Upcoming Classes
Wednesday August 19th & 26th, 8am-10am PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
Before the emails. Before the laundry. Before your inner critic has finished its first cup of coffee.
Prompts Before Breakfast is a playful, imagination-stretching workshop designed to wake up your creative brain through a series of delightfully weird generative writing prompts. We'll twist familiar ideas, mash together unlikely concepts, and chase unexpected "what if?" questions that lead to surprising stories.
There's no pressure to write polished prose! This class is about exploration, experimentation, and reminding yourself that creativity grows best when it's allowed to play. You'll leave with pages of ideas, unexpected characters, story seeds, and a collection of prompts you can return to whenever inspiration needs a little caffeine boost.
Wednesdays - 4-Weeks - Begins August 19th - 5pm-7pm PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
You’ll laugh until you cry. Or maybe just cry? Welcome to the comedy edition!
Film is one of the most powerful storytelling mediums in the world, but great movies don’t happen by accident. This ongoing 4-week film study course explores the craft of cinema through the lens of storytelling. Designed for screenwriters, writers, filmmakers, and passionate movie lovers alike, each 4-week block focuses on a curated selection of films.
Together, we’ll break down structure, character arcs, pacing, dialogue, visual storytelling, tone, editing, and cinematic language to better understand why certain films resonate so deeply with audiences. Whether you’re developing your own script or simply want to deepen your appreciation of film, this course will help you watch movies with a sharper eye and a storyteller’s mindset.
Workload: Each week includes an assigned movie and screenplay and guided discussion, with opportunities for scene analysis and group conversation.
Thursday August 20th & 27th, 5pm-7pm PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
Every unforgettable monster begins with a single question: What if...?
From vampires and dragons to cryptids and creatures no one has imagined before, this two-part generative writing workshop is all about creating monsters that feel original, memorable, and deeply connected to your story. Through a series of imaginative prompts and guided exercises, we'll dig beneath claws and fangs to uncover the fears, desires, histories, and flaws that make monsters truly compelling.
Whether you write horror, fantasy, science fiction, or middle grade, you'll leave with a stable of original creatures, fresh story ideas, and a toolbox of prompts you can use whenever your inspiration grows a set of teeth.
Saturday August 22nd - 10am-Noon PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
Every unforgettable story contains a handful of moments that can’t be removed without collapsing the entire structure. These are the scenes that drive the plot forward or facilitate changes in your character’s emotional journey.
In this workshop, you’ll learn to identify, create and use the Immutable Moments framework to build well-plotted stories, even when you hate plotting. We’ll talk about how to anchor your story around emotional moments and plot events to create compelling character arcs and a more satisfying story structure.
Whether you’re a die-hard pantser or a dedicated plotter, this approach may change the way you write your novels.
Sundays - 4-Weeks - Begins August 23rd - 9am-11am PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
A Four-Week Generative Flash Fiction Workshop
We can learn so much about writing powerful flash fiction by reading it closely, breaking it apart, and creating new work in response.
In this interactive, generative four-week workshop, we’ll study one exceptional contemporary flash fiction story and use it as a springboard for our own writing. Each week will focus on an in-depth craft element for flash fiction that hits hard. Interiority, Layering, Structure and Form, and the beautiful relationship between POV and tense.
Students will spend significant dedicated time writing during class and will leave each session with new material, deeper craft awareness, and some insight into how to revise their own stories. Please note this is not a critique class. The focus is on understanding the concepts of craft and how to infuse them into your own work.
As a special feature of the course, each week will include a brief behind-the-scenes quote from the featured author about their writing process, inspiration, challenges, or revision approach for the story we’re studying. These process notes offer rare insight into how contemporary flash fiction writers actually shape their work and how you might shape yours.
Because this class moves quickly into deeper craft analysis and drafting, students should already have a basic familiarity with flash fiction and storytelling fundamentals.
Tuesdays - 10-Weeks - Begins August 25th - 4pm-6 pm PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
You’ve got an idea or a premise, or even a couple of chapters. Now what you need is momentum. In this ten-week intensive, you’ll receive the structure, accountability, and craft instruction to help make meaningful progress on your novel.
Each week, we’ll explore a different aspect of the craft of novel-writing from plotting and character development to dialogue, conflict, emotional intimacy, scene construction, and endings, with writing prompts and idea generation. This is not a critique class. Instead, it’s a supportive space to build a sustainable writing practice, learn the elements of craft needed to write a novel, and overcome obstacles. Each session includes a lecture component, discussion, writing time, and accountability check-ins.
By the end of ten-weeks, you’ll have written at least 10,000 words and developed a stronger understanding of the building blocks of a novel.
Sunday August 30th - Noon-2pm PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
You’re overcome with sudden urges to organize your underwear drawer. Your stove is cleaner than it’s ever been in your life. You actually called the dentist’s office and made an appointment to get your teeth cleaned. It must be writer’s block season.
But staring at a blank page for a day, a week, or five years doesn’t mean you’ve permanently lost your creativity.
Writer’s block is often blamed for stalled projects and missed writing goals, but writer’s block is just a placeholder for all the other things that keep us from writing—fear, self-doubt, perfectionism, and even sudden success.
In this workshop, we’ll explore the common causes behind creative paralysis and discuss practical strategies for getting unstuck. Through discussion, reflection, and some low-pressure exercises, you’ll rediscover the joy of writing and generate some new ideas!
Perfect for writers who feel stuck, blocked, or burned out.
Thursday September 10th - 5pm-7pm PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
Struggling to make your action scenes leap off the page? Whether it’s a gritty brawl, a high-speed chase, or a magical duel, this workshop will show you how to craft action that hits where it hurts. Learn how to pace like a pro, choreograph movement with clarity, and ground high-stakes moments in character emotion. From knife fights to car crashes, we’ll dissect what makes action feel real. Come fully prepared to break some literary bones (metaphorically, of course).
Saturday September 12th - 2pm-4pm PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
Readers don’t fall in love with plots—they fall in love with characters. And the stories that haunt us years after we’ve read them, the ones we implore all our friends to read, they’re the books about characters who feel real.
In this workshop, we’ll learn about character transformation and the role emotional journeys play in creating rich stories. You’ll learn about your character’s internal conflicts, their limiting beliefs, and how the character’s changing needs and desires weave into the plot. We’ll discuss positive and negative character arcs and how to know what’s best for your story.
Thursday September 17th - 5pm-7pm PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
In this intensive, hands-on workshop, you’ll be introduced to the fundamentals of writing for comics and graphic novels, where story unfolds through the interplay of words and images. You’ll learn how to think visually, break a scene into panels, and use pacing, page turns, and silence to create impact. Through guided exercises and real examples, you’ll explore how to script for artists, write concise and effective dialogue, and structure a page so it flows naturally for the reader. You’ll also begin developing your own short comic concept during the session. Ideal for writers curious about comics, or anyone looking to add a more visual, cinematic edge to their storytelling. No drawing skills are required as this workshop is focused entirely on storytelling.
Sundays - 4-Weeks - Begins September 27th - 10am-Noon PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
Queer characters deserve more than tragic backstories and token roles. They deserve roles as heroes, villains, romantic interests, anti-love story folk, and complicated human beings.
In this four-week craft-focused course, we’ll explore how to create characters who feel authentic. We’ll look at common tropes and stereotypes, discuss gender and sexuality, and consider how relationships and found family shape queer characters.
We’ll also look at genre expectations, emotional arcs, and storytelling choices without reducing characters to a single aspect of their identity. Through readings, discussions, and writing exercises, you’ll learn how to craft queer characters who feel complex and layered.
In week four, we’ll explore queer joy and resilience and the importances of writing beyond the narratives of suffering and horror.
This course welcomes writers of all identities, experience levels, and genres.
Wednesdays - 4-Weeks - Begins October 7th - 5pm-7pm PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
Ready for a screaming good time? Welcome to the horror edition!
Film is one of the most powerful storytelling mediums in the world, but great movies don’t happen by accident. This ongoing 4-week film study course explores the craft of cinema through the lens of storytelling. Designed for screenwriters, writers, filmmakers, and passionate movie lovers alike, each 4-week block focuses on a curated selection of films.
Together, we’ll break down structure, character arcs, pacing, dialogue, visual storytelling, tone, editing, and cinematic language to better understand why certain films resonate so deeply with audiences. Whether you’re developing your own script or simply want to deepen your appreciation of film, this course will help you watch movies with a sharper eye and a storyteller’s mindset.
Workload: Each week includes an assigned movie and screenplay and guided discussion, with opportunities for scene analysis and group conversation.
Tuesdays - 24 Weeks - Begins October 27th - 5pm-7pm PT
Instructor: Andrew Buckley
Want to write a novel, but not sure where to start? Already stuck somewhere around chapter three? The 6-Month Novel Writing Intensive, developed and taught by author, speaker, and creator Andrew Buckley, is designed to help writers turn big ideas, unfinished drafts, and creative chaos into a completed first draft.
Through expert instruction, practical exercises, accountability, and peer critique sessions every fourth week, participants will explore character, conflict, setting, structure, dialogue, pacing, and revision while actively building their novels.
By the end, writers will have a completed draft, a stronger grasp of storytelling craft, and the confidence to hold their pens (or keyboards) aloft and face the chaotic winds of the publishing world.
Or something to that effect.
Sundays - 4-Weeks - Begins January 10th 2027 - 9am-11am PT
Instructor: Finnian Burnett
A Four-Week Generative Flash Fiction Workshop
We can learn so much about writing powerful flash fiction by reading it closely, breaking it apart, and creating new work in response.
In this interactive, generative four-week workshop, we’ll study one exceptional contemporary flash fiction story and use it as a springboard for our own writing. Each week will focus on an in-depth craft element for flash fiction that hits hard. Interiority, Layering, Structure and Form, and the beautiful relationship between POV and tense.
Students will spend significant dedicated time writing during class and will leave each session with new material, deeper craft awareness, and some insight into how to revise their own stories. Please note this is not a critique class. The focus is on understanding the concepts of craft and how to infuse them into your own work.
As a special feature of the course, each week will include a brief behind-the-scenes quote from the featured author about their writing process, inspiration, challenges, or revision approach for the story we’re studying. These process notes offer rare insight into how contemporary flash fiction writers actually shape their work and how you might shape yours.
Because this class moves quickly into deeper craft analysis and drafting, students should already have a basic familiarity with flash fiction and storytelling fundamentals.
