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.

A world-building workshop using the STEEPLE+ method.

All speculative fiction begins with a single compelling idea—but how do you transform that spark into a world that feels rich, believable, and alive? In this interactive workshop, author TQ Sims (The Lovers Universe series) will guide you through the "STEEPLE+" method of world-building, a practical framework for developing cultures, technology, politics, ecology, and more by following the logical consequences of your core concept. Whether you're building your first world or refining an existing one, you'll leave with a repeatable strategy and the foundational building blocks of a unique setting ready to inspire your next story.

TQ Sims (he/him, they/them) is a longtime New Orleans resident, where he lives with his husband and an ever-growing clowder of cats. His short fiction has appeared in Playboy and Beyond Queer Words. His hopepunk sci-fi series The Lovers Universe—described by HuffPost as “both smart and sexy”—includes the novels Godspeed, Lovers; Lovers in Arms; and End as Lovers. Find him on Instagram: @t.q.sims.

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

Join board member Michelle Kelleher every second Tuesday for this new daytime writing series. We’ll run through a new set of unusual writing prompts every session, pulled from craft books, classes, and imagination, before moving into forty minutes of free writing. Treat these prompts as a catalyst to create something new or as a warm-up before moving on to an existing project. Every session of Uncommon Prompts will be different. Come try something new to keep your creativity flowing throughout the year. 

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

A Page to Stage Event, led by Chris Clarkson

Join us to revise your young adult fiction! During this workshop, Chris Clarkson will discuss the publishing process for his novels, the difference between contemporary and fantasy/science fiction YA novels, and the crucial role of editing. We will do some exercises to bring our characters to life, build a strong network of supporting characters, and write our elevator pitches.

Chris Clarkson: Chris Clarkson is the author of Chloe and the Fireflies, Where Did Benjamin Go? and That Summer Night on Frenchmen Street and the co-author of Songbird in the Light. Clarkson lives in New Orleans where he's building a collection of notebooks filled with stories waiting to be brought to life.

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

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 Friday, July 3. Slots fill quickly, so make sure to subscribe to our newsletter!

Join board member Michelle Kelleher every second Tuesday for this new daytime writing series. We’ll run through a new set of unusual writing prompts every session, pulled from craft books, classes, and imagination, before moving into forty minutes of free writing. Treat these prompts as a catalyst to create something new or as a warm-up before moving on to an existing project. Every session of Uncommon Prompts will be different. Come try something new to keep your creativity flowing throughout the year. 

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

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.

Workshop leader: Alys Arden

Join young adult novelist Alys Arden in our generative Page to Stage workshop. Alys will teach us about the world of young adult novels and how to write a story for young adult readers. She will lead us through some prompted writing sessions to help you generate ideas for your new young adult story.

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

Join us for an evening of southern gothic stories.

Local readers will share their original stories of hidden histories, unsettling family dynamics, suspicious characters with unknown motives, and the unforeseen events that bring our past back to haunt us.

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

This event is free and open to the community. 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.

A quarterly book club in partnership with The Garden District Bookshop at The Rink

Join Third Lantern Lit board and community members as we explore the stories and authors that define New Orleans.

Each quarter, we’ll focus on a novel or story that takes place (at least in part) in the Crescent City. We’ll explore different genres and time periods, reading the visions and histories of the many and varied individuals who call New Orleans home.

Participants are welcome to enjoy their own copy of that quarter’s selection or purchase a copy of the chosen book in advance from The Garden District Bookshop at The Rink.

Then, join us for book-themed cocktails and conversation at The Rink where Bar Epilogue will be open and serving yummy cocktails, mocktails, and light bites.

Workshop leader: Bryan Camp

Floods. Vampires. Shapeshifters. Cataclysms. These are just a few of the narratives that cycle throughout human storytelling, from culture to culture and from the ancient world through to today.

In this lecture and workshop, we'll discuss a variety of mythic structures and how they can inform and inspire character, plot, and setting. Attendees will participate in a few generative writing exercises, which can be used to begin a new piece of writing on a blank page or inspire a fresh perspective on in-progress work.

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

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.

In partnership with New Orleans Writers Workshop

Panel guests: Elisa Speranza & Allison Alsup

Thoughts of penning an historical narrative can overwhelm. Where to begin? How to research? When to stop researching and start writing? 

Join New Orleans Writers Workshop co-founder and developmental editor Allison Alsup (author of Foreign Seed), and book publicity consultant Elisa M. Speranza (author of Triage and The Italian Prisoner) as they share the good, the bad, and the ugly  of their journeys writing historical novels. They’ll dive into the most common challenges historical fiction writers face—as well as strategies for overcoming them.  

This session is designed for new and experienced writers alike as well as curious fans of historical fiction.

Copies of Allison’s and Elisa’s novels will be available for purchase and signing. 

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

In this generative workshop, award-winning journalist and essayist Carolina Murriel shares her signature approach to structuring a memoiristic personal essay, centered on one extended scene from your life. Bring a central memory, come ready to zoom into the details, and leave with a solid outline or draft.

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

A Page to Stage Event, led by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Revision is the secret sauce of great writing. The best stories must go through a process of whittling down so that the essential, unforgettable parts remain.

In this generative workshop, we will discuss examples of famous revisions that improved literature. Attendees will participate in in-class writing exercises. Attendees are invited, but not required, to bring along an excerpt of something they've written.

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

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.

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.

Veronica Varlow learned about supernatural magick growing up at the feet of her Grandma Helen’s three-legged tarot table. Her Grandma passed down the stories of her Czech-Romani ancestors and Veronica shared those secrets in her best-selling book, Bohemian Magick: Witchcraft and Secret Spells to Electrify Your Life. Veronica got her first major book deal with HarperCollins by doing spells and working with a supportive, positive coven. 

When a spell is successful, it’s important to make an offering back to the community, and Veronica wants to make an offering to the Third Lantern Lit community to share her secret writing rituals and spells to help boost other writers to achieve their dreams with the support of supernatural tips!

In this workshop, Veronica will teach you to use artful spells and practical rituals to:

• Banish writer’s block.

• Electrify your writing with some inspiration from the Beloved Dead. 

• Summon your full wild powers as a creative writer and magnetize the best opportunities to you.

The Southern Gothic is a genre that draws its inspiration from the shadowed parts of the American South, where folklore, superstition, buried histories, and complex social hierarchies shape the ground beneath our feet. Its motifs center the weight of violence and the grotesque, and in its stories the past is never past; it lingers, shaping the present in unsettling ways.

This generative workshop explores the rich tradition of Southern Gothic storytelling, where place, landscape, memory, and the supernatural intertwine. Through guided prompts and short exercises, participants will begin developing their own stories, with an emphasis on atmosphere and haunting. By the end of the session, writers will leave with the start of a new piece and practical tools to keep building beyond the workshop.

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