“Writer’s block” gets thrown around a lot in writing spaces but is rarely defined. In theory, it doesn’t need to be defined because we all know the feeling…and giving it too much attention is akin to looking at the monster too closely in a horror movie. It invites the bad thing in. But I think it’s useful to actually talk about what writer’s block means, because it comes in many different forms. Acknowledging this can help defeat it.

Despite the trope commonly found in movies, rarely does writer’s block actually look like literally staring at an empty document or page, slack-jawed and glass-eyed, no thoughts arriving. More often, it looks like getting stuck in a novel draft, unsure what comes next. Writing an essay that feels like it’s moving in circles rather than ever arriving at a coherent point. Knowing a sentiment you want to express in said essay but struggling to find the right words to do so. Concocting a character for fiction who you’re not quite sure what to do with. Having some but not all of the pieces can lead one to feeling stuck, uninspired, and overwhelmed by ideas (yes, I believe blocks are born from an abundance of ideas but lack of focus rather than a dearth of ideas). Blocks can take different shapes and sizes. Which is why I also don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all approach to getting yourself out of them.

The most common advice is to read. That is great advice. It works in many cases and for many people. Engaging deeply with literature gets the gears moving.

But what about the times it doesn’t? Or what if your writing practice already builds in plenty of time to read, so doing so isn’t really a change of course? Because that’s what a block often requires: a disruption. You must do or seek out something slightly out of the ordinary. That’s where your creativity lives and thrives.

For this reason, I often go beyond the old “just read” adage when I feel a block looming over my writing sessions; I seek out inspiration and reinvigoration from other artforms. If you’re a multidisciplinary artist, you already know the power of letting different mediums feed each other. But even for those who work in multiple art forms, my advice is to step outside of all of them and seek out art in areas in which you do not work. See what you can learn from the practices you aren’t constantly trying to master. Story is everywhere: in songs, short films, paintings, tapestries, photographs, a child’s mosaic made of shells. Sometimes, looking at stories that take different shapes than your body of work can help you unlock new ideas and pull you right out of that block.

So yes, read a book, but also go to a museum. Maybe one where you live that you have not been to before; maybe one you’ve been to many times. The beauty of museums is that you likely haven’t engaged deeply with every single piece on display; even the small ones usually have rotating exhibits. And yes, I realize “go to a museum with a notebook and find inspiration” is a frustratingly broad prompt, which is why I won’t send you empty-handed. Here is the writing prompt I’ve used time and again, in all kinds of museums, which begins as a sort of straightforward journaling prompt but has often led to fully realized essays, short stories, and flash pieces.

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What you’ll learn

1. Why Stephen King never lets a character just “grab a beer” — and what he reaches for instead

2. The sensory trick that drops readers straight into your scene

3. How to spot the one unique detail that does the work of a whole paragraph

4. Two exercises to train your eye for what you’ve been walking past

By the end, you’ll have a repeatable way to find details that make readers feel a scene instead of skim past it. The three exercises below are where that starts — and they’re yours to keep.

✰

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Why Do Details Matter So Much

Details are the building blocks of description. The words and bits of information you choose can bring characters, settings, objects, and feelings to life on the page. They create the images readers see in their minds and connect them to the story through their senses and emotions. Details also ground readers by establishing the places and people in the story, distinguishing one character or setting from another, and creating a sense of reality, or in some stories, otherworldliness. Details also support the story’s larger purpose and can serve as meaningful touchstones throughout a piece.

As writers, we often become deeply immersed in our own narratives and stories and can forget that the reader can’t see, sense, or feel what we’ve experienced or imagined. We must continually show them through storytelling, with the action, scenes, and carefully chosen details.

How to Mine for Details

To find the right details for your writing, you need to pay attention, observe closely, and notice what’s happening in the world around you that might otherwise be overlooked or ignored. This takes practice.

Here are two exercises to get you started.

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Hiya, welcome to The Forever Workshop.

First time? Read this first »

Back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

A workshop for:

Writers who want to translate their feelings around grief onto the page with sensitivity and resonance.

Your instructor:

Helene Kiser — certified grief coach, memoirist, creative writing teacher and editor

Takeaways:

• How to convey real emotion to your readers through concrete details

• How to use imagery to create impactful comparisons

• How to capture a devastating moment with quietness

• How to preserve the messy texture of grief with subtlety

• How to use the body to render emotion without naming it

By the end of this workshop, you’ll have the practical tools to write about deeply meaningful experiences with nuance and authenticity, so that readers think, “Yes, that’s exactly how it feels.”

Getting Right (on the Page) the Things Went Wrong

Grief and trauma are among the most universal human experiences in existence, which is precisely what makes them so difficult to render on the page.

When we sit down to write about grief or trauma, we might believe the subject matter alone will carry the writing. Our loss is so enormous, the wound so deep, the reader won’t be able to help but feel our pain. Its weight will transfer automatically from the page to the chest, the way a stone drops into water.

It doesn’t.

Readers don’t share the experience of our suffering simply because it happened. But they do disengage if that experience is written predictably.

Here’s another inconvenient truth: While enormous and all-consuming to those of us in their grip, both are, on the surface, boring. “Someone I loved died and now I’m broken” may be true, but it sure isn’t interesting for a reader. Neither is “a terrible trauma happened to me and it changed my life.” As pieces of writing, they’re locked doors. The reader knocks, waits, and eventually walks away.

Pouring grief or trauma into a journal or talking it through with a therapist serves a real and important purpose. But it isn’t the same thing as crafting an experience for a reader who wasn’t there, doesn’t know you, and owes you nothing.

Getting this right isn’t about being brave enough to go there. It’s about being precise enough, patient enough, and honest enough to stay there and to resist every instinct that pulls you toward the comfortable, the familiar, and the safe.

Before we get to the principles, one structural idea worth holding onto throughout: Grief and trauma writing operates on two levels at once. The first is the surface — what happened. The sequence of events, the basic storyline, the facts as they unfolded. This happened, then this, then this. That layer matters. It’s the architecture your reader moves through.

The level that makes this writing worth reading runs underneath. It’s the meaning layer: what the loss or violation revealed, how it broke the world open, how it rearranged the way you move through your life. The best grief and trauma writing isn’t just a record of events. It’s an attempt (often struggling, often unresolved) to understand what those events did to you. Not to report the wound, but to trace its shape.

With that architecture in mind, here’s where the writing most commonly goes wrong — and how to fix it.

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Hiya, welcome to The Forever Workshop.

First time? Read this first »

Back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

A workshop for:

Any writer who wants to make their characters’ first encounters feel memorable, engaging, and full of possibility.

Your instructor:

Steve Chang (fiction editor at Okay Donkey) in conversation with Autumn Watts (former editor at Guernica) — co-founders of Lit Match Collective

Takeaways:

• A guide to basic 4-phase scene construction

• The essentials of pre-meet setups

• How to converting passive readers into participants

• And what every writer should know about tension and consequence

In this workshop, fiction editors Steve and Autumn explore the fundamental elements of a successful meet-cute and break down a real life story excerpt to show you how it all works in real time. By the end, you’ll know how to craft a character encounter that hooks the reader and leaves them feeling invested — earning tension rather than announcing it.

The Art of the “Meet-Cute”

Today you’re getting a masterclass in making character encounters matter as we explore the components of a successful “meet-cute”.

For those not familiar, the meet-cute is the first encounter between potential romantic partners under conditions that are adorable, unusual, or awkward. Basically: they meet. And it’s cute.

The meet-cute is a staple of romance and rom-coms, but can be applied to all genres and make any first encounter more impactful and interesting.

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Hiya, welcome to The Forever Workshop.

First time? Read this first »

Back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

A workshop for:

Any writer who wants to bring a little ritual to their creative process and manifest the heck out of their writing goals.

Your instructor:

Erin Karbuczky — writer and educator who teaches craft and the creative process with a touch of the mystical. She also writes about pop culture and tech through a queer/feminist lens.

Takeaways:

• Build a practical toolkit of spiritual, ritualistic, and meditative practices for your writing routine

• Draw inspiration from ancient, everyday cycles (ever wonder why poets have a thing about the moon...?)

• Manifest your writing goals with affirmations, scripting, and inspired action, just like Octavia Butler.

• Play with prompts, exercises, and magical practices designed to stretch your creativity

By the end of this workshop you’ll have seven new ways to add a little witchery into your writing process — because, as we all know deep down, words are full of magic…

How to Use Manifestation, Ritual & Spirituality to Enhance Your Creative Process

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Hiya, welcome to The Forever Workshop.

First time? Read this first »

Back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

A workshop for:

Writers who want to learn how sentences work (and why sometimes they don’t) so they can self-edit with confidence.

Your instructor:

Helene Kiser — editor, writing teacher and book coach, specializing in personal essays, narrative non-fiction and memoir.

Takeaways:

• Identify the eight common weaknesses that drain your sentences of power

• A 6 step self-editing framework you can use on any piece of writing

• Recognize when breaking the rules might strengthen your work

• Edit your sentences without losing what makes your writing sound like you

• Diagnose whether a sentence problem is about clarity, rhythm, or voice — and fix it accordingly

By the end of this workshop you’ll have learned how to transform barely functional sentences into lines that sparkle with hands-on exercises to sharpen your editorial eye across poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Self-editing — Sentence by Sentence

Why self-editing is the most important skill to learn as a writer

The cold truth is that readers don’t owe us their time. We have to earn it, sentence by sentence.

But here’s the thing about sentences: they’re sneaky little devils. When we’re drafting, we’re focused on getting the story down, the argument made, the image captured. But sometimes when we go back and read, something feels... off. Sentences that felt perfectly fine while we were writing them now sound flat. Or muddy. Or like they’re trying to run a marathon while wearing concrete shoes.

But that moment when you reread your work and think “why isn’t this working?” isn’t failure. It’s the beginning of real craft. And improving our editorial eye really is the key to producing good (or great!) writing.

The problem is, well, self-editing can be hard.

As writers, our noggins autocorrect mistakes and fill in gaps before we even notice they’re there.

Or maybe we’re too close to our work to be truly objective. What structural problems? Plot hole where? No logical flaw in that! Whaddya mean I haven’t clarified Aunt Suzie’s obsession with button collecting?

Or we’re just too attached, Gollum-style: My precious, precious, precious words!

The good news? Self-editing at the sentence level stands as one of the soft AND hard skills you can continually improve with practice. And today we’re going to learn some quick, easy strategies to get you started…

The 8 Enemies of Strong Sentences

Before we talk about what makes sentences work, let’s identify what makes them stumble. This is of course not an exhaustive list but a round-up of the usual suspects — the patterns that sneak into our drafts and sap our prose of energy.

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Hey writer-friend. New to The Forever Workshop? Read this. Back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today…

A workshop for:

Writers who want to condense their craft into tiny, powerful pieces of writing.

Key takeaways:

• Learn what micro prose is and draft your first piece

• Big mistakes to avoid in micro works

• How to create impact and meaning in a short piece of writing

• Titling technique (seriously who better to learn from)

Your instructor:

Darien Gee — award-winning micro memoirist, author of five novels, teacher of creative non-fiction at UCLA and founder of , helping writers master the art of micro prose

Micro Prose 101

Welcome, writers!

I’m Darien Gee, and today we’re diving into one of my favorite short forms: the micro.

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to craft tiny stories that pack enormous emotional punch. We’ll explore what makes micro prose different from other short forms, discover why constraints can be your creative superpower, and practice techniques that transform fleeting moments into unforgettable prose.

The most powerful stories often emerge from small moments and careful attention. Let’s find out how...

What Is Micro?

I define micro as 300 words or fewer, not including the title — a simple constraint that changes everything about how you approach your story.

Think of micro as a snapshot, not a movie. You’re capturing one perfect frame that suggests an entire story rather than telling it. Here are a few more elements of micro:

1. Brief but complete: There’s a beginning, middle, and end.

2. Focused on one moment or idea: There’s no room for tangents or multiple stories.

3. Precise in language: Every word must earn its place.

4. Emotionally resonant: It lingers with the reader long after they’ve finished reading.

This layout generally fits on one page with generous white space — I refer to it as a basket holding your narrative. It feels clean, direct, and distilled. The visual simplicity reinforces the clarity of the prose and subtly influences the words.

Let’s see how this works with Brenda Miller’s piece, Swerve (289 words), originally published in Brevity:

Swerve

I’m sorry about that time I ran over a piece of wood in the road. A pound of marijuana in the trunk and a faulty brake light—any minute the cops might have pulled us over, so you were edgy already, and then I ran over that piece of stray lumber without even slowing down. Thunk, thunk, and then the wood spun behind us on the road. Your dark face dimmed even darker, and you didn’t yell at first, only turned to look out the window, and I made the second mistake: What’s wrong? That’s when you exploded. You’re so careless, you don’t even think, what if there had been a nail in that damn thing, you yelled, your face so twisted now, and ugly. And I’m always the one that has to fix it whenever something breaks.

I’m sorry, I said, and I said it again, and we continued on our way through the desert, in the dark of night, with the contraband you had put in our trunk, with the brake light you hadn’t fixed blinking on and off, me driving because you were too drunk, or too tired, or too depressed, and we traveled for miles into our future, where eventually I would apologize for the eggs being overcooked, and for the price of light bulbs, and for the way the sun blared through our trailer windows and made everything too bright, and I would apologize when I had the music on and when I had it off, I’d say sorry for being in the bathroom, and sorry for crying, and sorry for laughing, I would apologize, finally, for simply being alive, and even now I’m sorry I didn’t swerve, I didn’t get out of the way.

How/why does it work?

Let’s look at those elements again:

1. Brief but complete:

For some stories, the beginning/middle/end may be emotional as well as physical. In Swerve, the beginning is the moment the speaker drives over the wood. That’s when everything begins. Next (the middle) is context (present moment contraband in trunk, the strained exchange, the past of realizing every moment of apology). The end is less about the physical arrival to a place but the hard-earned emotional arrival to regret.

2. Focused on one moment or idea:

The one focus/idea here is about apology and regret, radiating from that single piece of wood in the road.

3. Precise in language:

At 289 words, Miller effectively tells this story via repetition and dialogue. Other ways she uses language to do some work for her: the foreboding thunk thunk of the wood (the reader hears and feels that moment); “Your dark face dimmed even darker” (setting the emotional tone while also raising the stakes; the reader is now nervous and alert); the escalating lists of apologies until the end.

4. Emotionally resonant:

Last lines in micro are where the reader leaves the story, and Miller leaves us with: “I’m sorry I didn’t swerve, I didn’t get out of the way.” The reader now understands this means more than avoiding the wood on the road. It’s also where she finds her title, which we also now understand on multiple levels.

Writing with Constraint

Writing short is not just about word count, but about what’s possible within a specific limit. After years of experimenting and teaching micro, I’ve found the 300-word form to be the perfect short-form storytelling container. It allows enough space for detail without requiring excessive backstory or explanation.

In a moment, we’ll look at some more examples and prompts to get you writing, but first, here’s how I teach micro prose using three constraints:

1. The Constraint of Focus / Intention

Before writing, clarify your focus: what moment or feeling do you want to explore? Enter your writing session with deliberation and clarity. Set your intention and then let it go.

2. The Constraint of Time

Set a ten minute timer for your first draft — no more, no less. Trust me on this. The time constraint bypasses your inner critic and connects you to memory and emotion. You know you only have so much time to say what needs to be said. The more you practice this, the better you’ll get at hitting the ground running when the timer goes off.

A couple of notes: if you finish early, keep writing. Sometimes the story turns in the final moments, those last few seconds. When the timer goes off, you must stop. Finish your sentence or thought, and don’t worry if the piece doesn’t feel complete or doesn’t make sense (that’s what revision is for).

3. The Constraint of Word Count

First draft: don’t worry about word count for this generative effort. If you’re using the 10-minute constraint, you’ll end up in the range of 75-500 words. The 300-word constraint comes in during revision. Your final draft should be 300 words or fewer, not including the title.

The constraint of micro helps writers of all genres distill a moment to its most essential emotional truth. I recommend starting with whatever is easy and true (and by true I am referring to emotional truth), and then start experimenting. The key is to know what the burning moment of a piece is and then set about practicing how to set that moment on fire.

To help you do just that, here are some more examples and prompts using some of the techniques we’ve looked at so far:

Capturing the Burning Moment

The Visitation by Beth Ann Fennelly (130 words)

I remember being in the car on the way to my sister’s surprise funeral. In the backseat, I think. I can’t imagine who was driving. At a stop sign my head swiveled to a flicker in the roadside greenery: a fox, poking its snout from between two bushes. I thought, or chose to think, That is my sister. That is my sister, come back in animal form to tell me it’s okay. She’s okay. I’ll be okay.

But it was not okay. She was not okay. I would not be okay. I would not be okay for so long that when okay arrived it couldn’t place me. It looked right past the veil of shivering leaves, my long red snout, my gloved paws swiping tears into my little black mouth.

— Published in Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs (WW Norton & Co, 2017)

Fennelly doesn’t waste any time getting to the point. We know what has happened in the first line: my sister’s surprise funeral. But the clear burning moment of the piece is not that fact. It’s the vision of a fox that transforms itself into both the speaker and the sister, the embodiment of love, loss and grief.

The Brief but Complete Story:

Inheritance by Edward Hirsch (22 words):

When Kurt became my father, his parents became my grandparents. I adopted them as my own. Their history became my history too.

— Published in My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy (Knopf, 2025)

Some might say this just backstory. But when we’re talking economy of prose, it’s not just how you say it (or in how many words), but what you say. What is conveyed in these handful of words? You could, in fact, call this a micro love story.

Using Concise and Precise Language

Apple Cake by Abigail Thomas (175 words)

I am not a girl. I am the grandmother of six. I bake cakes for all my grandchildren. My name is synonymous with “cake.” I have taught them this. Nana, Cake, and they clap their little hands. Apple cake, this is my specialty. In the past twelve days I have baked seven apple cakes for seven separate occasions. These cakes contain walnuts and raisins as well as golden oil and apples. You would beg me for a slice if you could see these cakes. You would beg for their perfume alone. They do well for holidays. Thanksgiving, for example. Anniversaries. I have had my good times and my bad. This was long ago, my dears, before most of you were born. I was not a prudish girl. Nor was I wise. When I was young I gave myself away; it was all I had to offer. But not today. Today I will bake a cake. The cake is not a metaphor. Say the words “apple cake.” Apple cake. See how the mouth fills with desire.

— Published in Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life (Anchor Books, 2001)

The speaker lays it all out — no flowery language or sugarcoating the details, no elaborate backstory — she offers only what we need to know. And yet, Apple Cake covers a lot of ground: When I was young I gave myself away; it was all I had to offer. As for language, she invites the reader to experience the very words (Say the words “apple cake.”). She engages our senses: You would beg for their perfume alone. The final line brings in so much longing and happiness: See how the mouth fills with desire.

Titles

Let’s talk titles for a second. Titles are important. Like, really important.

Naming our work helps it land and reinforces for us that our writing has value and possibility.

Titles help a piece take form, and they are one of the most important elements of micro writing. You must title every piece when you write it. I’m talking about the first draft. It’s part of the magic of micro and separates this in your mind from “just another piece of writing” that eventually gets lost. Titles have the capacity to do some heavy lifting in micro prose, helping you save valuable word count real estate for the piece itself.

If titles stress you out, just adapt the prompt (if the prompt was “write about a keychain,” call your piece “Keychain”), look inside the micro for a word or phrase, or go with an emotion that feels adjacent. Treat it as a “working title” for now — the piece may change during revision and demand a new name. But until then, call it something.

Redrafting & Developing Your Micro

I am a big believer in first drafts when it comes to micro, and what these drafts are trying to show us. It’s important to take a moment to first understand what has shown up on the page. See if you can articulate for yourself what the piece ended up being about and then decide how you want to revise the work.

Sometimes it makes sense to revise a piece immediately, and other times it makes sense to sit with it for a bit. Note interesting words or phrases, even ones you don’t understand, even typos or misspellings. Is there an emotional weight to the piece? What is revealed at the end — what becomes known? If you chose one or two emotions that capture the piece, where does it show up? Look for an anchor phrase or sentence that is a pivot point (aka your burning moment).

Here are some quick tips for revising your drafts, and some common pitfalls to avoid:

Micro Revision Strategies

• Read-Aloud Test: Catch rhythm and clunkiness. Notice when your voice lifts or slows. Ask why.

• Necessity Question: Ask, “What happens if I cut this?” Then cut it anyway and see if it works. The first and last sentences are always good candidates, too.

• Synonym Search: Replace phrases with single words, eg: walked quickly → hurried.

• 5Ws and 1H Review: Welcome back to elementary school! Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? You don’t have to include all of this, but when re-reading your work, see how much detail you included for each. You can apply this same lens to published pieces you love and you’ll be surprised at how many of the 5W’s and 1H are included overall.

Common Micro Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)

Read Like a Micro Writer

You may have heard this elsewhere but I’ll say it again here — reading makes us better writers. This is absolutely true for micro, which allows us to do more than, say, dissecting an 85,000-word novel or memoir. That would not only take forever, but would only be one book. As writers, we benefit from reading widely and broadly, and you could read (and study) hundreds of micros in the time it would take you to read one book. This means your chances of getting good at writing micro (because you’re robustly reading micro) is exponentially increased over other literary forms.

Reading micro is not only fast, but you can do several reads of a single piece to really understand the architecture of the work. Always read first as a reader, without a highlighter or red pen — just read for the pure enjoyment of it. That’s three minutes, maybe five. Then go back and read as a writer. This means you want to understand how the author made choices about the piece. What’s happening in the first line? The last? What words or phrases grab you? How does the author impart information about the 5Ws/1H so the reader has some idea of time and place? What techniques do this use to pull you in and keep you reading until the end? Or did you stop? Where? Why?

When we read as writers, it matters less if we “like” a piece. What matters is “how” a writer accomplished what they did in the space available, and if any of those tools might be helpful to you and your writing.

Keep writing, drafting and refining. And once you have a small body of work, think about sending it out. You can submit to literary magazines that focus on flash and short prose, or go for a standard literary magazine that might like to include some micro amongst their fiction, non-fiction, poetry and art. I recommend having at least nine micros you can mix and match, and submit 3-5 per submission call. Follow the submission guidelines, but many editors are willing to treat micros of 300 words or less as they would poetry submissions.

(See the resources section below for more advice on submitting to lit mags — and a list of some of my favorite short prose authors on Substack.)

A Final Thought on Small Moments

Your voice doesn’t get smaller in micro — it gets clearer and more concentrated. Writing in miniature teaches us to notice what matters: a gesture, a word, a pause, a breath. The smallest stories often reveal the largest truths. Every micro you write is a distillation of attention and care. The more you practice the form, you’ll find that small can hold everything.

Share Your Micro:

More Micro Writing Resources:

A 12-part comprehensive guide to flash fiction:

Create atmosphere & tension using sensory details:

Or use the gift of the gag for some funny flash:

Learn how to edit your work with a professional eye:

Find everything you need to submit your micro to lit mags here:

And join Darien’s next micro prose workshop here:

Writer-ish with Darien Gee

SHORT, SHAPED, SUBMITTED: Writing, Revising, and Submitting Micro Prose Workshop

Dates: April 7 – May 12, 2026…

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6 months ago · 7 likes · 3 comments · Darien Gee

Recommended short prose authors on Substack:

Hey, welcome to The Forever Workshop! First time? Read this. Back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today…

A workshop for:

Writers who want the full picture of today’s publishing world (TikTok, Substack, Zines) and how to navigate it on their own terms.

Key takeaways:

• What multimedia is and how writers are using it

• Choosing images, audio, and video to compliment your work

• How to find collaborators i.e. photographers, illustrators, designers

• Where to publish your writing so it actually gets read

Your instructor:

Daphne Bryant — Gen-Z writer, creative director and editor-in-chief of Dreamworldgirl Zine

Multimedia for Writers

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Learn to write flawlessly fucked-up, halting, gorgeously messy and staggeringly good REAL dialogue! This is a fun, exploratory, and interactive workshop (think public eavesdropping as homework!) where we learn to identify and adore the perfect imperfection of how “real humans really talk.”

Mushy, sentimental, robot-stiff, ridiculously poetic, or full of cloying exposition? Dialogue that hasn’t been trained on real human conversation is a liability. But when we nail authentic “voice,” we deepen investment in our fictional worlds and celebrate the gnarly mess that is humanity. Boost your fiction, screenplay writing, or playwriting with a top-to-bottom dialogue glow-up.

Join screenwriter, educator and coach Lauren Veloski and discover why the screenwriting lens is a the perfect “in” point for radical dialogue work.

Lessons

About The Instructor

Lauren Veloski is a screenwriter, comedy writer, creative coach, and founder of THAT’S BANANAS—a groundbreaking community for women and nonbinary writers. Her first feature, the indie comedy “SORRY, THANKS,” was praised by Lena Dunham for writing “as seamless as any studio rom-com—if studio rom-coms had astute, nuanced dialogue.” An “unromantic comedy” about casual douchebaggery, “SORRY, THANKS” world-premiered at SXSW, played 15 fests internationally, and sold to IFC/Sundance. After 15 years as the “story brain” in the room on countless television and film projects, Lauren launched THAT’S BANANAS in 2022 to no less than spark a revolution. Though THAT’S BANANAS, Lauren teaches kooky-fresh courses year-round and coaches women/nonbinary writers of all levels, helping them come fully into their badassery and power on the page. Learn more about Lauren at thats-bananas.com, and join the THAT’S BANANAS community on Instagram at @writingisbananas

All writers, whether in the fictive or non-fictive world, rely on the same building blocks—words. But what a writer does with these words distinguishes a bland, ordinary sentence from one that memorably and musically shines.

This workshop will focus on the sentence and all that it can do, not at the content level, but by its construction. You’ll learn to write sentences that create a feeling of anxiety, euphoria, calm, and abundance, and much more. You’ll learn that there is an entirely different way to write, and it’s by writing with the ear. 

Lessons

About The Instructor

Nina Schuyler’s short story collection, In This Ravishing World, won the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature and was published in July 2024. Her novel, Afterword, won the 2024 PenCraft Book of the Year in Fiction, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Science Fiction and Literary, and the PenCraft Spring Seasonal Book Award for Literary and Science Fiction. Her novel, The Translator, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction. Her novel, The Painting, was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Award. Her books, How to Write Stunning Sentences and Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal are bestsellers. Her short stories have been published by Zyzzyva, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fugue, Nashville Review, and elsewhere, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies and The Writing Salon. 

Great copywriting isn’t only about selling. It’s about knowing your audience so well that you can craft stories that deeply resonate with them. Stories that guide them on a journey from where they are now to where they want to be.

Copywriting and creative writing might seem worlds apart. But they are rooted in the same principles: empathy, connection, trust, and transformation. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use industry-insider copywriting techniques to create rich, memorable, and gripping prose.

Lessons

About The Instructor

Sophie Campbell is a Freelance Creative Content Writer based in Scotland. She writes for literary and cozy lifestyle brands providing writers and readers with the tools or vibes they need to live their dream literary life. She is also a lifelong fiction writer and prize-winning poet, published in The Woolf, Surely Mag, Bright Flash Literary Review, WhyNot and Razur Cuts (including their Finest Cuts edition), and others. In 2023, she won the poetry prize in Bold Types, Glasgow Women’s Library’s Annual Scottish Women's Creative Writing Competition. Learn more on her website.

If you do a lot of “I’ll get to that later”ing with Forever Workshop lessons — this one is for you.

We’ve put together a very best digest for each genre, and one for literary careers on the whole.

In this round-up series, you’ll find all the bits you can’t miss from our huuuge archive of lessons, organized into handy skimmable megasheets, so you can grab exactly what you need.

Whether you’re just getting started with The Forever Workshop, looking for some signposting to develop your skills in a particular area, or just fancy a lil’ pick ‘n’ mix of writing exercises, this masterclass-of-masterclasses has everything you could possibly wish for…

What You’ll Learn:

The Everything Workshop contains highlights from our 2023-2025 archive of writing workshops, written by an array of experienced, award-winning, and super-knowledgable authors, teachers, editors and publishing professionals.

Each round-up focuses on a different genre/subject, with something for every writer, at every stage.

Including:

• Everything you need to know about submitting your work

• Everything you need to know about writing prize-winning poetry

• Everything you need to know about writing the best fiction of your life

• Everything you need to know about writing authentic non-fiction

• Everything you need to know about building your writing career

By the end of the series you’ll have a master list of prompts, exercises, ideas and inspiration — resources to come back to again and again (and again).

Start here >>

Right. It’s time. You’re finally gonna write that thing you really want to write. That thing you’ve been thinking about writing forever, but somehow never get to the starting part.

In this workshop, we’re focusing on all those brilliant, full-of-potential, hypothetical ideas we’ve spent so much time speculating about and actually make them real.

Every lesson, we’ll be targeting a different Horseman of the Procrastination…ocalypse (catchy!) so you can get out of your own way, tell writer’s block to go screw itself, and start writing something.

Go To Lessons

Workshop Overview

Join , award-winning writer and creative development mentor, for a four-part masterclass in procrastination.

In this workshop, we’ll be exploring four of the most common reasons for writer’s block, feeling stuck, imposter syndrome, and generally finding yourself ‘procrastinating’ instead of writing. (Hint: it’s not that you’re lazy, there’s usually something else going on.)

Get a dose of tough/gentle/honest love about why your executive dysfunction is being such a pain in the ass, do a little self-reflection, and then actually do some writing with some practical exercises. And, by the end of the workshop, you’ll have defeated all four Horsemen of the Procrastinocalypse…

Takeaways

• How to get started on a project (or how to beat the blank page / decision paralysis)

• Why perfectionism is bullshit and half-assing it is the way forward

• Learn to use ‘fear of the unknown’ to your creative advantage

• Break through writer’s block, find your motivation, and actually get the f*ck on with it…

About Your Instructor

is an award-winning author, editor and writing mentor (and your friendly neighbourhood curriculum manager at The Forever Workshop!). She has been teaching creative writing and narrative theory for over a decade and writes about chasing creativity at . She’s a massive Shakespeare nerd, loves a good pun, and wants to live on your bookshelf. Find out more about her writing and creative services at www.jogatford.com

“Comedy for All'“ is an introductory humor writing workshop for all writers — whether you write fiction, personal essays, scripts, ad copy, or are a budding stand-up, this course will help you to develop your comic skills in a variety of ways.

Join humor writer and improv comedian Alex Baia for a four-part exploration of all things humorous. Each lesson will focus on a different principle of humor writing, with theory, examples, and a writing exercises designed to work a specific comic muscle (or… funny bone?).

Lessons

About The Instructor

Alex Baia has written humor for The New Yorker, Austin Monthly, McSweeney’s, Eater, Points In Case, and others. He’s an editor of Slackjaw, a daily comedy publication on Medium. Alex also runs Comedy Bizarre on Substack, a weekly newsletter for anyone who wants to write funny stuff. Find out more about Alex's writing and projects at alexbaia.com

What can we borrow from Shakespeare when it comes to our writing? 

A love of linguistics and a bold disregard for the literary ‘rules’!

In this generative workshop, we’ll use Shakespearean techniques to experiment with rhythm, rhetoric and repetition. We’ll explore methods of manipulating and subverting language to create layers of meaning. We’ll push boundaries, play with form, mix up syntax, and have a whole load of fun mucking about with our writing.

Whether you write prose, poetry, long or short, borrowing methods from Shakespeare can help to elevate each sentence, bring a unique voice to your work, and make every line sing. No previous Shakespeare knowledge or literary snobbery required — just a passion for words, words, words.

Lessons

About The Instructor

Jo Gatford is the author of The Woman’s Part, a hybrid collection inspired by Shakespeare’s women, and holds an MA in Shakespeare & Theatre from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. She is also an award-winning novelist, poet, flash fiction writer and scriptwriter, with over 50 publications, including the Bath Flash Award, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Forge, trampset and Stylist. She has been an editor and mentor for 15 years, and has been teaching creative writing and narrative theory for over a decade. Find out more at www.jogatford.com and

Other Workshops by Jo:

This workshop delves into the art of collecting and organizing your ideas, creating and/or revitalizing your process and creative practice, and discusses using elements of writing and storytelling to build a body of work no matter your genre. 

We will review the way Swift has used elements such as theme, intertextuality, and repetition to build a body of work, and how you can apply those and other elements to your own work effectively.

Whether you’re a diehard fan, a skeptic, or even a hater, you will come away with a new perspective on writing and process. 

Lessons

Meet Your Instructor

Erin Karbuczky is a writer, workshop facilitator, public speaker, and artist. She is a regular contributor to Write or Die, and her fiction and poetry can be found in various journals across the web. Erin has a Master’s Degree in English Literature, and writes about writing, queerness, technology, and the American Dream (among other things). Her biggest dream in life is to support other writers and artists on their journey. When she's not writing or listening to music, you can find her at the Oregon coast, a coffee shop, or at home, dissecting novels in order to make her, and your, writing stronger. You can find her on Instagram and Tiktok @thegratefulpoet. She is also on Substack.