In partnership with Tennessee Williams Festival & Beanlandia.

Join us and take a journey through time from the swingin' 60s to regency drama to ancient Roman sabotage, brought to you through new work by local writers.

A period piece is defined as a modern work of literature that is set in a past time period. Unlike historical fiction, period fiction does not have to take place against the backdrop of a historical event. For our event, any literary piece set on or before 1999 is considered period fiction.

This reading celebrates new and unpublished work by writers in our community.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

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.

Join us to get your publishing and industry questions answered by experienced editors and a literary agent!  Our panelists will share their expertise and advice to demystify the process of getting your words out into the world, and we'll talk about what it takes to build a sustainable writing career. Note: this is NOT a pitch event but a chance to share general questions. 

This event is free. No RSVP necessary.

Panelists

 Colleen Rothman (Associate Series Editor for Wigleaf Top 50 and Founding Editor of Nurture: A Literary Journal)

Dan Fox (Editor in Chief of ANTIGRAVITY)

Sara Kachelman (Editor at Denver Quarterly)

Christopher Romaguera (Poetry Editor at Peauxdunque Review)

Katherine Fausset (Literary Agent / Vice President at Curtis Brown)

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.

Writing a novel is a long journey—tens of thousands of words, countless drafts, years of your time—and it is easy to get lost. This is why creating a story structure is such a fundamental first step when writing a novel.

Daphne Armbruster has turned even the most staunch pantsers into believers with this workshop. Whether you’re a genre or literary writer, plot or character-driven, this workshop will give you the tools you need to give your story shape.

In this workshop, we will:

• Break down the most common story structure into beats

• Discover why the midpoint is the most vital part of the story and not the climax

• Discuss how to tie your protagonist’s motivations and fatal flaw to the plot to create a dynamic and cathartic story

• Apply the roadmap to your novel in progress

This is a generative workshop and will be most helpful for those who are currently drafting or in the brainstorming phase of a novel. We ask participants to bring a computer or pen and paper to this workshop.

And just remember—outlining is not locking yourself into a story. It is your sandbox; a way for you to take a macro-look at your story and discover issues or plot holes before you’re 50,000 words in. We hope to see you there!

This workshop 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.

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.

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. Our winter 2025 theme is Period Fiction! A period piece is defined as a modern work of literature that is set in a past time period. Any piece set on or before 1999 is considered period fiction.

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.

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.

Michelle Kelleher, our Director of Events, will lead an exercise-focused workshop on fantasy worldbuilding.

Beginning with a brief roundtable discussion about what we all find compelling in well-built fantasy worlds, we’ll touch on ideas like internal versus external logic, the structure of magic or sociopolitical systems in your new society, and how to choose the details that help make a world feel realistic without info-dumping.

We’ll then jump into a series of solo and group exercises pulled from several sources, including writing craft books, online author lectures, classes, and tabletop gaming to start building well-thought-out worlds to play in later. 

You don’t need to come with an existing idea (though it’s fine if you do), the prompts are designed to encourage you to think about how to write a world that holds together for the reader.

Setting and worldbuilding are important skills across genres, and while these exercises will have a strong SFF theme, we welcome all writers to this workshop.

This event 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. Each quarter we release the theme of which all of our events for those three months will be centered.

Our winter 2025 theme is Period Fiction! A period piece is defined as a modern work of literature that is set in a past time period. Any literary piece set on or before 1999 is considered period fiction.

Over the next three months, we will work to get our pieces stage-ready. Local author Allison Alsup will lead a generative writing workshop with prompts to help you develop story ideas in the genre of period fiction.

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

About Allison Alsup

Allison Alsup is an award-winning writer, teacher, and editor. She holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Emerson College. Her debut novel, Foreign Seed was published by Keylight Books, a niche imprint of Turner Publishing reserved for works with significant screen potential.

A co-founder of the non-profit New Orleans Writers Workshop (NOWW) Allison currently serves as its Creative Director. She also oversees NOWW’s developmental editing services, working one on one with clients in multiple genres as well as teaching several craft-based workshops each year.

Previously Allison taught writing and literature full-time at the University of New Orleans, and creative writing through the Loyola Writing Institute at Loyola University, New Orleans. As a teacher, editor and mentor with over two decades of experience of working with writers, Allison has helped hundreds of students and clients hone their craft and achieve their creative goals, including publishing first stories, completing novels, and creating successful M.F.A. application portfolios.

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.

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 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.