York University.

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Nelsie Spencer
Nelsie Spencer

Nelsie Spencer is the author of the novel The Playgroup, (St. Martin’s Press). She wrote the feature screenplay A Girl's Best Friend and co-wrote the feature film Valley Inn, which debuted at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. She wrote, produced, and co-hosted the radio show The Radio Ritas, (Greenstone Media) and hosted the podcast Losing It. She co-wrote and starred in the play My Heart Belongs To Daddy, produced at the Pittsburgh Public Theater and Duke University’s Pre-Broadway series. She performed her one-woman show Day of the Dead Daddy at the Chain Theatre in New York City, at the Denver Fringe Festival, and it won an honorable mention in Solo Fest at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco. She studied dance and theater at Orange Coast College, and fiction at The New School.

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Scott LaCounte
Scott LaCounte

Scott LaCounte (also writing as Scott Douglas) is a long-time contributor to McSweeney’s, from which his humor series was turned into the memoir Quiet, Please: Dispatches From a Public Librarian (Da Capo Books). He has independently published a wide range of books on religion, as well as books for children and in the science fiction and humor genres. He holds a BA from California State University-Fullerton, and an MLIS in Library Science from San Jose State University.

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