We offer classes for every literarily inclined mind.

We have partnered with other literary organizations to offer limited-series classes and workshops. Our next offering is a 1.5-hour online workshop on The Art and Science of Book Reviewing on May 7.

We’re also offering our first in-house course: the Summer Novel Intensive starts June 6.

To the Lighthouse is unique in its mission to serve all book lovers, blurring the boundary between offerings for readers and for writers. After all, writers are avid readers, and many readers love to write, at least for themselves. In that spirit, many of our writing classes are suitable for a broader audience of literature lovers. Regardless of how you identify, we hope you’ll find a class that’s right for you.

Scroll down for descriptions of past classes.

If you don’t see what you’re looking for and would like to request a class, please get in touch!

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BOOK REVIEWING

An online seminar with Project Write Now

Tuesday May 7, 4:00 - 5:30 pm PT

2024 SUMMER NOVEL INTENSIVE

THE FIRST DRAFT

A three-month online course to provide complete support for drafting your novel

Thursdays, 4-6pm PT beginning June 6, 2024

Write your novel with me this summer!

While I wait for the publication of my first novel, The Savage Path, I’ve started, in earnest, on my next one. Since January, I’ve been piling up pages at a clip of about 1000 words per day, five days a week. (Each week, I also take one day to brainstorm ideas with no wordcount pressure and another to let my brain rest.) In addition to the writing itself, I’m revisiting a huge range of craft topics, reading and rereading new and favorite books on writing as well as notes from my MFA program at the Bennington Writing Seminars and from summer workshops at Iowa Writers Workshop, Tin House, and Napa Valley (among others). Since those years of formal training, I’ve launched To the Lighthouse, and every book I read with a book group or for an author event – a few hundred since I began that work in 2018 – I analyze through a craft lens. At this point, I can’t help it; it’s baked into how I read.

As a way to allow other writers to benefit from this deep dive into craft, I’m offering a three-month Summer Novel Intensive, designed both to facilitate your understanding of various essential craft elements and to give you an opportunity to workshop your pages. If you're interested in making a serious commitment to your book this summer, this class is for you.

The course offers three pillars of support for your writing: extensive explorations of a wide variety of craft issues, to hone your writing skills; peer workshopping, to give and receive detailed editorial feedback on each other’s work; and a forum for reporting on your progress through a clearly-articulated writing plan, to make sure you stay on track. 

The Craft Discussions

In the first six weeks, we’ll tackle the basics of craft. Topics include openings, point of view, stakes, setting, character development, dialogue, pacing, tension, and structure. For each lesson, I’ll draw from a variety of sources, to present the topic from different and sometimes conflicting angles. By bringing you a wide range of advice, I hope to both deepen and broaden your perspective on the week’s craft issues. Each topic will be examined on all scales, from its execution at the sentence level to its establishment over the course of the whole work. And since one of the best ways to consider an element of craft is to witness it done well, we’ll examine outstanding examples (distributed in advance) from a range of novels.

For instance, in a discussion on point of view, we might hear from Francine Prose and Charles Johnson on getting each word right, Matthew Specktor on modulating distance, Christopher Castellani on the art of perspective, and James Wood on moving from one character to another. As examples of mastery, we might look at readings from the roving thirds in The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh and The Promise by Damon Galgut and the conflicting ones in Home Fire by Kamila Shamsi; the second-person chapter in The Other Americans by Laila Lalami; and the first-person confessional mode of Absolution by Alice McDermott.

The Workshop

For the second half of the course, starting in mid-July, we’ll pivot to a workshop format. Each student will have an opportunity to submit up to 30 pages of their manuscript for review. Each submission will receive a one-hour discussion, as well as detailed line edits and a cover letter from every student and from me.

Accountability

The third pillar of the course is accountability. The best way to improve our writing is to write, and (often) the best remedy for writer's block is to keep showing up despite its discomforts. To that end, a regular writing practice is integral to the course. At our first meeting, we’ll discuss the different formats your writing practice might take, and you’ll articulate your own goals and commit to a specific and concrete plan. You’ll be expected to stick to the writing practice you design or modify it as needed to meet your goals. Each class will begin with your report on the week’s writing. Group accountability serves everyone. Your commitment and successes will inspire your fellow writers, and their diligence and breakthroughs can be a much-needed tailwind for your own work.

Course expectations:

• The Intensive is designed to support writers who are actively engaged in a writing project, either generating new pages or substantially revising an existing manuscript. The more you commit to your own work, the more you’ll benefit from the course. 

• You do not have to have any pages written in advance. As long as you are ready to jump into a daily writing practice, you’ll succeed in the course.

• For the first six weeks, there will be light reading expected before the craft discussions, but the main time commitment will be to your writing. For most weeks of workshop, you’ll be required to read and mark up one submission and write a short cover letter. There may be a couple of weeks with two submissions.

• Attendance is essential, especially for the workshops. Please plan to miss no more than one workshop.

The Details

When: Twelve Thursdays 4-6pm PT / 7-9pm ET, June 6 - August 29, 2024 (skipping June 20). Where: virtually on Zoom. How much: $800 for the summer intensive, or $1200 for both the summer and fall intensives (see below). Capped at six participants.

Applications accepted on a rolling basis. Once accepted, a $200 deposit ($400 if applying for both intensives) reserves your space. The balance is due by June 1.

If you stick to your writing plan, you should end the summer with at least a 50,000-word draft of your novel. To take it further, join the Fall Novel Intensive as well.

2024 FALL NOVEL INTENSIVE

REVISION

A three-month online course to provide complete support for revising your novel

Thursdays, 4-6pm PT beginning October 3, 2024

Revise your novel with me this fall!

The Fall Intensive follows from the summer course, with a focus on the more advanced craft topics needed to improve and deepen an initial draft. The course will follow the same format at the Summer Intensive, with five weeks of craft discussions followed by six weeks of workshops. Craft discussion topics include: the art of revision, subtext, layering, scene vs. summary, thematic and symbolic elements, and experimental structures. You’ll be allowed to submit up to 50 pages for the workshop.

The Details

When: Eleven Thursdays 4-6pm PT / 7-9pm ET, October 3 - December 19, 2024 (skipping Thanksgiving). Where: virtually on Zoom. How much: $800 for the fall intensive, or $1200 for both the summer and fall intensives (see above). Capped at six participants. Priority given to writers who register for both intensives.

Applications accepted on a rolling basis. Once accepted, a $200 deposit ($400 if applying for both intensives) reserves your space. The balance is due by June 1 for both and by October 1 for the Fall Intensive.

After both intensives, you should end the year with an established writing practice, a complete manuscript – including eighty workshopped pages – and the tools you need to revise the rest.

READ (JAMES BALDWIN) LIKE A WRITER

A four-week course with Book Passage bookstore

Wednesdays, 4:30 - 6:00 pm PT on Zoom

April 17 - May 15, 2024 (skipping May 1)

“Read like a writer,” goes the perennial instruction. That is, bring a writer’s eye to everything you read, noticing the many craft decisions the author has employed, and, in addition to marveling over great prose, asking: How did they do that? The more we bring an analytic eye to others’ work, the more possibilities open up in our own. In this course, we’ll focus on closely reading the classic novel Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.

Giovanni’s Room is Baldwin’s second novel, after Go Tell It on the Mountain. He wrote it mostly in France, where he moved in 1948 to distance himself from American racism. The novel centers around a forbidden relationship between two white men, and Baldwin explained that the book was ‘‘not so much about homosexuality, it is what happens if you are so afraid that you finally cannot love anybody.’’ Written in a confessional style, the book is a nuanced portrayal of intimacy and a complex exploration of morality. In a 2016 essay, Colm Toibin drew a throughline between Giovanni’s Room and Baldwin’s essays on race, thus: “In [the essays], he held up an unsparing mirror so that the stained soul of his country could catch a glimpse of itself, a glimpse as penetrating, risky, truthful and disturbing as the glimpse of lost and wasted love offered in Giovanni’s Room.”

We’ll read this edition of the book.

$225 for the four-class course.

READ (VIRGINIA WOOLF) LIKE A WRITER

An eight-week course with Book Passage bookstore

Wednesdays, 5:00 - 6:30 pm PT on Zoom

January 24 - February 14, 2024: Mrs. Dalloway and February 21 - March 13, 2024: To the Lighthouse

The more we bring an analytic eye to others’ work, the more possibilities open up in our own. In this course, we’ll focus on closely reading two classic novels by Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. 

Session 1: Set in London one ordinary Wednesday in mid-June shortly after the end of WWI, Mrs. Dalloway shows us a society trying to find its footing after a devastating war. The novel established a new mode of storytelling, named “stream-of-consciousness” at the time and recognized today as a masterful use of point of view and interiority. 

Session 2: To the Lighthouse’s three sections are set before, during, and after WWI and span one day, ten years, and one day, respectively. The novel extended and complicated Woolf’s mastery of her new stream of consciousness style and added an element of time dilation to her prose. 

We’ll read each book in four sessions over four weeks, for a total of eight weekly sessions, delving into various craft aspects, such as point of view, dialogue, setting, and characterization. Pencil in hand, we will take on key paragraphs, excavating practical techniques in the process. You'll leave with new tools for close-reading your own and others’ work.

$225 for a 4-week session. $395 for the full 8-week session. Capped at 12 participants.

BOOK SUBMISSION LAB

A five-month online course with book inc and Project Write Now

The Book Submission Lab is a five-month course that provides all the direction and support a writer needs to submit their finished manuscript to literary agents. The course unfolds in three parts:

Part I: Developing a Submission Package

A six-week intensive curriculum to prepare writers to submit their work to agents. After six weekly meetings, the writer will have a finalized query letter, a polished set of opening manuscript pages, and a plan and tools for launching their agent search. Classes will include:

• interactive lectures on all aspects of the submission process, from crafting the query letter to finding agents;

• hands-on workshops to peer review the query and first ten manuscript pages;

• conversations with guest authors, to hear some of the varied ways that writers have connected with agents and connected their books with the world.

Guests are selected to ensure that every student’s genre is represented. Past guests include literary crime writer Andre Hardy; YA author Sarah Watson; memoirist Cristina Spencer; crime writer and head of the UC Riverside low-residency MFA program, Tod Goldberg; and literary fiction author and writing instructor Mark Sarvas.

Class 1: The art of the query letter - a presentation on query letter components and best practices

Class 2: Query letter workshop - peer reviews of the draft letter

Class 3: Manuscript workshop - small-group reviews of the first ten pages

Class 4: Submitting I: How to find an agent

Class 5: Submitting II: Organizing the agent search and developing a plan

Class 6: Pitching workshop - developing an oral pitch and meeting agents in person

Part II: Professional Review of the Submission Package

Jennifer will provide a detailed editorial review of each writer’s query letter and first ten manuscript pages. The review includes line edits, a short letter with high-level feedback, and a 30-minute one-on-one meeting to discuss the edits. These reviews will be completed within two weeks of the end of Part I.

Part III: Ongoing Support

The submission process is often protracted and daunting, so we’ve included three monthly meetings to provide a forum for supporting writers during their agent search. These meetings will include check-ins from each participant, advice on deepening a writing life, an opportunity to bring up questions or concerns, and the chance to celebrate successes together. The forums will also include visits from guest authors.

$800. You must apply and be accepted to register for this program.