WI x MFA Craft Weekend 2025

It’s a Writing Institute x MFA Writing joint collab! Join us for a weekend dedicated to the craft of writing and community building. Learn from dozens of writers on topics ranging from improv for idea creation to the art of the obituary and so much more. Sign up for something in your genre or try something new. If you’re looking for a way to fill the creative well and connect with other writers this weekend is for you! Writers can take one class per session. There will be two sessions on Saturday and three on Sunday.

Each day of the program will include multiple craft sessions, as well as time for mingling. We're delighted to host keynote speakers Chloé Caldwell on Saturday & Daria Lavelle on Sunday! Join us virtually on Saturday, on campus on Sunday, or come both days! Whether you’re a seasoned writer or new to the craft of creative writing you’ll find generous writing prompts, craft tips, encouragement and community.

Participants will receive $25 off a future Writing Institute course to keep the momentum going. Writers interested in the MFA Writing program at Sarah Lawrence College can meet with the program Director and Assistant Director throughout the weekend.

Please Note: After purchase, please use the links in your confirmation email to register for the individual seminars. Each writer is limited to one seminar per session and each session is limited to 16 writers.

About the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College

Since 1983, the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College has offered writers a robust and supportive community, with workshops, classes, seminars, conferences, readings and more. Our virtual and on campus classes are open to all writers, including classes for beginners, advanced prose and poetry workshops, teen programs and publishing seminars. View upcoming classes and events at the Writing Institute at slc.edu/WI.

About the MFA Writing at Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence’s nationally recognized MFA Writing program gives you the opportunity to work in close collaboration with faculty members who are both distinguished writers and devoted mentors. While we offer concentrations in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or speculative fiction, students are encouraged to take classes outside their concentrations and to explore their writing fearlessly, transcending genres and positioning them for success in an ever-changing unbounded world. More information at slc.edu/writing-mfa.

Info: How can writers use knowledge of psychology to bring their characters to life? Understanding your characters' emotional responses can help writers faciliate the reactions they're looking for. Familiarity with psychoanalytic literary theory helps writers tap into both their characters’ psyches, as well as the psyches of their readers.

In this workshop, participants will learn several core psychoanalytic theory fundamentals through concise and accessible breakdowns and then have fun with in-class experiments via multiple generative writing exercises and sharing with peers. This class is built for writers of all experience levels. In addition to in-class generative writing, participants will leave the workshop with a PDF zine expounding on the theories and additional writing prompts for character creation, all facilitated by an instructor who has professional and academic experience in both creative writing and psychodynamic fieldwork.

Info: What if God too was out there, looking for a sign? In this seminar, we will approach the subject of God/god(s). How do we write about the divine in fiction? We will examine the ways in which God appears in fiction – a literal character, an omniscient presence, an idea, a question. We will also examine how different narrative voices handle the divine, from skeptical to reverent to ironic, and how to write about the sacred without slipping into cliché or didacticism. Through readings and writing prompts, writers will experiment with the presence of God in a story, whether God ever appears or not.

Info: What different shapes can the personal essay take? Can it be a how-to guide? An encyclopedia? A student loan bill? What freedom can be found in telling a story in an untraditional way? Experimenting with the containers we choose for creative nonfiction allows us to approach the craft of creative nonfiction in a new dynamic way. In this seminar we’ll look at unique forms of creative nonfiction and identify what makes them successful. We’ll examine how the craft elements of voice, narrative distance and persona can lend themselves to creating essays in different containers. Writers will be given at least one generative prompt in class to experiment with new forms for a personal essay with additional prompts to take home.

Info: In her list, ‘Eight Essential Attributes of the Short Story,’ Joy Williams includes ‘An animal within to gives it blessing’ at number four. This craft workshop will look at how writers can incorporate the ‘non-human’ into our stories, and how to write character dynamics and plots that span across species. This doesn’t have to mean an animal; this could mean something speculative, like a mermaid, or a selkie, or a plant, or a doll. This class is for all types of writing, whether you’re interested in realism, or magical realism, or speculative fiction.

We’ll talk about interspecies narrators and characters, with a reading packet that looks at writers like Clarisse Lispector, Sofia Samatar, Kelly Link, Joy Williams, Leonora Carrington and Rajesh Parameswaran, among others. We’ll discuss what makes these stories successful and specific strategies for incorporating some of these elements into our own work.

Info: Your character isn’t just a vehicle to move your plot forward, though that might be one (useful) function they serve. They’re also a person with habits, opinions, thoughts, quirks and flaws. We’ll explore how to discover and develop your character’s voice so they feel like a living, breathing being to both you and your reader. Whether you’re working on a novel, short story, or memoir, this session will help you understand how a character’s internal world informs what they say, do, and choose—on and off the page.

We’ll talk about how much of this voice work actually happens outside the story, through character interviews, backstory exploration, and even freewriting in your character’s voice. You’ll leave with a set of tools and prompts to get to know your character more intimately: how they speak, how they wear their hair, what they believe, what drives them, and how they might behave when things get complicated.

Info: Experimenting means letting go of the form's restrictions as well as your own expectations. But which rules of writing are worth breaking? How do you alter the form of a narrative without destroying it entirely? In this 90-minute session, we'll discuss the risks and merits of writing atypical fiction, as well as the mechanics of rule-breaking. We'll discuss norms and boundaries in the fiction world, and how to figure out if they're worth keeping around. What are we trying to subvert, and why? Are genre conventions vital to consider, or worth doing away with entirely? How do we operate within the structure of a story, and how can we make that operation more interesting? Which medium is the closest to the message you want to share? What kind of message is best conveyed by any given medium?

This session includes several brainstorm sessions and short writing exercises. Students will be provided with a list of resources on form and experimentalism in fiction.

Info: In a recent New York Times interview, acclaimed writer Jamaica Kincaid said, “I wouldn’t know how to write an autobiography or memoir about my childhood, but Jamaica could look at Elaine and write about her.” This statement encompasses a reality that creative nonfiction writers face time and again. How do we craft compelling narratives that call upon us to look back at experiences in which we were the observer and not yet the writer? How does a narrative change when rooted too much in memory and not enough in reflection? When do we know whether the observer should be in command on the page verses the writer? Through short generative prompts, we’ll explore together.

Info: Breaking into the writing industry can feel isolating and daunting. Chloé will describe all of the ways she was able to carve out a place for her writing—she began with zero contacts, community, or writing degree. She will guide you in figuring out where to submit your writing, how to make writer-friends, and strategies for knowing where your book would fit on the shelf. Chloé will share concrete and actionable ways to build a name for yourself, create lastine writing community, and heal the myths you've been told and internalized about the literary world.

Info: Check in and connect to other writers

Info: Not knowing where to begin, how to introduce your characters, set the stakes, decide how much to reveal, or hook the reader? There’s no shame in it. The opening of any piece, whether it’s a novel, short story, memoir, or essay, is a high-stakes moment. It’s your handshake, a plea, a promise: keep reading, this will be worth it. So how do you craft a beginning that sparks curiosity, builds trust, and sets the right tone?

We’ll break down the anatomy of a compelling first page. We’ll look at examples across genres that hook hard and fast, explore what readers subconsciously expect in an opening, and identify common traps like info dumps, backstory overload, and “throat-clearing.” Then, through targeted prompts and brief peer feedback, you’ll have the chance to revise your own first page—or start a brand-new one—with intention and energy.

You’ll walk away with practices to help you begin, a checklist for a compelling opening and, hopefully, the weight of dread lifted off your shoulders.

Info: What does the lunchroom scene in Mean Girls have in common with the Casablanca argument from When Harry Met Sally? The party scene in Ten Things I Hate About You? We’ll discuss the primary functions of dialogue in a story through the lens of rom-com movies. How can we glean important craft lessons from an unlikely source? We’ll ask questions like: How does Regina George use conversation to leverage her power, showing the audience the dynamics at play? What do Harry and Sally's views on the ending of Casablanca reveal about their character ideals and motivations? By viewing and analyzing these scenes and more, we’ll discuss the main functions of dialogue and what we can learn from movies to elevate the dialogue in our own work.

Be prepared to engage in some short writing exercises. This workshop is primarily a fiction workshop but is open to writers of all levels of experience. Students should bring something to write with and a love of all things rom-coms and chick-flicks!

Info: You've got an idea, a character you want to explore, maybe even a few opening chapters, or half the story, but now you're stuck. So many unknowns, so many ways to navigate what lies ahead. Maybe you've lost sight of the path. Now what? Give up? Start over? No way!

In this seminar, we will conquer the fear of that first draft, specifically for a longer form piece. We'll go through some outlining techniques, different methods to think through your story, and troubleshooting tools when writer's block comes to call. We'll cover the Three Act Structure, the tried and true "pantsing" method, and close read authors such as George Saunders and Helen Phillips to take a look at how they form their pieces, focusing on aspects such as pacing and scene structure. The goal is for students to work with their brains, not against them, and hone our unique creative process, so that when things get tough (because they inevitably will), students will have built more confidence to keep going.

Info: Forget everything you know about how a poem is supposed to look, and get ready to be amazed!
This craft session will focus on the marriage between a poem's content and the form it decides to take on the page (or maybe even off of it!), using visual poetry as a gateway into our exploration and expansion of “form”. Concrete poems (poems where the shape of the poem reflects the subject of the poem) are at the forefront of visual poetry’s representation, but this course will look at authors who are taking form beyond representation, and merging it with the context of their work in interesting, meaningful ways.

We will read work from poets such as Mag Gabbert, Nkosi Nkulueko, Victoria Chang, Leila Chatti, Keith Wilson, and others. Together, we will question the decisions and intentionality behind the forms of our own work, using authors as guides in drafting new forms of our own creation, suited to meet the goals of our content, and rooted in our personal interests and obsessions.

Info: What are the beliefs, customs, and stories of your communities? How might you include them in your writing? This is a generative session where we will consider what recent writers have achieved by featuring folklore in their work, and then we’ll write to prompts designed to unearth and lead to ways to focus or layer this material into our own writing projects.

Info: In 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne described his disdain towards the rising popularity of female writers with the infamous quote: “America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash—and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed.”
The term fanfiction has been found in print since as early as 1938, but with the digital age came a revolution. Websites like Fanfiction.net and Wattpad allowed people (especially young women) to share their original work, empowering anyone to bypass the publishing industry and sway ‘the public taste’ without men like Hawthorne to envy or demean them. It also gave fans an opportunity to borrow beloved characters and put their own twist on things—taking off some of the pressure of having to create a world from scratch while exploring alternate narratives that challenge dominant ideologies.

Info: Whether you’re writing a grounded thriller or a fantasy epic, good action scenes can propel a narrative forward, add tension and suspense, and take a reader’s breath away. In this ninety-minute workshop, we’ll watch and read action scenes both good and bad, discuss how to apply the specific strengths of prose to your action scenes, and learn how action scene plotting can be applied to scenes and stories as a whole.

Be prepared to do some action scene writing on your own. This workshop is suitable for writers of all levels of experience at any point in a project. Students will be provided with copies of action scenes from successful genre novels to use as a guide.

Info: Instead of writing about your quotidian work-a-day life, what if you infused those experiences with magic, making your interior life a fabulous or mythic one? In this 90-minute seminar we’ll use Diane Wakoski’s monograph “Creating a Personal Mythology” as a touchstone to examine how our poems can deal with our own history, as reflected by myths found in popular culture such as comic books or cartoons or movies, as well as those found in world religions, of whatever age. Such a personal mythology need not be based on, or limited to, stories told by ancient Greeks or Romans, but may be based on folk stories, family histories, or Superman. Students will be invited to write a poem about their own past or present, based on myth, family history, or some other cultural springboard which then can be shared with the class in a non-judgmental setting.They will be provided with a packet providing background on the featured poets, examples of their work, and suggestions for future reading.

Info: “Writing as a translator,” writer and translator Damion Searls states, “is pretty much the same as any other kind of writing.” And conversely, learning the tools of translation can be eye-opening to any kind of writer.
In our time together, we will take a close look at several translations of the same source text, including The Odyssey by Homer and Voyelles by Arthur Rimbaud. Then we will practice our own translations and experiment with transcreations, where we depart from close word-for-word translations and reinterpret a source text as our own.
Our goals will be to: experiment with a range of literary translation tools; become better readers of translated literature; and consider and learn from the benefits of retranslation, self-translation, and transcreation.
No knowledge of a second language is needed! Although if you speak another language, your linguistic expertise will benefit the class as a whole.

Info: Lunch will be provided

Info: In this generative workshop, we will use our group mind to conceive and develop new ideas for short stories, sketches and/or fever dreams to have later in the night. We will draw on classic improv exercises, such as the idea generator known as Pattern Game, and the concept of “if this is true, what else is true.” Together, we will see how the art of improv can enrich and inform the act of writing.

Everyone will leave with a basic improv vocabulary, a page full of new ideas, and a fresh appreciation for how community can foster the creative act.

No improv experience required!

Info: When is the appropriate time to summarize and move quickly through a scene, and when is it necessary to pause and draw out a moment? How do you know when to do both? In this 90-minute class, students will learn how to map the movement of a story by finding the places that a story shifts, either through tone, pacing, or plot, and create a visual guide that represents these changes.

We will read excerpts of short stories and discuss their fluctuations as a group. Writers will then learn how to track the movement of their own works, evaluating where they need to pick up the pace, and when to slow down. Special attention will be given to the distinction between scene and summary, as well as how to effectively utilize both throughout
a story.

This class is perfect for writers of any level or genre who are curious about how to structure a short story. Students will leave with a craft essay on movement, along with some short story excerpts, and visual blueprint of their story.

Info: This course explores how techniques from poetry can inform generation or revision of any prose work. By analyzing the poetry and prose of authors such as James Baldwin, K-Ming Chang, Ross Gay, and others, students will practice looking at the line to create stories with dynamic movement. This class is less concerned with big ideas, and is instead looking at how writers create worlds, develop relationships, and stage drama all within a single sentence.

In class, students will be given writing prompts to construct sentences rich with depth. By the end of the session, students will leave with a handful of sentences that can serve as a guide to how they approach the language of their current or future projects. Students are expected to examine their own sentences word-by-word with the intentionality and earnestness of a poet. This course will encourage students to slow down and look closely, to experiment with language, and to develop control over their story’s narrative inertia.

Info: Whether Frankenstein makes you scream with joy or howl in fear, the gothic genre can be an indispensable well of knowledge on how to embrace the most horrifying and sublime parts of your writing, and leave your readers both terrified and desperate for more. In this not-so-scary 90 minute workshop, we will discuss the often counter-cultural development of “the goths” throughout history, investigate common themes, stylings, and nuances of gothic literature, explore how to use the genre’s unique attributes in your own writing, and learn why the Gothic is not just a phase, mom!
We will look at some examples of the Gothic from 1794 to 2025 and decide what writing elements make them so dreadful. Then we’ll apply those techniques to our own writing.
This workshop welcomes goth fanatics and scaredy-cats alike from all experience levels and all genres of study. Be prepared for some short and mysterious writing exercises. Students will also be provided with a resource list of gothic works.

Info: If you want to write prose that sparkles, humor can be a secret weapon. We often find something funny because we find it relatable and true. By using humor in your nonfiction writing, you can hook readers in unexpected ways, invite them into your worldview, and even add moments of lightness to otherwise dark topics. Studying and analyzing elements of humor writing (like pacing, word choice, heightening, and subtext) can help you improve your writing overall. This workshop is appropriate for students with all levels of experience and will include short brainstorming exercises. Participants will leave with a “Humor Writing 101” information sheet to help guide them further in adding humor to their writing. The workshop will be facilitated by an instructor with extensive experience in humor writing who is also a judge for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, one of the highest recognitions of the art of humor writing in the United States.

Info: Most people—writers included—like structure. Organization. Process. Which is why many will call intuitive writing a ludicrous way to approach a novel-length project. But not only is this beautiful chaos my process—it’s one of the greatest joys of my writing life. It’s the way I do my best work. It’s where I find the most pleasure and surprise and meaning as both a writer and a reader. But how do you balance following intuition, whim, and passion as a craft methodology—pantsing, as opposed to plotting—with the desire to create something that a major publisher will find appealing? This keynote will share insights from my journey creating and debuting with Aftertaste, lessons I learned about following my storytelling gut, and offer tips and tricks for infusing spontaneous passion into your projects—even for the plotters among you.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Sarah Lawrence College, 1 Mead Way, Bronxville, United States