Explore and name why we writers resist and fear sending work out for potential publication. Explore why we want to, and what we can learn together so that more writing by women makes it to publication. Continue the journey with some tips on knowing when a piece is ready to meet the wider world, how to find appropriate possible homes for it; draft a bio and cover letter, as well as the process of sending work out. Let’s increase Women and Nonbinary voices in the world!

• Class runs: In person, biweekly on Sunday (Sep 12 & 26, Oct 10)
• Open to: Women & Nonbinary, Ages 18+

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

A person, in a place, taking an action: this is the core structure of a scene.

The purpose of scenes is to bring your reader into the story, close up, as it happens, with the reader feeling what the characters in the scene are feeling.

Scenes are a building block in your narrative. This workshop will discuss why scenes are essential to one’s story and then review the elements of constructing scenes: how to set a scene, create drama, and close the scene.

• Class runs: Sunday, October 11, 3-5 PM
• Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

Elements of Story is a series of three new classes focusing on key elements of story telling: Scene, Characterization, and Energy. Take one, two, or all three! Each class can stand alone and all are suitable for writers of fiction, memoir, or creative non-fiction. 

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

Central to story is the main character, the protagonist. This is the person our readers will invest in, emotionally resonate with, and go on a journey with.

The focus of this workshop is how to create a compelling character, to render them as embodied, with a physical and spiritual self, dwelling in a specific cultural and social location, with their unique personalities, agency, desire and goals.

• Class runs: Sunday Oct 25, 3-5 PM
• Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

Elements of Story is a series of three new classes focusing on key elements of story telling: Scene, Characterization, and Energy. Take one, two, or all three! Each class can stand alone and all are suitable for writers of fiction, memoir, or creative non-fiction. 

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

Over three sessions, we’ll dive into the key parts of storytelling for children. We’ll discuss your vision, understanding your audience, and mapping out your story arc.

Each session kicks off with grounding exercises, examples from beloved children’s books, followed by relaxed discussions and writing prompts. You’ll get to share your ideas, work on your drafts, and explore things like perspective and character consistency.

By the end of our time together, you’ll have a clearer sense of your story and some tools to make it come to life. Whether you’re writing for fun or aiming for publication, come ready to write, connect, and enjoy the process!

• Class runs: Virtually, biweekly. Sunday Nov 1, 15 and 29.
• Open to: Women & Nonbinary, Ages 18+

PRICING POLICY: We use a three tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

What gives energy to a story, drives the main character, motivates their opponent, and engages readers? Having desire, taking steps to fulfill it, being thwarted, facing the decision to fold or to persist.

Typically craft talk names this element “conflict.” Ursula K. LeGuin says, “Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.”

This workshop will invite writers to explore the diversity of behaviors, including conflict, identify the specific challenge their story relates, so that the best shape of the story will emerge.

• This class runs: Sunday Nov 8, 3-5 PM
• Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

Elements of Story is a series of three new classes focusing on key elements of story telling: Scene, Characterization, and Energy.  Take. one, two, or all three! Each class can stand alone and all are suitable for writers of fiction, memoir, or creative non-fiction. 

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

Writing a novel has challenges, contours and craft issues specific to that form. Women Writing for (a) Change would like to support novel writers by offering a class designed with your needs in mind.

With that as our goal, we are holding two one-hour "interest sessions" - one in person and one virtual - to assess interest and to learn from novel writers what issues, topics, and types of support a course in novel writing can offer you.

Wherever you are on your novel-writing journey, please join us for one of these interest sessions.

• This session runs: Virtually
• Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

About the Facilitator: Vicki Phillips holds an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College. She has been a regular participant in National Novel Writing Month. Vicki has drafted three novels and is currently nearing the final draft of a murder mystery.