13 Best Creative Writing Classes in Washington

This intensive one-day workshop will offer all poets—whether they have yet to submit their first poem to a literary journal or are ready to present a publisher with a book-length manuscript—hands-on advice on how to achieve their publishing goals.

Whether you are crafting an essay or writing a memoir, the tools of fiction can bring depth and suspense to your work. This class will cover four tools of fiction. We will examine contemporary examples of each tool used in nonfiction, and then we will practice them with generative exercises.

This workshop is intended to help with all creative projects and how to navigate through ideas. This workshop will include a couple prompts to get the creative juices flowing, and some light lesson methodologies on ways to ease into projects, followed with a QA session.

Guided by an award-winning and internationally published author of sonnets, villanelles, and other metrical poems, you’ll first read time-honored sonnets to see how and why they work. Next the class will write a group sonnet, and then — with or without shortcuts — you’ll start one of your own.

The building blocks of any short story, novel, memoir, or work of creative nonfiction are scenes. Elements discussed in this fast-paced, half-day class will include Perspective, Setting, Emotion, Action, Dialogue and Exposition—as well as the most effective types of scene openings and endings.

Poets and poems are often remembered for their opening lines, but is there a “right” or at least a “better” way to begin a poem? In this workshop, we will explore some of the ways in which poets have traditionally chosen to open their poems and what these strategies achieve.

This workshop addresses the overlooked work of cultivating the discernment, mindset and habits necessary to sustain us through the emotional challenges of the creative life. In this class, you will work through writing exercises that identify limiting beliefs, clarify your needs and motivations, and rejuvenate your creative process.

A tutorial workshop on the single most important skill any writer can have. Skilled writers make readers feel and intuit exactly what they want them to by using the technique of showing writing. No other element of craft promises this immediacy and power to bring a work to life.

You may think you don’t have the time, energy, or inspiration to write because of your hectic lifestyle. Wrong! Learn what Kathryn Johnson’s Extreme Novelists know about organizing their time, establishing a productive writing routine, and getting their stories written. Become the dedicated author you’ve always dreamed of being.

A beginner's guide to sketch comedy that will take you from a premise to a fully realized sketch. This course will walk you through the elements of a sketch and how to write good sketches; it also features workshop sessions where you'll do read-throughs and get feedback on writing assignments.

This intensive one-day workshop will offer all poets—whether they have yet to submit their first poem to a literary journal or are ready to present a publisher with a book-length manuscript—hands-on advice on how to achieve their publishing goals.

This program is designed for high school students to transform their ideas into creative written works. It includes dynamic lectures on craft topics, workshop sessions, and peer feedback. The academy covers various creative writing genres and aspects of the publishing industry, including opportunities for students to read their work at notable literary locations in Washington, D.C. The estimated tuition is $3,389, which includes housing and meals for residential students, with a reduced rate for commuters.