Elevate your writing craft with focused, interactive workshops. Each course combines on-demand lectures, practical exercises, and live online sessions to provide a comprehensive learning experience. Join a community of passionate writers and take your storytelling to the next level.
November 2025: The Things They Carry
Sponsored by PennWriters – Full Course
Explore how characters’ interactions with objects can deepen your story. Learn to use props and “bits of business” to enhance characterization, add subtext, and propel your plot forward. Suitable for fiction writers of all levels and genres.
Format: Weekly on-demand lectures, worksheets, and live online workshop/feedback sessions with fellow writers
Duration: 4 weeks
When: Tuesdays 7-9pm, ET (November 4-25)
Price: $75 members, $100 non-members
Preliminary 2026 Schedule
Registration info and content details coming soon. All courses will be sponsored through Pennwriters Online Education program.
WRITING & MARKETING THE TELEVISION PILOT
Saturdays, 2 to 4pm, ET
Jan 10, 17, 24, 31
Feb 7, 14, 21, 28
Mar 7, 14
This comprehensive 10-week workshop guides participants from initial concept to industry-ready television pilot submission. Students begin by developing industry-standard series outlines and exploring the fundamentals of television writing craft, and then move into intensive weekly script page workshops where participants present pages for group critique and collaborative feedback. The course culminates with professional pitch preparation, including developing pitch bibles and decks, plus strategic guidance on approaching agents, managers, and screenwriting competitions. By combining hands-on writing practice with real-world industry preparation, this workshop provides both the creative skills and business acumen necessary for participants to professionally pursue television writing careers. The structured progression from concept to submission offers clear learning objectives and measurable outcomes that align with professional development goals.
BUSTING WRITER’S BLOCK
Tuesdays, 7 to 9pm, ET
June 9, 16, 23, 30
Break free from the paralysis of the blank page in this intensive 4-week workshop designed for writers across all mediums—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and beyond. Each 2-hour session combines proven psychological techniques with hands-on creative exercises to demolish the barriers keeping you from your best work. Week 1 focuses on identifying your unique block patterns and learning rapid-fire generation techniques like freewriting sprints and constraint-based exercises. Week 2 dives into reframing perfectionism and fear through cognitive restructuring and play-based approaches including writing games and collaborative exercises. Week 3 introduces sustainable workflow systems, from the Pomodoro Technique adapted for writers to developing personal rituals that signal your creative mind it’s time to work. Week 4 centers on relapse prevention—building your personalized toolkit of go-to strategies, creating accountability systems, and developing the self-compassion practices that keep you writing long after the workshop ends. Participants leave with a comprehensive “emergency kit” of techniques, a clearer understanding of their creative process, and most importantly, words on the page. No more staring at the cursor—just consistent, confident creativity. This course is designed to benefit fiction writers of all levels of experience and is not specific to any particular genre.
WHERE PLOT MEETS STORY
Tuesdays, 7 to 9pm, ET
August 4, 11, 18, 25
Most writers struggle with the fundamental misconception that plot and story are the same thing—but they’re not. Plot is what happens (the physical events), while story is why we care (the emotional journey). A plot without story is merely a series of events that leaves readers cold; a story without plot is characters spinning their wheels with nowhere to go. This intensive 4-week online course teaches writers across all mediums how to masterfully weave these two essential elements together. Through hands-on exercises, practical techniques, and weekly 2-hour workshops, participants will learn to create compelling plots that serve powerful emotional stories, transforming their writing from flat sequences of events into rich, engaging narratives that readers can’t put down. Whether you’re writing novels, screenplays, short stories, or any other form of fiction, this course will give you the tools to understand where plot truly meets story—and how to make that intersection the beating heart of your work. This course is designed to benefit fiction writers of all levels of experience and is not specific to any particular genre.
MASTERING DIALOGUE
Tuesdays, 7 to 9pm, ET
September 8, 15, 22, 29
Transform your dialogue from functional to unforgettable in this intensive 4-week workshop designed for writers across all mediums. Week 1 establishes the foundation with “Voice and Authenticity,” teaching participants to develop distinct character voices and break through dialogue-writing blocks using targeted exercises in subtext and speech patterns. Week 2, “Conflict and Tension,” explores how great dialogue drives plot forward while revealing character depth through disagreement, power dynamics, subtext, and what characters don’t say. Week 3 dives into “Advanced Techniques,” covering genre-specific dialogue challenges, cultural authenticity, period dialogue, and innovative formatting approaches for different mediums. The final week, “Revision and Polish,” focuses on editing dialogue for maximum impact, identifying and breaking personal writing patterns that lead to blocks, and developing sustainable practices for consistently strong dialogue. Each 2-hour session combines mini-lectures, hands-on writing exercises, peer feedback, and personalized coaching, ensuring participants leave with both improved skills and practical tools to prevent future creative stagnation. Writers will work with dialogue samples from their own projects while exploring techniques from screenwriting, novels, short stories, theater, and beyond. This course is designed to benefit fiction writers of all levels of experience and is not specific to any particular genre.
TACKLING THE REWRITE
Tuesdays, 2 to 4pm, ET
November 3, 10, 17, 24
Congratulations on completing your first draft! Now comes the crucial next step: transforming that wonderful yet messy manuscript into a polished, marketable work that will capture agents’ and editors’ attention. This intensive 4-week course equips both novelists and screenwriters with essential revision tools and industry knowledge to bridge the gap between “finished” and “ready to submit.”
Each session combines targeted revision techniques with live workshopping of participants’ opening pages. You’ll develop personalized revision tools including a Rewrite Plot Map and Character Story Maps, while learning to strengthen structure, deepen characters, and sharpen dialogue without losing your story’s unique voice. We’ll also explore current submission trends, craft compelling query letters, and build customized submission lists tailored to your specific project. By course end, you’ll have both a strategic revision roadmap and practical feedback on your opening pages—everything needed to confidently move from rough draft to submission-ready manuscript. This course welcomes fiction writers of all experience levels and genres. This course is designed to benefit fiction writers of all levels of experience and is not specific to any particular genre.