Short Story Collection in a Year
With Peter Mountford
This is the year to give your writing, and your publishing dreams, the focus they deserve.
Our Short Story Collection in a Year program will support you during the long road from idea generation to composition to revision and beyond. It’s a unique opportunity to join a writing cohort, study craft, workshop key scenes, measure your progress, meet deadlines, and give and get support in the development of long-form literary work.
This cohort is completely online through the 2027 session.
In this year-long program, you won’t just learn how to write short stories—you’ll write them, revise them, and build a plan to get them out into the world. Whether you’re starting from a single sentence or have a handful of rough drafts, this class will help you create strong, polished stories and a clear strategy for submitting them to journals, contests, and eventually shaping them into a collection.
You’ll join a supportive online cohort of writers who will challenge and encourage you, month after month. Together, we’ll focus on the craft of short fiction while blending in the practical, behind-the-scenes skills every writer needs to navigate publishing.
APPLICATIONS OPEN OCT 6TH – NOV. 13TH
Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism (Washington State Book Award), The Dismal Science (NYT editor’s choice), as well as the collection of short stories, Detonator, which earned a 2025 silver medal from the North American Book Awards.
His own short stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Guernica, the bestselling anthology Kink (ed. R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell), as well as Best New American Voices 2008. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic magazine, The Sun, Poets & Writers, and he’s a regular contributor to Writer’s Digest (including essays about writing short stories).
A former fellow of Bread Loaf and Yaddo, he currently teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe’s MFA, and through Mountford Writing.
WHO SHOULD APPLY
This class is for writers at any stage: whether you’re starting from scratch, revising stories that have been sitting in a drawer, or determined to finish a full collection, you’ll leave with polished stories, a concrete publishing plan, and a sustainable writing practice that lasts. Bring your ideas, your drafts, and your ambition. Leave with finished work, submission-ready stories, and a clear path toward building your collection, and your writing career.
PLEASE NOTE: This application-based class is selective. We are looking for students with talent and drive, though familiarity with the workshop process or previous experience writing a book is not mandatory. This program is for writers who are ready to make a strong commitment to their work, and our waitlist for the course is typically very long. Students are expected to participate in the full program.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
Faulkner famously said every novelist is a failed short story writer, and short stories are the most difficult form after poetry. There’s some truth to the idea that short stories have more in common with poems than novels (yes, novels are more labor intensive, but there’s something fluke-ish and wonderful about a perfect short story).
While great short stories can be remarkably powerful, their brevity also enables writers to get away with things that would never work in a novel (e.g. a climax that happens halfway through the story).
This class focuses on building craft skills that relate specifically to short stories (some of these lessons are also useful for novel-writing). Specifically, you’ll learn:
- Key differences between shorter short stories (1500 words or less), and long short stories (5000 words or more), as well as the middle ground between those.
- Pacing in short stories
- How to create and sustain conflict and tension
- The role of theme or “payoff” in building a satisfying short story
- The relationship between character, voice, tone, and perspective
- Revision strategies for making your stories publishable
- Understanding the marketplace for short stories and short story collections
- How to organize a collection
HOW IT WORKS
We’ll meet once a month for 3 hours via Zoom (CST) for a mix of craft lessons, in-class exercises, and story workshops. Between sessions, you’ll write, revise, and stay connected to your cohort through our private online forum.
We’ve structured this program to provide maximum benefit without demanding too much time away from focusing on your own work. In addition to workshopping short sections in class, participants will meet individually with Peter for 100-page manuscript reviews.
Students enrolled in this course will receive 60% off all Master Classes throughout their time in the program, with no limit on how many classes you take. (Recent and upcoming writers include Alexander Chee, Pam Houston, Vu Tran, Garth Greenwell, Laura van den Berg, Kaveh Akbar, and Nick Flynn, among others.)
You’ll also receive:
- a clear plan for building and finishing your stories
- guidance and accountability for submitting your stories during the year
- check-ins to keep you motivated and on track.
YOUR WRITING COMMUNITY
Whether you’ve already made headway on your book or are just gathering ideas, your cohort will provide the structure, companionship, feedback, good humor, and emotional support to help you see your project through.
You’ll also join StoryStudio’s larger community—in person and on social media—where you can connect with students from other classes, receive “first chance” invitations to special programming, and stay informed about literary events around the city.
The Short Story Collection In a Year program is a program modeled after our highly successful Novel in a Year and Memoir in a Year courses, and you will have the opportunity to benefit socially and professionally from a strong network of alumni, many of whom are experiencing publishing success.
The program fee is $2,750.
This tuition includes:
11 sessions, meeting once per month for 11 months
A manuscript review with Peter Mountford
Various online social gatherings with your cohort
Discounts to the StoryBoard Festival and Pub Crawl
60% off any class in our Master Class/PJ Seminar series
A private online chat forum
VIP status at the Studio
A literary community to take well beyond this program
2027 Schedule Meets Online on the Following Dates, 6:30pm – 9:30pm Central Time
January 20
February 17
March 17
April 21
May 19
June 16
July 21
August 18
September 15
October 20
November 17
HOW TO APPLY
This course is limited to 12 students and is submission based.
- You will be asked to submit a 10-page writing sample in a .doc or PDF. The sample can be a story or novel excerpt.
- Someone who submits on the first day has the same chance as someone who submits on the last day, so don’t worry, and don’t rush.
- Payment isn’t due until after the application period is closed and acceptances have been sent out. We are happy to discuss payment plans with students who are accepted.
- You can indicate you’d like to be considered for the Doro Boehme Scholarship fund, a $500 grant toward tuition.
The next cohort will begin in January 2027, and applications will open in the fall of 2026. Please subscribe to our newsletter to get the most up-to-date information.