Classes at the Attic

The Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Studio is based on the idea that inspiration, accountability, and community are essential to every writer’s growth. The CNF Studio meets weekly for multi-month sessions, and its curriculum is designed to help you deepen your writing through a keener understanding of both literary craft and your own voice. The CNF Studio is open to applications from all writers, and members often return for multiple sessions. This creates the Studio’s special experience: a consistent, deep, and supportive study of your writing in the company of other writers. Each weekly session includes a close-reading and discussion of a selected work of creative nonfiction, a roundtable reading of take-home prompts, and in-depth critique of several works-in-progress. Over the course of their time in the CNF Studio, writers can expect to read widely and gain deep insight into their own writing, all the while exploring questions of structure, form, narration, truth, memory, influence, and voice.  | Maximum 9 students  

Learn more about the CNF Studio

To Apply: To apply to join the next Creative Nonfiction Studio, please send a writing sample of up to 3,500 words and a 250-word statement of purpose.

No class on Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Send your application to: cnfstudio@atticinstitute.com

Find your way into your characters’ motivations, interiority, and relationships in this generative workshop for short story writers and novelists. We’ll create complex characters through in-class writing, discussion of short story and novel excerpts, and reimagining in-progress and new work. Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

Discover the transformative power of poetry in our workshop, designed for everyone from curious beginners to seasoned wordsmiths. No prior experience is needed—bring your imagination and love for language. In these engaging six-week, 90-minute sessions, we will explore poetic elements and figurative devices to ignite your creativity. Dive into crafting and refining your own poetry through interactive exercises and inspiring prompts. Our workshop fosters a supportive environment where you can share your work, receive constructive feedback, and collaborate with fellow poets to hone your unique voice. Whether you aim to express yourself, tell stories, or simply play with language, this workshop offers an inspiring journey into the world of poetry. Uncover new perspectives, challenge yourself, and leave with fresh ideas and techniques to fuel your writing passion. Join us and transform your poetic potential into powerful expressions.

Register for this workshop

Here’s a workshop that can flow with the longer rhythms of your writing. A Saturday morning of each month, we’ll gather and share poems in a comfortable but focused fashion. You choose the poem to share based on what feedback you are looking for; the poems could range from one you want ready to submit for publication, to an experimental piece that needs a supportive but critical eye. Along the way we’ll talk about craft and how to grow and sustain a fulfilling practice, which includes the company of fellow poets.  Come ready to share your poems and insights and to carry generous feedback home to your writing desk. Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

Flash nonfiction, simply put, is true-to-life writing defined by extreme compression. It's saying what you've got to say using as few words, and as much beauty, as possible. An endlessly accessible, playful, potent form, flash nonfiction is evermore popular; from Brevity to Barren, The Forge to The Sun, legions of journals are publishing great flash. This class is open to all writers, whether you're new to flash or finishing your first collection. Over five weeks, students will read stellar flash, begin new pieces, workshop works-in-progress, and move toward submitting work for publication. | Maximum: 16 writers. Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

Have you been wondering how to move your poetry practice to the next level? Would you like to share your work in an environment of acceptance and discovery? Leveling up means expanding your vocabulary of poetry moves. “For me, meaning arrives, almost unbidden, from an accumulation of details,” says Ted Kooser, and we're going to study how some modern masters make their poems work by focusing on details: physical, emotional and temporal, and their use of literary devices and motifs. We will then apply those lessons to our own poems. Discover how your poetic voice and vision emerge, change and grow. Poems from Arthur Sze, Mary Ruefle, Li-Young Lee and others help light our way. Come join us! . Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

This generative workshop will explore the craft of fiction through the lens of narrative time and story. Together we'll work on building compelling characters, a strong sense of place, balancing scene and exposition, and creating narrative weight. Open to all writers. Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

*** Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

Yes, trauma, grief, and loss trouble writers into amazing writing, but let’s not forget joy. In this session, let’s explore how JOY—writing from it and writing about it—will energize your writing, too. Practicing two important techniques every writer needs, we’ll work through prompts and create the momentum you need to reintegrate joy into your writing practice. Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop

Whether you’re already knee-deep in a memoiristic writing project or intrigued by the prospect of beginning to write with a first-person voice, this two-day intensive will provide a supportive, nourishing environment for you to develop your craft. Through a mix of short writing exercises, readings, discussion, craft talks, and optional opportunities for feedback, students will gain tools to think more deeply about time and structure in memoir, narrative voice, the balance of scene and exposition, and more general advice on the challenges and joys of writing in this genre. No experience required, only curiosity and a willingness to experiment. Open to all writers.

Register for this workshop