In this four-week craft-centered seminar, multi-genre writer Paul Lisicky invites participants to explore the deep architecture of memoir at the level of the sentence and the scene.
Add to cart
Come explore elements that live at the heart of fiction, non-fiction and poetry in this eight-session introduction to creative writing.
Add to cart
This eight-week class will help students gain the tools they need to be able to generate ideas, drafts, and revisions. (Please Note! The dates for this class are Oct. 13 - Dec. 8, skipping Nov 24)
Add to cart
We’re sorry, this class is sold out! Please put your name on the waitlist in case a spot opens up In this class, we'll look behind the curtain of great story endings and adapt what we learn to our own endings. We'll work on fitting resonant images and powerful character choices into story endings—all while balancing the bitter and the sweet.
Read more
This class is Pay What You Can! Pay $1 or $50 - whatever works for your budget! Welcome to the Party, a single-session, cross-genre introduction to creative writing, asks participants to embrace and amplify their desire to write with excitement, affirmation, and possibility.
Add to cart
This single-session class explores how psychology shapes horror on the page, examining the ways fear, repression, memory, obsession, and perception transform both characters and the worlds they inhabit—perhaps even their homes.
Add to cart
In this class, we’ll talk about how playing with time in fiction—through techniques such as flashbacks, compression, backstory, and flash-forwards—can shape the stories we want to tell.
Add to cart
Pop culture is power, and power needs to be critiqued by those who are impacted by it. Students will discuss instances of pop culture that are important to them and come away with strategies for criticizing pop culture in the form of a written essay.
Add to cart
Through discussion and scene-length readings, participants will explore craft decisions that determine how to address time and pacing in memoir.
Add to cartToday we’d like to introduce you to StoryStudio community member Alicia Wala! Alicia is a wonderful writer, a generous literary citizen, and an alum of several StoryStudio classes and programs…
Yvonne Liu, a Los Angeles-based writer and mental health advocate, is a frequent online attendee of StoryStudio events and classes, including attending last year’s online StoryBoard Conference in Hugh Ryan’s…
The Washington Post called Dionne Ford’s 2023 memoir Go Back and Get It “tenacious, openhearted, ultimately transcendent,” and the Chicago Review of Books raved “Ford’s willingness to stare down her,…
Kat Tang’s debut novel, Five-Star Stranger, follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the app Rental Stranger. Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Electric Literature, The…
Matt Singer is a Chicago-based writer, a long-time member of the StoryStudio community, and a member of the Stories Matter Foundation Board of Directors. Matt attended StoryBoard 2025 in Rufi…
Ricardo Pierre-Louis is a Chicago-based writer and purveyor of the fantastic Substack, Dreaming of Kafka. Ricardo, a 2025 StoryBoard alum, answered a few questions about his experience at StoryBoard last…
Here at StoryStudio, one of our firm beliefs is that real books are always superior to fake books.😅 So after the news this week that a freelancer used AI to…
Next up in our “Meet the Staff” series is our multi-talented, hard-working Programs Director, Sara Cutaia. If you’ve met Sara in person, chances are you’ve had a conversation with her…
StoryStudio Chicago has been on Twitter/X since July 2008, almost 17 years! We’ve met many friends, writers, mentors, and instructors there. We’ve exchanged ideas and laughs. We’ve learned so much. …
Last Fall, writer Morgan Talty taught a PJ Seminar for us titled “A Master Class on the Heart of Fiction.” Writers who took Morgan’s class were delighted. “Morgan was great—funny,…