In partnership with Tennessee Williams Festival & Beanlandia.

Welcome, welcome to The Fiction Sessions, a quarterly themed reading series.

Join us for a night full of mind-bending speculative fiction written and read by local writers.

Speculative fiction is defined as a work that changes at least one irrevocable element of our reality. It encompasses most genres—sci-fi, supernatural, fantasy, and dystopian being the most popular.

This reading celebrates new and unpublished work by writers in our community.

This event is, as always, completely free and open to the community.

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.

Tennessee Williams Coffee & Craft

Our Director of Community Outreach, Daphne Armbruster, will be leading a Tennessee Williams Festival Coffee & Craft session.

In this workshop, Daphne will teach emerging and published writers how to develop a sustainable social media strategy. Through a series of exercises, you will: write an Artist's Statement, identify your ideal reader, build an online persona, and create a content calendar.

Whether you're a novelist, journalist, poet, playwright, or so on, a healthy social media strategy that speaks to your ideal readers will set your career up for success. You will leave this workshop with the tools to enact a social media strategy tuned to your goals and comfort level. Find your readers, draw them in, and enjoy a community of people who are excited for the art that you create.

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.

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.

Let’s get some fresh material in the works. Gabriela Tully Claymore is joining us for this event.

They have some spooky prompts to share to get some ideas churning in your mind and onto the page. Join us at the gorgeous BK House for an evening of writing. Gabriela will provide us with prompts and some advice and you will write, write, write. At the end of each round, we will have opportunities to share your work.

This event will spark ideas and provide encouragement, so don’t miss out!

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

About Gabriela Tully Claymore

Gabriela Tully Claymore is a writer from San Francisco. She served as the Managing Editor of the music/culture site Stereogum and holds an MFA in Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She's working on her first book.

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 month we’re at a new location - Beanlandia! This is the headquarters of the Krewe of Red Beans and an incredible community space. We are so excited to begin our partnership with them.

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

T Clark will be diving into the world of fellowships, grants, and residencies with us.

There are many opportunities out there for writers to get funding for their projects, but applying to them or even finding them can be difficult for new and seasoned writers alike. During this session, T Clark will teach us how to research and apply for these opportunities.

If you’ve ever wondered about funding or joining a residency but don’t know where to begin, this is the session for you.

About T Clark

T Clark's fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, The Offing, Joyland, and elsewhere. They have received fellowships, residencies, and funding from The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Lambda Literary Foundation, and elsewhere. They write, edit, and live in New Orleans.

Along with teaching adult writing classes, T Clark offers freelance editing and consultation services for short stories, personal essays, coaching, and more. For more information including rates and timelines, visit tia-clark.com, or reach out directly at tiaclark123@gmail.com.

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.

This interactive session will be led by Marguerite Sheffer and Michelle Kelleher. They will explore what children's picture books can teach us about the many forms satisfying stories can take.

We'll read several picture books as examples, with a focus on how authors begin stories, build interest, and end in satisfying ways.

Writers will have a chance to apply their learnings to their own projects.

This session is free, but limited to a small group of 12 attendees. Sign ups are first come, first served. Once the session is filled, we will open a waitlist.

This event will be held at the beautiful BK Historic House & Gardens. This is in the French Quarter, but it is on the Esplanade side with plenty of street parking.

Sign ups are closed.

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 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 month, we’ll be at the gorgeous BK Historic House & Gardens. Yes, it’s in the Quarter, but it’s on the Esplanade side, so street parking is easy to find.

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.

Sophie Nau is back for another generative food writing workshop.

Great food writing utilizes sensory details to convey touch/smell/sensation/ambience, as well as personal emotion while avoiding cliche. Fiction and food writer Sophie Nau will lead our workshop and teach us how to use food to the fullest in our stories.

Detailed and sensory descriptions will strengthen your prose, and there is an art to writing food. Food is both individual and universal. It can take us home or bring us places we've never visited. Fiction, nonfiction writers, and poets can use this workshop to strengthen their craft.

This is a generative workshop, so you will leave with pieces of writing to expand on or use in your projects.

We will start with reading excerpts from writers who use vivid food imagery in their work.

Then, we will dive into the craft.

Finally, Sophie will guide us through prompts that draw from your personal food memory that you can construct into scenes or vignettes, paying particular attention to the details, emotions, and experiences surrounding food.

Piety & Desire, the heavenly chocolate shop, is generously hosting this event. The setting is sure to inspire some delicious writing.

This event is full.

About Sophie

Sophie is a fiction and food writer born and raised in Los Angeles. She is a contributing writer for Country Roads and Edible Los Angeles, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Time spent baking pastries and pouring wine in restaurants in L.A., New York, and New Orleans has influenced her writing about food culture and women at work. Find her on Substack at Culinaria.

How is writing for a podcast different than writing for print? How do you produce a podcast that sounds like you and not stiff or unnatural?

In this generative workshop, Lauren Wethers will take you through the entire podcasting process—from planning and writing to recording, editing, and publishing. You’ll receive resources, write your own short sample script, learn about promoting your podcast, and more.

Whether you're just looking to explore a new medium or have an idea ready to go, this workshop provides all the information you need to launch your podcast and make your voice heard.

About Lauren

Lauren Wethers is a writer and podcaster based here in New Orleans. She started writing professionally in 2013 when she was hired to write front-page news for Kicker. She's also freelanced for Screen Rant, where she wrote about the biggest movies and television shows, and The HOTH, where she ghost wrote hundreds of blog posts for businesses across the globe. Right now she's putting the finishing touches on her manuscript. Elon with Emily Davis-Hale, she is the co-creator and co-host of Reclaiming Jane, a Jane Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Our annual writing retreat is happening Saturday, July 13!

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 first on Thursday, June 20. 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!

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.

The submission process for publishing short fiction is daunting and often obfuscated to new writers. Marguerite Sheffer, a prolific and award-winning short fiction writer (and a Third Lantern Lit founder!), is demystifying short fiction publication for emerging and published writers alike.

In this workshop, Marguerite will cover:

• Researching publications

• The query letter

• The submission process

• Tracking responses

If you’ve ever had a question about the submission process or need a crash course in how to take your short story off your hard drive and to the public, join us on Saturday July 6th..

This event is free, but RSVP only due to limited space.

Attendance has been filled. All further RSVPs will be put on the waitlist.

RSVP here:

About Marguerite

Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer is a writer who lives in New Orleans. She is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University, where she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change. Maggie is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit and the Nautilus and Wildcat Writing Groups. She received her MFA from Randolph College. She was a 2023 Veasna So Scholar in Fiction at The Adroit Journal, and was selected as a top-twenty-five finalist for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers. Her debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, was selected for the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and will be published this Fall.

Her position on semicolons (for) is noted in an Australian grammar textbook (pg 16).

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.

Compelling characters drive a story forward. They come alive off of the page and stay with us long after the book is done. They make your reader turn page after page to find out what happens to them.

But how do you do it? How do you get your reader invested in your protagonist and the people around them?

In a roundtable discussion, Danny Cherry Jr. will lead a conversation on:

• Building a character from the ground up

• Developing your characters into someone believable and interesting

• How your protagonist is the driver of your plot

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

It’s the last day of 1000 Words of Summer! Whether you hit your goal or not, we’re celebrating.

We’ll do one hour of sprinting to get those last few words out and then we’ll spend the rest of our time hanging out.

We want to hear how the challenge went for you. Did you start a new project or use it to make progress on a current work-in-progress? Did this challenge bring revelations or adjustments to your writing practice? There’s no formal Q&A, but we always love to hear about your projects and process!

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

After some requests for a weekday event, we’re adding some to the calendar! 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!

We’ll be meeting at the heavenly Piety & Desire Chocolate, so we can write to the aromas of handmade truffles.

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

How is your 1000 words challenge going? Are you ahead? Have you fallen behind? Are you right on track? Whatever it is, we’ve got you.

We’ll be running 20 minute sprints all evening to hit those 1,000 words (or maybe more) at The Domino on St. Claude. Drop by, tell us what you’re working on, and let’s get some words down!

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

1000 Words of Summer is here! Every June, New Orleans’ own Jami Attenberg challenges writers to pen 1,000 words a day for two weeks.

Third Lantern is kicking off the challenge the New Orleans way—with a party. Join us at Miel Brewery where we’ll run some sprints to get our 1,000 words down and spend the rest of our time socializing and celebrating a summer of writing.

All you need to bring is yourself, something to write on, and your idea. We can’t wait to hear what everyone has planned for their 1000 Words challenge.

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

Setting and character are the foundation of a story. They revolve around each other, and the choices you make regarding them impact your entire story.

So how do you choose the best setting for your character’s story (or the best character for your setting)? How can you use setting and description to reveal character? How does your character view the world and how does that affect your descriptions?

In our salon led by Daphne Armbruster, we’ll discuss the theory of the craft and practical applications of it. We’ll answer questions risen during the salon and look to apply our knowledge to our own work. This salon is a roundtable discussion, so everyone is encouraged to come with thoughts, theories, and questions and join the conversation.

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.

Our Get Lit series is moving - both day and location!

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.

It’s spring, it’s festin’ season, the weather is warming up, and the sun is staying out! We’re hosting a happy hour to celebrate and hang out with our fellow writers.

So join us at the Domino for drinks and good company. It’ll be low key, laid back, and a lot of fun.

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

Over the past few months, many of our writers have expressed interest in starting or joining feedback groups.

We know how difficult it can be to find people who vibe with your writing and can give the feedback you need to make your work the best it can be.

To help you find feedback partners and critique circles, we're hosting an event just for that. So if you've been looking for beta readers, we've got you!

Every writer will get a chance to tell us what you write and what feedback you’re looking for. Should you choose, you can also read a page of your writing. From there, we'll hang out and get to know each other more.

You'll be able to have deeper conversations with people you think will be a good match, share information, and coordinate your first feedback exchange.

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