Workshops and Seminars
New classes added all the time.
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New classes added all the time. 〰️
Writing Traumedy: How to Be Sad-Funny in Memoir and Personal Essay
Tragedy plus time equals comedy, and in this three-hour seminar we'll do that math. We’ll read other sad-funny writers to steal their tricks; we’ll cover every known device to turn a sad diary entry into publishable funny writing; we’ll cry as a group (optional). Happy endings will not be accepted.
Sunday, Dec. 14th
2:30-5:30pm
Online & recorded
In this mind-blowing seminar, we’ll gossip about the many ways to make readers laugh and how to turn an anecdote into an essay that’s funny and publishable. Students will learn—so help me god—a repeatable drafting process to find topics, angles, and what’s unusual and universal in their lives to write award-deserving essays. Our goal is to go from topic to crappy first draft in one sitting or die trying.
Sunday, Jan. 18th, 2026
2:30-5:30pm
Online & recorded
Good writing becomes great writing at the sentence level. Diction, syntax, rhythm, image, and description can bring your voice to life and make your work more memorable, more beautiful, and more meaningful. In this practical and flirty seminar, you’ll learn how to write and revise sentences with confidence through lecture, discussion, handouts, and writing exercises. Our goal is what James Baldwin says is The Goal: “…to write a sentence as clean as a bone.”
Sunday, Feb. 22nd, 2026
3:30-5:30pm ET
Online & recorded
Funny Personal Essays: A 4-Week Workshop
In four weeks we’ll cover mortification essays, revelation essays, “that one time…” essays, funny op-eds, self-effacing essays, and more. Students will learn a repeatable drafting process to discover topics, angles, and what’s unusual and universal in their own lives. Expect hilarious readings, infinite handouts, in-class brainstorming and discussion, workshop with peer and instructor feedback, and solicited and unsolicited advice on writing, publishing, and promoting your work and fart jokes. This course is the chance of a lifetime to expand your humor-writing portfolio, experiment with voice and form, and gain the skills and the confidence to make readers—and yourself—laugh.
Thursdays, March 5-March 26
6:30pm-9pm ET
Online & recorded
This could be you/us. Learn to weaponize comedy in my very good writing workshops, seminars, and prayer circles.
This photo was taken moments before we made a
human centipede.