Our online classes are offered throughout the year. We occasionally also offer retreats and in-person workshops. See a class you’d like to take but registration isn’t open? Subscribe to our announcement mailing list to get notifications of new classes.
How can you create convincing characters who see the world in really different ways? Nisi Shawl’s talks and exercises explore the roots of religions and other models for understanding the universe, helping you to depict practitioners of non-dominant group faiths OR believers in your invented religions and cosmologies.
[...]
Bisexual author Cecilia Tan walks writers through the process of researching and representing characters who are not attracted exclusively to people of a single gender. Termed pansexual by some, bisexual by others (the “B” in LGBTQ), these sexual identities are among the most stigmatized and misunderstood, and are often represented by cliches and inaccurate stereotypes.
[...]
Get yourself ready to write a bunch of words in one month with writing exercises that will help you get to know your characters and world before you dive into them in earnest. Register for Writing the Other’s NaNo Prep Daily and get an exercise every day in October.
[...]
Gearing up for NaNoWriMo 2023? Before you put words to page, get to know your main character/s better in this Preptober workshop with authors Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford.
[...]
In this workshop, authors Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford will guide you through short writing exercises that will help you dive into aspects of your world that writers often overlook, but that impact your story and characters in major ways.
[...]
Writing great fiction often requires research. Whether you’re a writer who creates whole new worlds or futures, a writer who uses historical settings or events, or a writer crafting characters whose identities or cultures are very different from your own, you need to learn this skill.
[...]
Join bestselling and award-winning author Piper J. Drake for an exploration into the various relationships between principal characters and how the progression of those relationship arcs through the course of the story can drive plot forward.
[...]
Want to include neopronouns in your fiction and poetry but have questions about which to use, how to use them, or others? In this webinar Takács will examine how other writers have used neopronouns historically and in the present day, and consider distinctions between problematizing and normalizing neopronouns (and how to confidently use each approach in your own work).
[...]
In this webinar we’ll examine techniques for finding and accurately interpreting historical sources, go over ways to interrogate the dominant paradigm’s versions of the past, and learn how to focus our narratives on the lives of the formerly marginalized. Exercises, lectures, discussion, and examples work together to make this a powerful and energizing class for everyone ready to explore the exciting field of inclusive historical fiction.
[...]
Stories can wound or heal. In this webinar, award-winning author and editor Nisi Shawl will talk about the ways stories can hurt, the ways they can help, and how you can use their power–particularly when writing speculative fiction and alternate history. The webinar will review common stories with harmful effects and discuss ways to subvert or pass them by. The webinar also includes live exercises to provide practice in these valuable techniques.
[...]
