Creative Writing Courses [2026]

Unleash your creativity and hone your skills with one of our creative writing courses this year. Explore a variety of genres with experienced instructors, receiving personalized feedback and prompts to fuel your craft. Whether it's nonfiction, poetry, or fiction, our generative courses will bring out the best in your writing.

• 22 different courses in Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction.
• Suggested reading assignments.
• Generative writing prompts.
• Experienced instructors.
• Certificate of completion upon request for your portfolio.

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WHO: Courses are open to everyone, no military connection is necessary unless otherwise noted.

WHAT: Creative 

WHEN: 1st and 3rd Saturdays of each month, 2-5 PM EST (unless otherwise indicated, there are a couple of Sunday offerings this year)

WHERE: Google Meet, virtual classroom (Link provided Friday evening prior to class)

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02/07 - Therapeutic Writing: Telling a New Story via Our Personal Myths w/ Adam Magers

Join psychotherapist and Iraq War Veteran, Adam Magers, as we learn about the benefits of using symbolic storytelling to reframe our experiences and discover a more robust sense of self and meaning. Along the way, we'll explore Joseph Campbell's framing of "the hero's journey" as well as its psychological meaning based in Carl Jung's understanding of the individuation process. This class will involve writing our own biographies as mythological narratives, while learning to access emotional and psychological content that can strengthen healthy bonds between our past, present, and future.

02/22 - What to Write About Others When Writing About Yourself w/ Guillermo Rebollo Gil

There’s no such thing as a writing (only) about oneself. Our life experience is inextricably tied to the life of others. When it comes to nonfiction writing, while much emphasis is placed on the importance or power of speaking our truth, questions loom regarding the ethics of how writers portray other people on the page. This class will focus on both major concerns and key strategies for the presentation of those dearest and not-so-dearest to us in our personal essays and memoirs.

03/07 - Things I Think I Know: Falling Backwards into a Career in Creative Non-Fiction w/ Russell Worth Parker

There is no one way to be a writer, but there are common threads. Six years ago, Worth Parker knew none of them. In fact, though he’s been a storyteller since he could string together a noun and a verb, Worth thought “writer” was a title reserved only for special people who occupied some ethereal plane in which great thoughts were the currency and regular people's problems didn’t intrude. It turns out he was wrong about that and many other things. 

Through trial and error, the kindness of others, some luck, and paying close attention to the world around him, Worth Parker built a career as a writer of creative fiction. Now he can’t imagine doing anything else. Over 180 hopefully amusing minutes, you will get the warts and all story of a guy who fell backwards into the coolest job in the world. Worth will teach you the things he thinks are true about working with an agent; honestly assessing your strengths and weaknesses; finding, pitching, and writing stories that sing; and the importance of small details. If he can do it, surely you can. Come find out.

03/21 - Creative Design: Writing to Clear Noise w/ George Briones III

A 90-minute session that uses writing as a way to improve cognitive and mental drive, helping clear noise, clutter, and the resistance that slows you down in life. We’ll use breath work, silence, stillness, and direct writing prompts that build a framework for stronger mental performance across the board.

There’s no sharing, and you don’t need to be “a writer.” As humans, we’re built to create. We use the mind, heart, soul, and hands to dig into the parts of ourselves we’ve packed away. The parts that keep us from reaching our true creative design. By the end, you’ll walk away with one truth, one action you can apply immediately, and the start of a simple daily writing practice that supports our creative design.

04/04 - Keep 'em Talkin': Using Dialogue to Develop Your Characters w/ Nick Efstathiou

04/18 - From Low to Highbrow: What Pro Wrestling Can Teach Us About Poetry w/ Guillermo Rebollo Gil

Wrestlers are character actors. They play versions of themselves, emphasizing certain qualities, traits and quirks, depending on the reaction they want from the audience. In wrestling, the best characters and storylines typically veer around the most difficult, painful or controversial aspects of a performer’s real life. Poetry, like wrestling, thrives on this sort of vulnerability. But it doesn’t always come through in the text. This class will borrow from, and play with, some of pro wrestling’s fundamental principles to stress a writing practice that keeps what is uncomfortable and/or difficult closest to us when crafting poems.

05/02 - Therapeutic Writing: A Dialogue With the Unconscious w/ Adam Magers, LPC

Join psychotherapist and Iraq War Veteran, Adam Magers, as we engage in writing practices that open a dialogue between the ego and the unconscious. During the class, we'll learn a bit about depth psychology, while also learning how specific writing practices can help us get to know parts of ourselves that might be getting in our way, or which may have the keys to help us unlock new doors.

05/16 - Poetry as Practice: Writing toward Healing w/ Alex H. Robinson

This class uses poetry as a vessel for healing, self-discovery, and reconnection to our inner experience. Through focused exploration of craft, participants learn how to “travel” within a poem, moving through image, sound, and line to access meaning—while understanding how specific, embodied detail opens into the universal. The course emphasizes poetry not as performance or perfection, but as a practice of attention and presence, offering veterans a grounded, creative way to process experience, honor complexity, and find language for what has often remained unspoken.

06/06 - Speak Your Truth, Literally: How to Read Your Writing To An Audience w/ Emilio Gallegos

06/20 - Making it Up As We Go: Writing About Parenting w/ Keith Walter Dow

Parenting, while sometimes exhausting physically, mentally, and emotionally can also be the perfect muse for creative writing. Join us for a three hour introductory workshop that includes generative prompts, short readings, and optional opportunities to share work and receive encouraging feedback. Additionally, we are offering one-hour private consultations with the instructor to provide feedback on your writing.

07/11 - Fictional Architecture: Scene and Setting as Characters w/ Nick Efstathiou

08/01 - Less is More: An Introduction to The Short Story w/ Tyler James Carroll

This course treats the short story for what it is. With limited space, every sentence matters. Participants will learn how to enter a story at any given scene, build tension, leave without over-explaining, and make sure questions are answered at the writer’s discretion. Through close reading, discussion, and workshop, we’ll focus on voice, structure, and on what to keep, what to cut, and why. The writing within a short story values clarity and honesty. This course is for writers wanting to read closely, write with precision, and revise with certainty.

08/15 - Sometimes Quickly, Sometimes Quickly: Writing About Sobriety w/ Jessica Danger & Michael Jerome Plunkett

Addictions - whether drugs, alcohol, or any other vice - can be difficult to talk about, let alone share in your creative work. This one-day workshop will help you approach your journey with addiction and recovery and share it in an open, honest, and presentable manner while staying true to your own story. In this course, led by two writers in recovery, we will study examples of other writers who have successfully shared their experiences, and we’ll put pen to paper on our own stories.

*Participants will be allowed to participate anonymously if desired.

09/05 -

Music & Me: Writing to Music w/ Emilio Gallegos

09/19 - Intro to Memoir w/ Jessica Danger

Everyone has a story to tell. But how do you do it? Where do you start? You start right here with our Intro to Memoir session. In this one-day workshop, we cover the basics of memoir by closely reading those who have gone before us, generating our own work in directed exercises, and sharing our work for peer feedback.

10/03 - Conflict Journalism: A Cautionary Tale w/ Nick Laidlaw

A focused educational program designed to inform aspiring independent war journalists, photographers, and videographers with practical, field-ready skills. The course will teach effective use of social media for exposure, strategies for compiling a reliable network of contacts in the country of operation, and methods for identifying and planning around likely threats. It will also provide guidance on essential safety and field readiness, including recommended first aid equipment, personal protection options, and suitable camera and recording gear within realistic budgets.

10/17 - Fragments, Memory, Meaning: Writing the Lived Experience w/ Alex H. Robinson

This course invites veterans into memoir and personal nonfiction through approaches that move beyond the traditional Western five-stage narrative structure. Writers explore non-linear storytelling, fragmented memory, and scene-based embodiment as ways to more truthfully reflect lived experience. Equal emphasis is placed on self-care and nervous-system awareness, offering tools for pacing, boundaries, and integration so that writing becomes a sustainable, supportive practice rather than a re-traumatizing one.

11/01 - The Opening Gambit: How to Begin a Novel That Can’t Be Put Down w/ Michael Jerome Plunkett

This class examines what the opening of a novel is actually responsible for doing: establishing voice, stakes, temporal logic, and the implicit contract between writer and reader. Through close reading of a range of first pages and first chapters—from quiet and observational to explosive, delayed-entry, and retrospective openings—students will analyze how different strategies create momentum and authority. 

11/07 - Voice, Distance, and Authority: Who is Telling the Story and Why? w/ Michael Jerome Plunkett

This class approaches voice not as style or personality, but as a series of narrative decisions that determine authority, intimacy, and meaning. Students will examine how distance, reliability, tense, and perspective shape a reader’s experience, and how small shifts in stance can radically alter a story’s emotional and ethical center. Through focused exercises that involve rewriting a single scene from multiple narrative positions, participants will learn to identify the stance their work is asking for and leave with greater control over voice.

11/14 - Journaling 101: How to Do It and Where To Start w/ Keith Walter Dow

There are no rules to journaling, which sometimes works in reverse. That blank page terrifies us instead of inspiring us to get started. In this one-day, hands-on workshop, we will practice different ways to journal, where you might consider starting, and methods to incorporate other creative endeavors in your own journaling practice.

12/12 - Flow: Breathe-Feel-Write w/ George Briones III

We've all heard the old adage "ass in chair," but what happens when the blood isn't flowing and the words aren't either? Dive into ways to break through creative blocks and combat writer’s fatigue, using movement, breathing, and stillness. This course will incorporate movement flows, breathing protocols, and stillness prompts that you can take with you to amplify your writing practice.

12/19 - End of Year Q&A / Virtual Reading - FREE