In partnership with Twelve Mile Limit, we are hosting a FIVE HOUR writing marathon open to all local writers.

Be there at noon to spend some time with your fellow writers and grab a coffee at the bar. At 12:30, we’ll start our silent writing. We’ll have one more 30 minute break halfway through to stretch our legs and some time at the end to share our experience. For those who make it all the way through, stay and celebrate with a drink at the bar!

This is a generative writing event meant to give us busy writers a few hours of focus free of our daily obligations. We hope you’ll join us and give yourself the writing time you deserve!

This event is free and open to all local writers. No RSVP necessary.

Join our monthly Get Lit group to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

If your weekday evenings are full, join us during the day at our staple Get Lit to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Join us for a night of fantasy. Local readers will share their stories about far off worlds, magical realms, political intrigue, and fated quests. This popular genre examines everything from the effects of war on a nation to familial relationships. The fantastical lens allows us a glimpse into our own human condition.

This reading celebrates new and unpublished work by writers in our community.

This event is free and open to the community. No RSVP necessary.

Led by Elizabeth Prats:

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to be traditionally published with a Big 5 or mid-size publisher like Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, or Scholastic, then this is for you. You’ll need a literary agent to be considered. 

In this session, we’ll discuss:

• What is a literary agent, and why do you need one?

• Researching literary agents

• Looking out for “schmagents” (aka scam agents)

• Query letters & submission strategy

• Advice from agented authors

• Tools & resources (including a downloadable agent tracking template)

The session will be hosted by Elizabeth Prats, a Cuban American agented author-illustrator and Third Lantern Lit board member. She writes middle grade and young adult fiction featuring epic adventures and fierce Latine heroes.

This workshop is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

We are reading the craft book Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell this summer. This is a short book that we are reading in three parts.

Bells’s approach to drafting, revising, and polishing is radical. Regardless of what stage you’re in with your own writing projects, we are excited to discuss, brainstorm, and decompress the process with you.

Meet with us to discuss Part 3, Polishing

We will also have an ongoing discussion on our Discord! Click the link icon in the footer to join.

This book club is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Live readings are an essential part of a writer’s career. Unfortunately, reading live in front of an audience can be daunting for many writers. That is why we have started this workshop series—happening quarterly. Learning these skills in a workshop setting before jumping into an open mic or live reading can help you work past paralyzing nerves.

Daphne Armbruster, our Director of Community Outreach and trained theatre actress, will be leading this workshop.

In the first hour of this workshop, you will learn:

• The basic mechanics of what you can expect from a reading, from the moment you are introduced until you walk off the stage and back to your seat.

• Grounding techniques to lessen the physical symptoms of nerves and stage fright.

• Techniques to project confidence as you read, whether or not you feel it. (Fake it ‘till you make it is a very real thing!)

• Practical acting techniques to bring your prose and dialogue to life.

• We will also dive briefly into how to pick the best cut of your piece to read live.

In the second hour, attendees will be encouraged to workshop their pieces with Daphne. Attendees are not required to get on the stage, but this activity is valuable to getting over stage fright.

Whether you’re a fledgling or seasoned author, learning and honing these skills will set you up for greater success in your field.

If you attend this event, please feel free to bring a 500-word cut of a piece you would like to work on. If you do not feel comfortable reading your own work, we will have sides from short stories available for you to read.

This workshop is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

If your weekday evenings are full, join us during the day at our staple Get Lit to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Join our monthly Get Lit group to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Monday, August 11th / Wednesday, August 13th / Friday, August 15th / 6pm-8pm

This is a three-day, free event open to all writers via RSVP. We are accepting 12 writers on a first-come, first-served basis.  

Welcome to Third Lantern Lit's First Workshop on the Graphic Novel, writing for comics, and the art of cartooning!

Learn how to craft an illustrative memoir from short generative writing prompts or work from a fully-plotted manuscript. Find a way to tell your story in words and pictures with helpful tips, tricks, and exercises to make this process fun.

This workshop is open to writers of all styles and skill levels. Whether or not you feel confident in your proficiency as an artist, come in with a personal story you'd like to tell! You'll be brought up to speed in the intuitive toolbox of visual storytelling by Antigravity magazine feature illustrator & Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) MFA graduate Romey Petite.

Day One: Making Worlds
Day Two: Creative Nonfiction & Memoir
Day Three: Autobiographical Comics

About Romey Petite

Romey Petite is an illustrator for Antigravity magazine, an MFA graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies, and a board member of the Neutral Ground Coffeehouse nonprofit. Romey recently completed his forthcoming graphic memoir COMICORPSE and is currently working on a novel about the Tarot and the Fool's Journey. He lived in North Carolina for several years, but originally hails from New Orleans. He has published a fairy tale called Spiderella, about a girl who speaks with spiders, and it is still his favorite book. His short fiction has been published in the Fiends in the Furrows: Anthology of Folk Horror Vol. 1, Coffin Bell Journal, and on the Fairy Tales for Unwanted Children podcast. He co-founded a queer punk band known as The Frozen Charlottes. Sometimes, he wears a costume to read poetry and macabre tales while playing a fictional dead author for attention. He enjoys a little good whimsy. The living author can be found washing dishes or making coffee, but dreams of teaching comics as literature full-time.

IG: @romeypetite

This event has reached its cap and RSVP is closed.

We are reading the craft book Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell this summer. This is a short book that we are reading in three parts.

Bells’s approach to drafting, revising, and polishing is radical. Regardless of what stage you’re in with your own writing projects, we are excited to discuss, brainstorm, and decompress the process with you.

Meet with us to discuss the book on the following days:
August 8: Discuss part 2, revising
September 5: Discuss part 3, polishing

We will also have an ongoing discussion on our Discord! Click the link icon in the footer to join.

This book club is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Page to Stage is a guided program to help you turn a story from an idea to a complete work ready to be performed at a live reading. This period’s theme is Fantasy & Fairy Tale! This is a subgenre of Speculative Fiction that focuses on magical and supernatural elements. Often set in an imaginary world with its own rules and creatures, or set in our world with additional elements, fantasy explores magic, mythical beings, and adventures that do not follow the rules of our world.

This month, we are revising our pieces of literature! In this workshop, local author and 3LL Vice-President Marguerite Sheffer will use guided exercises that provide creative ways of approaching your revision.

Whether you are participating in the full Page to Stage program or have another project you would like to work on, come down and get some revising done.

This event is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

About Marguerite

Marguerite Sheffer’s debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, won the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Award. Her stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epiphany, The Adroit Journal, The Offing, Smokelong Quarterly, and The Cosmic Background, among other magazines. You can find her online @mlensheffer and at www.margueritesheffer.com.

Join our monthly Get Lit group to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

If your weekday evenings are full, join us during the day at our staple Get Lit to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Our annual writing retreat is happening Saturday, July 19!

This is a FREE, one-day retreat hosted at A Studio in the Woods. We’ll spend the morning free-writing and have breakout sessions in the afternoon/evening.

This event is RSVP only. We are accepting 18 writers on a first-come first-served basis. Sign-ups will open to our newsletter subscribers on Thursday, July 3. If there are slots left, we add the sign-up link to this event listing and announce it on our social media. Slots fill quickly, so make sure to subscribe to our newsletter!

We are reading the craft book Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell this summer. This is a short book that we are reading in three parts.

Bells’s approach to drafting, revising, and polishing is radical. Regardless of what stage you’re in with your own writing projects, we are excited to discuss, brainstorm, and decompress the process with you.

Meet with us to discuss the book on the following days:

July 11: Discuss the intro and part 1, drafting
August 8: Discuss part 2, revising
September 5: Discuss part 3, polishing

We will also have an ongoing discussion on our Discord! Click the link icon in the footer to join.

This book club is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Led by Kayla Min Andrews:

I used to think of myself as primarily a fiction writer. Then my life got crazy and I felt an urgent drive to focus on memoir/personal essays instead. At first, I approached creative nonfiction through narrative, as I had approached fiction. But I quickly learned to see creative nonfiction—especially memoir-istic writing—as full of rich possibilities that I hadn’t previously considered.

In this workshop, I’ll lead us through generative free-writing exercises and discussions of craft, with the goal of sharing lessons I’ve learned during my adventures in nonfiction-writing, and encouraging participants to share theirs as well. I’ll occasionally refer to excerpts from other writers' work and my own.

We’ll pay particular attention to strategies for sidestepping obstacles to writing (strategies including but not limited to cheekiness!) and for reframing received wisdom about what one “must” or “can’t” do on the page.

This workshop is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

About Kayla Min Andrews

Kayla Min Andrews is a biracial, Korean American writer living in New Orleans. She has a piece forthcoming from The Massachusetts Review and has been published in Lit Hub, Cagibi, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Asymptote. Her flash essay “Old Kleenex” was nominated for a Best of the Net 2020. Kayla assisted Putnam on the posthumous publication of her mother’s novel The Fetishist (January 2024), including editing the manuscript and writing the afterword. Kayla is an MFA candidate in fiction at Randolph and is working on a novel. 

Led by Adrian Von Young.

Page to Stage is a guided program to help you turn a story from an idea to a complete work ready to be performed at a live reading. Each quarter we release the theme of which all of our events for those three months will be centered.

This period’s theme is Fantasy & Fairy Tale! This is a subgenre of Speculative Fiction that focuses on magical and supernatural elements. Often set in an imaginary world with its own rules and creatures, or set in our world with additional elements, fantasy explores magic, mythical beings, and adventures that do not follow the rules of our world.

Some works of fantasy include The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, and The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin.

Over the next three months, we will work to get our pieces stage-ready. At this workshop, we will lead use prompts to jostle some fantasy and fairy tale story ideas out of your head and onto the page.

This event is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

About Adrian Von Young

The Man Who Noticed Everything, Adrian Van Young's first book of fiction, won Black Lawrence Press' 2011 St. Lawrence Book Award, and is available for purchase from Black Lawrence Press. His second book, Shadows in Summerland, a novel, was republished by Open Road Media in September, 2020. His third book of fiction, Midnight Self, a story collection, will be released from Black Lawrence Press in October 2023. He is also the author of Vampire Pool Party from Madeleine Editions, a book for children. His fiction and non-fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Black Warrior Review, Conjunctions, The Believer, VICE, Slate, BOMB, Guernica, Granta, McSweeney's, The New Yorker online, and elsewhere. He is a Henfield Foundation Prize recipient as well as a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

He has taught writing at Boston College, Boston University, Grub Street Writers in Boston, and Tulane University in New Orleans. He received his B.A. in English from Vassar College, and his MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where he formerly taught as well. He lives in New Orleans with his wife Darcy and his two sons, Sebastian and August, where he is a professional freelance editor.

If your weekday evenings are full, join us during the day at our staple Get Lit to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Sponsored by the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library.

This interactive workshop covers the basics of writing flash fiction, let by Third Lantern Lit Vice President, Marguerite Sheffer. We'll look at examples, play with prompts, and go over strategies for writing very short stories with a punch.

Learn the essential elements of writing flash fiction (short stories under 1000 words). Writers of all levels are welcome. No formal writing experience required. 

Bring a notebook or laptop and be ready to write. 

About Marguerite Sheffer

Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer’s debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees won the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was named a “Best Debut Book of 2024” by Debutiful and a “Most Exciting Debut Story Collection” by Electric Literature. Her stories appear in The Cincinnati Review, BOMB, LitHub, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Smokelong Quarterly, among other magazines. Her story “Tiger on My Roof” was a finalist for the 2024 Chautauqua Janus Prize, which awards emerging writers’ short fiction with “daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers’ imaginations.” At Tulane University she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change. She is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit, a New Orleans writing collective.   

Join us for a night of science fiction. Local readers will share their stories about advanced technology, space, time travel, parallel universes, and more. From hopeful to dystopian to absurdist themes, our story tellers will use this popular genre to dive deep into the human condition.

This reading celebrates new and unpublished work by writers in our community.

This event is free and open to the community. No RSVP necessary.

In partnership with Twelve Mile Limit, we are hosting a FIVE HOUR writing marathon open to all local writers.

Be there at noon to spend some time with your fellow writers and grab a coffee at the bar. At 12:30, we’ll start our silent writing. We’ll have one more 30 minute break halfway through to stretch our legs and some time at the end to share our experience. For those who make it all the way through, stay and celebrate with a drink at the bar!

This is a generative writing event meant to give us busy writers a few hours of focus free of our daily obligations. We hope you’ll join us and give yourself the writing time you deserve!

This event is free and open to all local writers. No RSVP necessary.

Join our monthly Get Lit group to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Live readings are an essential part of a writer’s career. Unfortunately, reading live in front of an audience can be daunting for many writers. That is why we have started this workshop series—happening quarterly. Learning these skills in a workshop setting before jumping into an open mic or live reading can help you work past paralyzing nerves.

Daphne Armbruster, our Director of Community Outreach and trained theatre actress, will be leading this workshop.

In the first hour of this workshop, you will learn:

• The basic mechanics of what you can expect from a reading, from the moment you are introduced until you walk off the stage and back to your seat.

• Grounding techniques to lessen the physical symptoms of nerves and stage fright.

• Techniques to project confidence as you read, whether or not you feel it. (Fake it ‘till you make it is a very real thing!)

• Practical acting techniques to bring your prose and dialogue to life.

• We will also dive briefly into how to pick the best cut of your piece to read live.

In the second hour, attendees will be encouraged to workshop their pieces with Daphne. Attendees are not required to get on the stage, but this activity is valuable to getting over stage fright.

Whether you’re a fledgling or seasoned author, learning and honing these skills will set you up for greater success in your field.

If you attend this event, please feel free to bring a 500-word cut of a piece you would like to work on. If you do not feel comfortable reading your own work, we will have sides from short stories available for you to read.

This workshop is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

If your weekday evenings are full, join us during the day at our staple Get Lit to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Join our monthly Get Lit group to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

Ever wondered what it takes to land a literary agent on your journey to publication? Join us for a practical workshop to demystify the greatest tool in your toolbox: your query letter. 

This is the first step toward traditional publication –whether that’s a Big 4, mid-size, or small press. We’ll start by explaining why query letters matter and what role they play in the publishing process (Hint: You need one to land a literary agent).

What You Can Expect:

• Welcome & Workshop Goals

• Why Query Letters Matter

• What a Query Letter Is and Isn’t

• Anatomy of a Strong Query

• Examples of Successful Queries

• Mini-Exercise / Q&A

We’ll share real-world examples of successful queries, highlight common pitfalls, and offer a practical exercise to help you test your own hook. Whether you're polishing your query or just getting started, everyone will walk away with tools to take the next step.

This event is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

A society thrives when it has a well-informed citizenry, and it is the job of journalists to keep the citizenry informed.

Journalism can spark change, and hold the powerful to account... But is it activism?

At this roundtable, investigative journalist Danny Cherry Jr and climate writer and author Mary Annaïse Heglar will discuss:

• Should journalism be considered activism?

• What role does journalism play in the larger social justice and activist space?

• What are the responsibilities of the journalist, and how to they differ from that of a fiction or creative non-fiction writer?

• How to break into journalism.

• And more.

About Danny Cherry Jr

By day, Danny Cherry Jr. is an MBA-havin', caffeine-addicted corporate drone. But at night, he is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Antigravity Magazine, and has written for: Buzzfeed News, Politico, and The Daily Beast; and published fiction for Apex Magazine, Fiyah Lit Mag, amongst others. 

His work has been acknowledged in Locus Magazine recommended reading list for 2022, as well as the Best American Sci-fi and Fantasy 2023 notable stories list. His recently released debut novel, The Pike Boys, is a historical crime drama based in 1920s NOLA, and can be purchased at Books2read.com/thepikeboys

Follow him on social media on Twitter (X), TikTok, Instagram, and BlueSky @DeeCherryWriter, where he posts pictures of his Teacup Poodle, Teddy! 

About Mary Annaïse Heglar

Mary Annaïse Heglar is the author of  Troubled Waters (Harper Muse, 2024) and  The World is Ours to Cherish (Random House Kids, 2024). She is also known for her essays that dissect and interrogate the climate crisis, drawing heavily on her personal experience as a Black woman with deep roots in the South.

Her work has appeared in New York Magazine, The Nation, The Boston Globe, Vox, Rolling Stone, and other outlets. Her work has also been featured in collections like All We Can Save, The World As We Knew It, The Black Agenda, Letters to the Earth, and Not Too Late.

Mary is from Birmingham, Alabama and Mississippi. After living in New York City and New Orleans, she recently relocated to Birmingham. 

Page to Stage is a guided program to help you turn a story from an idea to a complete work ready to be performed at a live reading. This period’s theme is Science Fiction! Sci-fi is a subgenre of speculative fiction that deals in futuristic concepts such as advanced technology and science, space, time travel, parallel universes, and more.

This month, we are revising our pieces of literature! In this workshop, we will use guided exercises that provide creative ways of approaching your revision.

Whether you are participating in the full Page to Stage program or have another project you would like to work on, come down and get some revising done.

This event is free and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.

If your weekday evenings are full, join us during the day at our staple Get Lit to hang out with your writing community and do some sprinting!

If you’ve never done writing sprints before, there’s only one rule: get as many words on the page as you can before 20 minutes are up. We’ll run three writing sprints—one full hour.

So come to our Get Lit with your work in progress and leave with words on the page!

This event is FREE and open to all writers. No RSVP necessary.