Seven Upcoming Writing Classes
Each of our classes is designed to help writers sharpen their craft, develop project ideas, and find new communities. We offer a sliding scale or a reduced rate for recording-only access.
We have seven writing classes coming up. Each is designed to help writers sharpen their craft, develop project ideas, and find new communities.
We also offer a sliding scale for all of our courses, as well as a reduced rate for those who cannot attend live but would like access to the recordings.
Space in each class is limited. Details are below.
Questions? Please reach out to us at info@consequenceforum.org.
Thank you.
Telling from the Edge of Conflict: Writing as Witness
with Gloria Ogo
Saturdays, Aug 8, 15, & 22 | Online
12 – 2p ET
Cost: $80
Memory is more than recollection—it is a powerful creative tool for bearing witness. This course invites fiction writers and poets to transform personal and collective memories of violence into nuanced, ethically grounded work. Through close readings, generative exercises, discussion, and optional workshop feedback, participants will explore voice, testimony, and representation while learning to portray trauma with care and complexity. Writers will leave with new work, practical craft strategies, and greater confidence writing toward truth rather than spectacle.
Gloria Ogo is an American-based Nigerian writer with several published novels and poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Eye to the Telescope, Brittle Paper, Spillwords Press, Metastellar, Gypsophila Magazine, Harpy Hybrid Review, Allegro Poetry Magazine, among others.
The Retrospective Eye: A Nonfiction Class
with R.M. Harper
Saturdays, Aug 15, 22, & 29 | Online
3 – 5p ET
Cost: $75
Every memoir is written from two moments in time: the experience itself and the self looking back. This course explores how writers transform memory into compelling personal narrative through retrospection, point of view, and the tension between past and present selves. Through close readings, discussion, lectures, and generative writing, participants will develop new work while learning techniques to recreate lived experience and uncover the deeper meaning that memoir and creative nonfiction can reveal.
R.M. Harper is a genderqueer writer and US Navy veteran whose work explores the intersections of state power, storytelling, and identity. They earned an MFA from Saint Mary’s College and their writing has appeared in The New Ohio Review and elsewhere.
Writing the Other: A Poetry Class
with Bänoo Zan
Sunday, Aug. 16 | Online
2 – 4p ET
Cost: $30
What does it mean to write from another person’s perspective with empathy, imagination, and care? Through guided exercises, prompts, and discussion, this class invites writers to explore voices beyond their own lived experience, with a focus on persona poems and first-person narratives. Participants will examine the ethical and creative challenges of perspective-taking while developing original work that engages questions of justice, human rights, and shared humanity, leaving with new drafts and a deeper understanding of compassionate storytelling.
Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, and curator, with numerous published pieces and books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. With Cy Strom, she is the co-editor of the anthology: Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution. She was given Life Membership in the League of Canadian Poets in 2024 and is the recipient of the 2025 Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award.
When Worlds Collide: Writing to Visual Art
with Barbara Krasner
Wednesdays, Sept. 2, 9, 16, and 30 | Online
6:30 – 8:30p ET
Cost: $100
Explore the power of ekphrasis—the practice of writing in response to visual art—to create vivid, emotionally resonant work inspired by images of conflict, history, and human experience. Through timed image prompts and generative writing exercises, participants will produce multiple drafts, share their work in a supportive, strengths-based environment using the Amherst Writers & Artists method, and discover new creative possibilities. No art background is required, and writers of all genres and experience levels are welcome.
Barbara Krasner is an award-winning multi-genre author. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Gratz College. Her work has appeared in more than seventy literary journals and she is the author of ten poetry collections, including the ekphrastic Poems of the Winter Palace, The Night Watch, Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner, and the forthcoming The Wanderers.
The Sting of the Slap: Immediacy Through Sensory Details
with Gerri Brightwell
Saturday, Sept. 5 | Online
2 – 3:30p ET
Cost: $30
Bring your writing to life by learning how to immerse readers in the immediacy of a moment. Through close readings, guided writing exercises, and practical editing techniques, you’ll explore how carefully chosen sensory details create vivid, emotionally resonant scenes—even when writing about violence and conflict. Whether you write fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, you’ll leave with new strategies for crafting compelling prose, eliminating unnecessary words, and making every moment feel immediate and unforgettable.
Gerri Brightwell is originally from southwest Britain. Her fourth novel, Turnback Ridge, was a finalist for the 2022 Foreword Indies Award. Her short work has appeared in many venues including The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, Alaska Quarterly Review, Raritan: A Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, Redivider, and BBC Radio 4’s Opening Lines. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Writing Flashbacks: A Prose Class
with Sayani De
Sundays, Sept. 20 & 27 | Online
10a – 12p ET
Cost: $60
Master the art of the flashback to write compelling stories of war, displacement, memory, and loss. Through literary examples, mini-lectures, and generative writing exercises, you’ll learn how to integrate memories seamlessly into a narrative, reveal character, and deepen emotional impact without interrupting momentum. Participants will experiment with flashback techniques, receive supportive peer feedback, and leave with practical tools, revised scenes, and new strategies for using memory to propel stories of conflict and its lasting consequences.
Sayani De writes fiction and creative nonfiction. Her work has been longlisted for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Asian Prize for Short Story 2025, and shortlisted for the 2025 Rama Mehta Writing Grant. Her WIP debut novel based on war, displacement, and identity was a finalist at the Alliance Pitch fest. Her stories have been published/are forthcoming in Solarpunk, Tamarind Literary Magazine, The Selkie Anthology, The Bangalore Review, Muse India, and Indian Literature.
Finding Purpose in Place: Nonfiction
with Lynne Weiss
Monday, Sept. 28 | Online
7 – 8:30p ET
Cost: $30
Discover how place can illuminate the human consequences of war, political violence, injustice, and resilience. Through readings, discussion, and guided writing exercises, you’ll explore how landscapes, neighborhoods, monuments, and everyday spaces reveal hidden histories and inspire powerful personal essays. Learn to use sensory detail to bring places vividly to life while connecting them to larger social and historical themes. Writers will leave with a new draft or revised work and strategies for developing it further.
Lynne Weiss is a writer, theater critic, and social justice activist. She has an MFA from UMass Amherst and has received residencies from Yaddo, the Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in multiple literary journals and sites, including The Common, Black Warrior Review, the Ploughshares blog, Christian Science Monitor, and Radcliffe Magazine.