Have you been circling your memoir or essay project, not for lack of ideas, but for lack of what you actually need? Looking for a writing community or a mentor who stays for the long haul? Hoping for sustained inspiration, or the belief that your story (your family history, your survival, your inheritance, your witness) deserves that kind of time and attention? Longing for something deeper than a short class but can't upend your life for an MFA, or finished an MFA and lost your people? This intensive workshop is for writers at every stage — generating new material, deep in a draft, or sitting on a finished manuscript ready for serious readers — who want to go deeper into memoir, personal essay, hybrid prose, or researched narrative with expert craft instruction, workshop, and community. No prior workshop experience required, only a commitment to the work and your story. Over eight months we'll explore the innovative forms and structures that can hold your particular story, develop the voice that makes it undeniably yours, and build the kind of rigorous, inclusive community that carries us all forward.

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What you get: 

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• In-class generative writing exercises

• Quick shares of in-class and homework writing

• 2–3 full workshop critiques (new pieces or revisions) with written and oral feedback from peers and instructor; submission lengths calibrated to real-world publication standards — journal essays, magazine features, book chapters — determined together

• 1 published essay or memoir excerpt per week for close reading and craft discussion

• Craft primers on voice, structure, scene, character, and form

• "Story buds" and next step intentions

• 3 classroom visits from published writers

• 2 private consultations with Faith

• Community and accountability across 8 months, with a close-knit cohort​​​​

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(No class on holidays and school breaks: 10/13, 11/24, 12/22, 12/29, 1/12, 1/26, 3/9, 3/30, 4/27.)

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Outline:

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Fall (Sept–Nov):

In our first season, we focus on building community, establishing a writing practice, and generating new material. Through in-class exercises and close reading of published essays and memoir, we explore the craft fundamentals (voice, scene, character, setting) while beginning to discover the forms and structures that might hold your particular story. You'll share work regularly in quick introductory rounds as we warm up to full workshop. If you're already working on a project — or sitting on a completed draft — this is the time to push toward new possibilities and see what else might want to come into the work. A visiting writer joins us to share their process and path.

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Expect to generate multiple new pieces (essays, memoir fragments, experiments in form) and to develop a writing routine that carries you through the week. Expect to read one published essay or memoir excerpt per week for close reading and craft discussion, as well as work by your peers.

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Winter (Dec–Mar):
 

Here our workshops deepen as we develop a firmer sense of each other's projects, voices, and ambitions — one of the genuine gifts of a yearlong commitment. With months of shared reading and writing behind us, feedback grows more nuanced; we begin to understand not just what a piece is doing but what a writer is reaching for. Craft discussions follow the work: we range across CNF's sub-genres and forms (lyric essay, immersion memoir, literary journalism, epistolary, cultural and family narrative), finding the approaches that genuinely serve each writer's material, whether that's a single essay or a book-length project in revision. We dig into revision as a sustained practice rather than a final pass. A visiting writer joins us to share not just craft but context: how a project finds its form, what gets harder and what gets easier, and what it means to keep going. Private consultations begin — time set aside for your specific project, your challenges, and your next steps with Faith.

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Expect to generate new work while also developing a revision practice and returning to earlier pieces with fresh eyes. Identify what forms and structures are asking to hold your story, and where your voice wants to go.

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Spring (Mar–May):

In our final season, the focus shifts to shaping — revising and developing a body of work, locating your writing in the contemporary conversation, and mapping what comes next. We discuss the practical realities of literary life: submitting to journals, crafting query letters and book proposals, building a writing practice that sustains you. Writers who came in generating material may be ready for their first full workshop; writers who arrived with a manuscript will be moving toward submission or proposal. A visiting writer joins us to talk about publication, literary citizenship, and the long game. 

We close with a celebration and public reading (hybrid or in-person depending on the group) marking what we've made together and where we're each going next.

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Yearlong ​Payment Plan:

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Deposit $500 due upon acceptance.

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Full payment ($4450) or first installment ($2450) due September 1, 2026. Proper payment adjustments will be made for early bird applicants.

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Second installment ($2000) due January 1, 2027.

 

No refunds of course deposit. After first class, students are responsible for full payment for the year-long course. If Left Margin LIT cancels the course before its scheduled starting date, all payments and deposits will be fully refunded.