8,000+ creative writers since 2002 in NYC & ONLINE
8-week workshops are limited to 9-10 writers (8-wk classes) and 8 writers (6-wk classes), and generative classes (Writing Sprints and Manuscript Generator) have no more than 12-15 writers. All workshops include opportunities to share work in class and receive feedback from both the instructor and classmates. To register, please complete an application and, if required, include a sample of work (1500-2000 words).
Instructor: Alexandra Butler
Dates: begins July 14 | Mon 7-9pm
Location: Park Slope
Fee: $650 | $625 for returning writers
A private conference with the instructor is included.
A writing sample is recommended for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a 3-5 page sample.
Through group discussion of student work, plus that of published authors, writers in this workshop will examine the art and craft of creative nonfiction. The focus will be on learning to understand and use a full range of literary techniques in order to tell a truly compelling nonfiction story. Topics such as the use of dialogue, the creation of scene, attention to style and how to craft structure from true events will be discussed. Participants will also spend time talking about the particular responsibilities that come with writing creative nonfiction. In-class writing prompts will be used to inspire and motivate students to produce new work.
This workshop is open to writers working on memoir and personal essays, and writers should have both writing and workshopping experience.
Alexandra Butler is the author of Walking the Night Road, a memoir published by Columbia University Press, and a book of poems, Circling the Same, published by Moran Moran. She has written for the New York Times and the Times Literary Supplement. Alex co-wrote two short films, Ivy Holland, produced by Tribeca Films, and The Song is You, featured in The New Yorker magazine’s Screening Room Series. She works as a script consultant in both film and the art world. She is currently at work on a novel titled Bone Break Marble and a collection of short stories. You can read more about her in The New York Times: Introducing a Poet Who Works in 3-D. Alex holds a Master of Social Work from Columbia University and is a therapist in a bilingual group practice in her hometown of New York City.
Dates: begins June 26, 2025
Instructor: Monica West
Location: Meetings via video every OTHER Thurs 7-9pm ET
Fee: $1150 | $1050 for returning Sackett writers
This generative class open to novelists, memoirists, and writers working on story and essay collections.
This section of Manuscript Generator is intended for writers who have not participated in a previous Manuscript Generator class.
A writing sample is not required but recommended for this class.
Every other week you will submit up to 5,000 words of your manuscript to the instructor and she will provide you with written feedback. You’ll also have the opportunity to receive feedback from your fellow writers on your project synopsis or outline, scene exercises, and your manuscript’s opening paragraphs. The two-hour bi-weekly meetings will be the chance for you to discuss your projects and engage with writing prompts in shared group writing time. The instructor also offers a 30-minute one-on-one consultation at the end of the course to discuss your manuscript in depth.
Monica West is the author of the novel Revival Season which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick and a finalist for the 2022 Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, she received her MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She has received fellowships and residencies from Kimbilio Fiction, Hedgebrook, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Bread Loaf. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from Duke University and her M.A. in English and American Literature from New York University. She currently lives in Seattle where she teaches at the University of San Francisco.
Instructor: Marissa Levien
Begins: July 23, 2025
Location: Online (wkly video meet-up Wed 7-9pm ET)
Fee: $600 ($575 for returning writers)
A writing sample is recommended for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a sample of your writing.
Our Advanced Fiction Workshop is aimed at writers who have mastered the essentials and are looking for a community of peers ready to offer insightful, impartial feedback on works in progress. Whether you’re a writer looking to polish work for publication, looking for a fresh perspective, looking to climb the next hurdle, or simply missing the motivation and comradery only a small workshop can offer, our Fiction Workshop is designed to get you writing. Come geek out with your fellow lit nerds and walk away with a renewed sense of purpose.
Writers have two opportunities to share work with the class and receive detailed feedback and a class discussion dedicated to their writing.
Writers should have both writing and writing class experience.
Marissa Levien received her MFA from Stony Brook University, where she also helped run the Southampton Writers Conference. Her debut novel The World Gives Way was released by Hachette in 2021, earning praise from The New York Times, Vulture, Literary Hub, Publishers Weekly, and a selection as an IndieNext Pick. Her work has been published in Writer’s Digest, Literary Hub, Publisher’s Weekly, Saint Ann’s Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She has previously taught workshops for Stony Brook University, John Jermain Workshops, and Harlem Educational Activities Fund.
Instructor: Beth Morgan
Dates: begins Sept 8 | Mon 7-9pm
Location: Park Slope – 273 Prospect Park West
Class fee: $850 | returning writers receive a $50 discount
A writing sample is required for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a brief sample of your writing.
Our Fiction II/III Workshop is aimed at writers looking to create a regular practice and master the essentials and are looking for a community of peers ready to offer insightful, impartial feedback on works in progress. Class time is spent on in-depth discussion of student work, and analysis of published writing to inspire and inform.
Writers should have writing and writing class/workshop experience.
Beth Morgan is the author of A Touch of Jen, which she has also adapted for the screen. A Touch of Jen was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and named a best book of the year by The Rumpus. Her short fiction has been published in The Iowa Review, The Baffler, and The Kenyon Review online.
Instructor: Ted Thompson
Dates: begins September 9 | meets Tues 7-9pm
Location: Carroll Gardens | 243 Smith St
Fee: $1100 / $1000 for returning Sackett writers
A writing sample is required for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a brief sample of your writing.
Our Master Fiction Workshop is a selective class aimed at writers looking to polish their work for publication. Class is taught by our most experienced advanced fiction instructor whose students have gone on to attend top MFA programs and win prestigious awards. Class time is spent on in-depth discussion of student work and typed feedback from the instructor is included, as well as a private conference.
Writers should have extensive writing and writing class/workshop experience.
A private conference with the instructor is included.
Ted Thompson is the author of The Land of Steady Habits, which was published by Little, Brown and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. The novel was adapted by Nicole Holofcener for a feature film starring Ben Mendelsohn, Edie Falco and Connie Britton, released in 2017. His short stories have been published in Tin House, American Short Fiction, One Teen Story and Best New American Voices, and he has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the MacDowell Colony. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Ted has proudly taught for Sackett for over thirteen years, as well as at Amherst College and in the Brooklyn College MFA program. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.
Instructor: Kyle McCarthy
Dates: Sept 11 | Thurs 7-9pm
Location: Park Slope
Class fee: $850 | returning writers receive a $50 discount
A writing sample is required for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a brief sample of your writing.
Our Fiction II/III Workshop is aimed at writers looking to create a regular practice and master the essentials and are looking for a community of peers ready to offer insightful, impartial feedback on works in progress. Class time is spent on in-depth discussion of student work, and analysis of published writing to inspire and inform.
Writers should have writing and writing class/workshop experience.
Dates: September 10, 2025 to February 21, 2026
Instructor: Julia Fierro
Location: Meetings via video ten times every other Wed 7-9pm ET
Fee: $2300 (writers returning to Sackett Street – $2100)
This is a virtual class & video meetings are held every other week.
*This section of Manuscript Generator is intended for writers who have participated in a previous MG class but new writers are welcome to apply.
In this generative workshop, students have the opportunity to hand in chapters (up to 5000 words pages) every other week, and receive feedback from the instructor on these pages. The workshop is open to writers who have completed one or more chapters of a novel or memoir, as well as writers working on short story and/or essay collections. Writers participating in this course will learn how to recognize the successful techniques in their writing – what engages the reader, and how that success is achieved. Carefully planned lessons and online discussions will focus on analyzing the many choices (point-of-view, tone, characterizing details, pacing, etc.) a writer must make concerning structure, character and language. This course is intended for writers who have experience writing and workshopping.
A private conference with the instructor is included.
A writing sample is recommended to apply for this class.
Julia Fierro is the author of the novels The Gypsy Moth Summer and Cutting Teeth. She is one half of Cassidy Lucas, pen name of writing duo Julia Fierro and Caeli Wolfson Widger. Santa Monica, their first book together, was published by Harper in October 2020. Their second novel, The Last Party, set in Topanga Canyon on the westside of Los Angeles, was published in April 2022.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Julia founded The Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop in 2002, now a creative home to over 10,000 writers and named “New York City’s best writing class” by Time Out New York, the L Magazine, and Brooklyn Magazine; and a “Top Alternative to MFA programs” by Poets & Writers. Workshops are offered throughout NYC and online. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Buzzfeed, Glamour, Psychology Today, and other publications, and she has been profiled in The Observer and The Economist.
Julia has been an editor and writing coach since 2003, providing in-depth developmental feedback for authors of literary and commercial fiction. Books that she has worked on include books published by Penguin Random House, Riverhead, Simon and Schuster, Viking, Scribner, Harper Collins, Little A, Houghton Mifflin and more. She has traveled nationwide to give talks about writing, the teaching of writing, crafting creative communities, and publishing. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and her father/gardening partner. She is at work on her fifth novel, a literary genre-bender set in Southern Italy during the WWII liberation.
Instructor: Keija Parssinen
Begins: September 9, 2025
Location: Online (weekly video meet-up TUES 7-9pm ET)
Fee: $850 ($800 for returning writers)
A writing sample is recommended for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a sample of your writing.
More than 1,000 writers have participated in The MFA Application Prep Workshop and gone on to attend MFA programs nationwide and internationally. The workshop is geared toward helping writers choose and even polish their application writing samples and personal statements, as well as giving writers advice on all aspects of the application process. Writers have two opportunities to share their writing sample pages (up to 6250 words each time) and receive detailed feedback on those samples and on their personal essay. A private conference with the instructor is also included.
Keija Parssinen graduated cum laude from Princeton University, where she studied English literature and received a certificate from the Program for the Study of Women and Gender. She earned her MFA at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote fellow, a Teaching and Writing fellow, and the student editor of the Iowa Short Fiction contest. After finishing the program, she won a Michener-Copernicus award for her debut novel, The Ruins of Us, which was published in the US (HarperCollins), UK (Faber& Faber), Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Italy (Newton Compton Editori) and around the Middle East. The novel was long-listed for the Chautauqua Prize, was chosen as Book of the Month by National Geographic Traveler, and was selected as a Best Book of the Middle East Region by Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper. In Fall 2019, it was published in Arabic by the Syrian Ministry of Culture.
Her second novel, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, won an Alex Award from the American Library Association, was chosen as Book of the Month by Emily St. John Mandel, and was selected as a Best Book of the Year by the Kansas City Star, Lone Star Literary Life, Missouri Life, Vox Magazine, and Brazos Bookstore.
Her short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Review of Books Daily, Gulf Coast, The Southern Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, the Lonely Planet travel-writing anthologies, World Literature Today, Slate, The Arkansas International, The Brooklyn Quarterly, Slice Magazine, Salon, Five Chapters, the New Delta Review, Marie Claire, Off Assignment, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, the Vermont Studio Center, Playa Summer Lake, the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, and the Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow, where she was a My Time Fellow.
Keija was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there for twelve years before her family moved to Austin, Texas. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Kenyon College and lives in Ohio with her family.
Instructor: Ly Tran
Dates: begins Sept 17
Location: Online (wkly video meetup wknight tbd 7-9pm ET)
Fee: $750 ($700 for returning writers)
A writing sample is not required but recommended for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a 3-5 page sample.
Through group discussion of student work, plus that of published authors, writers in this workshop will examine the art and craft of creative nonfiction. The focus will be on learning to understand and use a full range of literary techniques in order to tell a truly compelling nonfiction story. Topics such as the use of dialogue, the creation of scene, attention to style and how to craft structure from true events will be discussed. Participants will also spend time talking about the particular responsibilities that come with writing creative nonfiction.
This workshop is open to writers working on memoir and personal essays, and writers should have writing experience.
Our online class platform includes thoughtful craft lessons to inform and inspire writers, a class homepage for discussions, book recommendations and more, and an in-line commenting tool that allows for supportive and constructive feedback.
Ly Tran is the author of the memoir, House of Sticks, chosen as “Best Book of the Year” by NPR and Vogue, and won the New York City Book Awards Hornblower Award. She has been awarded fellowships from MacDowell, Art Omi, Yaddo, and Millay Arts.
Instructor: coming soon
Begins: wk of September 14
Location: Online (weekly video meet-up wknight tbd 7-9pm ET)
Fee: $600 ($575 for returning writers)
A writing sample is recommended for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a sample of your writing.
Our Advanced Fiction Workshop is aimed at writers who have mastered the essentials and are looking for a community of peers ready to offer insightful, impartial feedback on works in progress. Whether you’re a writer looking to polish work for publication, looking for a fresh perspective, looking to climb the next hurdle, or simply missing the motivation and comradery only a small workshop can offer, our Fiction Workshop is designed to get you writing. Come geek out with your fellow lit nerds and walk away with a renewed sense of purpose.
Writers have two opportunities to share work with the class and receive detailed feedback and a class discussion dedicated to their writing.
Writers should have both writing and writing class experience.
Dates: begins wk of September 14, 2025
Instructor: Monica West
Location: Meetings via video every OTHER *wknight tbd* 7-9pm ET
Fee: $1150 | $1050 for returning Sackett writers
This generative class open to novelists, memoirists, and writers working on story and essay collections.
This section of Manuscript Generator is intended for writers who have not participated in a previous Manuscript Generator class.
A writing sample is not required but recommended for this class.
Every other week you will submit up to 5,000 words of your manuscript to the instructor and she will provide you with written feedback. You’ll also have the opportunity to receive feedback from your fellow writers on your project synopsis or outline, scene exercises, and your manuscript’s opening paragraphs. The two-hour bi-weekly meetings will be the chance for you to discuss your projects and engage with writing prompts in shared group writing time. The instructor also offers a 30-minute one-on-one consultation at the end of the course to discuss your manuscript in depth.
Monica West is the author of the novel Revival Season which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick and a finalist for the 2022 Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, she received her MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She has received fellowships and residencies from Kimbilio Fiction, Hedgebrook, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Bread Loaf. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from Duke University and her M.A. in English and American Literature from New York University. She currently lives in Seattle where she teaches at the University of San Francisco.
Dates: begins wk of October 6
Instructor: coming soon
Location: Online (weekly video meet-up wknight tbd 7-9pm ET)
Fee: $575 ($550 for returning writers)
A writing sample is not required (but welcome) for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info.
This workshop is open to writers working in fiction and nonfiction, and writers at all levels of skill and experience are welcome to join.
Instructor: Natalie Adler
Dates: begins wk of September 14 | meets once a week | wknight tbd 7-9pm
Location: Clinton Hill, BK
Class fee: $650 | returning writers receive a $25 discount
A writing sample is required for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info and a brief sample of your writing.
Our Fiction II/III Workshop is aimed at writers looking to create a regular practice and master the essentials and are looking for a community of peers ready to offer insightful, impartial feedback on works in progress. Class time is spent on in-depth discussion of student work, and analysis of published writing to inspire and inform.
Writers should have writing and writing class/workshop experience.
Natalie Adler‘s novel, WAITING ON A FRIEND, will be published by Hogarth Books in 2026.
Natalie is an editor at ReadLux, was a Center for Fiction Emerging Writer in 2022-2023, earned her PhD at Brown in Comparative Literature, and her MFA at Brooklyn College. Her fiction and essays have been published widely.