Classes and workshops for the community
Wherever you are, we're here to meet you
The Piper Writers Studio (PWS) offers creative writing classes, workshops, and other educational opportunities for writers of all backgrounds, genres, and levels of experience.
Our classes are intended for and open to the public. You do not need to be an ASU student to attend. Class sizes are kept small—usually between 8 and 16 students—in order to maximize the amount of instruction and to develop closer relationships between students, faculty, and the class as a whole. Individual classes range from single afternoons to multiple weeks. Classes are taught by local and visiting faculty and are offered at various times throughout the year. While individual costs vary depending upon the content and duration of the course, classes usually cost between $39-$250, with a number of discounts available for various sectors of the community.
Winter/Spring workshops and classes
Three Saturdays | January 24, 31, and February 7 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Phoenix Time
Writers Wellness Workshop
In-person with Jaime Glasser
The Writer’s Wellness Workshop offers 3 mini two-hour retreats with different topics. Each illustrates using mindfulness to affirm creativity and provides tools to support increased joy and ease in writing, even on difficult days.
All writers at any experience level and of all genres are welcome. Both poets and prose authors will benefit from the mindfulness exercises and generative writing during each session. Sharing with a small group of peers will enhance the individual experience as well as empathy for each other’s similar challenges.
Sessions include introductions, short grounding, guided meditations and movement for all abilities, lessons on the topic, prompts to discover personal relationship to the subjects, short generative exercises, optional small support circles, group discoveries, new tools to facilitate the week’s writing, and a closing guided meditation.
What to expect at a glance:
- Learn to address hindrances to writing and creativity without judgement
- Each session will offer a simple mindfulness tool to support increased joy and ease in writing, even on difficult days
- Learn how to use mindfulness to rediscover and support your unique voice
Jaime Glasser is an artist, veterinarian, pet hospice consultant, and certified mindfulness meditation teacher who writes. Mesa, Arizona, is home with her family of cats and dogs. She is writing a memoir with tales of her patients. Her storytelling is poignant and will make you laugh out loud.
She writes flash and short-form memoirs, is active in the Narratively community, and has two publications on Substack. Between Breaths: A Writer’s Pause is home to her personal, often amusing essays, and The Gift of Love Journals is on the less-funny topic of our pets as teachers to accept death and introducing animal hospice care. She has been writing a memoir for too long, submitting many essays, teaching mindfulness for writers, and MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction).
She graduated from high school, university, art school, veterinary school, and most recently MMTCP (Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification), an ironically intensive two-year program under Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Jaime is also a lifelong artist, community instigator, built giant Spirographs, and a mobile photography/digital art pioneer. She is a proud founder of the Mesa Urban Garden, the International Association of Animal Hospice and Palliative Care, the Millet House Community Art Gallery, and a recovering triathlete.
Four Saturdays | February 21, 28, and March 7, 14 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Phoenix Time
Nature Sketchbook for Poets
Virtual with Kelly Houle
Unlock the frozen rivers of the imagination! Release fresh insights and sparkling metaphors using a proven method for tapping into creative powers through art. In this series of workshops you will learn a wondrous and simple technique for generating new poems as you learn to sketch and draw from life. This course will help you establish a practice of using a sketchbook to focus the mind and observe the natural world.
All skill levels are welcome and no artistic skill or previous art experience is required! The aim is to learn a method for making important, surprising connections.
What to expect at a glance:
- Techniques for observation in your writing
- Several poem "seeds" to get new projects started
- At least one new finished poem per week
Kelly Houle is an Arizona-based poet and visual artist. Her poems have been published in CALYX, Crab Orchard Review, Kenyon Review, Radar Poetry, Sequestrum, and others. She was a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, the Arts and Letters ‘Unclassifiable’ contest, and winner of a 2023 Vivian Shipley Award. In 2020 she received an Artist Research and Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her paintings and handmade books are in public and private collections around the world, including the British Library, Yad Vashem, The M.C. Escher Foundation, and ASU's Rare Book and Manuscript Library. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and holds a diploma in botanical art from the Society of Botanical Artists. Kelly is a nature journaling ambassador for the Wild Wonder Foundation and leads a nature sketchbook club for high school students online.
Four Saturdays | February 28, and March 7, 14, 21 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Phoenix Time
Write the Memoir to Remember
Virtual with Patricia L. Brooks
In an encouraging and insightful presentation, Patricia L. Brooks will help you capture the essence of your untold story. She will share with you how to produce a memoir to your own satisfaction, face your fears, and conquer your story's emotional beats. With techniques and tips from her three daring memoirs, and her new release on writing memoir, she will help you to understand the journey to writing yours.
What to expect at a glance:
- How to outline, 'mind map', research, and plan a writing project
- Writing activities to illustrate class concepts
- Insight on what it takes to write a successful memoir
Patricia L. Brooks, MAOM, published three memoirs: Sick as My Secrets, Three Husbands and a Thousand Boyfriends and Gifts of Sisterhood - journey from grief to gratitude. She also published her non-fiction book Write the Memoir You're Afraid to Write in Nov 2024. Patricia is president and founder of the phenomenally successful Scottsdale Society of Women Writers, founded in 2005 and is president and owner of Brooks Goldmann Publishing, LLC with her husband, author Earl L. Goldmann, also founded in 2005. Ms. Brooks is affiliated with Arizona State University, teaching memoir writing for the Piper Center for Creative Writing. She previously taught business classes as an adjunct in the W.P Carry School for over 10 years, at the Poly Tech and West campuses. Patricia and her husband live in Old Town Scottsdale. She has been in Arizona since 1976 when she transferred as a business student to ASU.
Four Tuesdays | March 10, 17, 24, and 31 @ 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm Phoenix Time
Sound & Vision: Crafting the Poem Through the Sensory World
Virtual with Lorin Drexler
In this exploratory 4-week generative workshop series, we will use music, art, visual objects, and environments to generate poetry. Each week will take a different approach to engaging the senses and prompting the imagination. Writers of all skill levels and genres are invited to participate!
What to expect at a glance:
- Gain new inspiration and insight for your writing
- Learn techniques for incorporating auditory and visual media in written works
- Find your authorial voice by exploring your relationship with the physical and metaphysical world
Lorin Drexler is an American poet, fiction writer, and musician/producer. Currently residing in Mesa, Arizona, and originally from the windy city of Chicago, he graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a bachelor's degree in creative writing. His work has appeared in Fjords Review, Harpy Hybrid Review, Abstract Magazine, LitroNY, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Maudlin House, and others. Lorin was also an award recipient in the 2019 Tempe Writing Contest.
Four Wednesdays | April 1, 8, 15, and 22 @ 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm Phoenix Time
You Ought to Write a Book!
In-person with Robrt Pela
You Ought to Write a Book is aimed at the first-time author who has a story to tell but doesn’t know where to begin. Workshop participants will learn the difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing and the advantages of each. They’ll explore what’s behind their desire to write, refine their story idea, and learn about the importance of a story arc. They’ll become conversant in the basics of outlining their story and the importance of keeping a writing deadline. They’ll also learn writing tricks, like how to bust through “writer’s block,” as well as the importance of writers’ groups and early readers. Participants can expect to learn how to sell their book once it’s done: How to write a book proposal; how to shop for a literary agent or a traditional publisher, or whether to self-publish their book instead.
What to expect at a glance:
- A better understanding of the elements of a writing practice
- Basic techniques to start writing and keep writing
- Insight into the different types of publishing available to you today as an author
Robrt Pela is a Pulliam Prize-winning journalist and a longtime cultural critic whose essays appear regularly on National Public Radio affiliate KJZZ. In his spare time, he collects and restores old houses.
Tuesday | April 2 @ 5:30 - 7:30 pm Phoenix Time
Writing Poetry in an Era of Overwhelm
Virtual with Diego Báez A CantoMundo class at PWS
Do you find yourself mired in cycles of doomscrolling, knee-jerk disengagement, and anxious reconnection with the world at large? Is it possible to make art when culture grabs our attention with so many worthwhile foci and superficial distractions? How can poets push back against the nonstop stream of information while embracing the contemporary rush of life? We will explore topics of inundation, boundaries, and abundance through brief reading selections, generative writing prompts, and shared discussion. In this course, participants will conduct warm-up freewriting to center themselves, discuss sample poems (including “Ocean Obelisk” by Edwin Torres and “10:30 AM, Sunday Aug 28, 2005” by Patricia Smith), and draft poetry in response to writing prompts that confront themes of saturation, surfeit and other synonyms for "overwhelm."
What to expect at a glance:
- Freewriting techniques for kick-starting writing sessions
- Inspiration for tackling the feeling of "overwhelm" in your writing
- Drafts of multiple poems
Diego Báez is a poet, book critic, and educator. He is the author of Yaguareté White, named Best New Poetry Collection of 2024 by the Chicago Reader, and finalist for a 2024 Chicago Review of Books Award. As noted by Rigoberto González, Diego is the “first Paraguayan American poet to publish a book originally in English in the United States.” He lives in Chicago and teaches at the City Colleges, where he is an Assistant Professor of Multidisciplinary Studies.
Saturday | April 25 @ 5:30 - 7:30 pm Phoenix Time
Write Your Arizona Story!
In-person with Jonathan Danielson
In this generative workshop, participants will explore what it means to write from and about Arizona: the land, people, and myths, both large and small. Through guided prompts and discussions, writers will develop new work that draws on the aesthetics of Arizona literary regionalism, blending place, voice, and history rooted in the natural, political, and imagined borders that shape our state. While this is a fiction workshop, writers of all genres and experience are welcome.
What to expect at a glance:
- A deeper understanding of how place, landscape, and language shape literary regionalism
- A new appreciation for Arizona’s own literary identity and the writers defining it
- A new piece of writing (either a complete flash story or two (or three!) or the start of something larger) rooted in your own sense of Arizona
Jonathan Danielson is the author of The Lowest Basin: Arizona Stories (Cowboy Jamboree Press 2025). He is a Writer-at-Large for The Feathertale Review, and his fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, HAD, Juked, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in English Literature from Arizona State University and an MFA from the University of San Francisco. His scholarly work focuses on Creative Writing, the Western, and Arizona literary regionalism.
Past workshops and classes
Bilingual Creative Writing
with Ofelia Montelongo
In this bilingual creative writing workshop, students will explore how code-switching can make stories and poems more authentic and unique. They will write in two or more languages and experiment with blending them in their work. The class will be generative, with students creating new pieces each week. We will also read authors such as José Olivarez, Julián Delgado Lopera, Elizabeth Acevedo, Sandra Cisneros, and Gloria Muñoz for inspiration and craft discussion.
What to expect at a glance:
- New pieces of writing
- A deep understanding of contemporary bilingual poetry
- Techniques for implementing code-switching in your own work
Ofelia Montelongo is a bilingual writer from Mexico. She has an MBA in Strategic Leadership & an MA in Latin American Literature. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, Latino Book Review, Los Acentos Review, and elsewhere. She was the editor of the Latine Monsters issue at Barrelhouse. She is a PEN/Faulkner writer in residence, a Macondista & a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow. Tin House, VONA, Key West Seminar alumna.
From Fact to Fiction: Writing Compelling Historical Narratives
with Jen Knox
In an energizing and practical four-session workshop, Jen Knox will guide you through the art of crafting historical fiction that is both rich in accuracy and alive with compelling storytelling. You’ll learn how to organize research and weave it seamlessly into your narrative, creating immersive worlds without overwhelming the reader with facts. We will explore proven methods, narrative techniques, and examples from acclaimed historical novels that strike the perfect balance between authenticity and imagination.
Whether you are beginning a new project, revising a draft, or deepening your current work, this workshop will equip you with tools to create vivid settings, believable characters, and plots that resonate with modern readers while honoring the past. With dedicated time for practice, discussion, and feedback, you will leave each session with both inspiration and actionable steps to move your project forward.
What to expect at a glance:
- Learn strategies for efficient, targeted historical research, while also giving yourself creative freedom to tell the best possible story
- Discover techniques to integrate historical detail naturally into your scenes
- Practice building authentic dialogue and period-accurate settings
Jen Knox is an educator and storyteller who teaches writing, leadership, and meditation. Her first novel, We Arrive Uninvited, won the Steel Toe Books Award, and her second novel, Chaos Magic, was released from Kallisto Gaia Press 2025. She is also the author of The Glass City, which won the Press Americana Prize for Prose. Jen's short fiction can be found in Chicago Tribune, Prose Online, McSweeney's Internet Quarterly, The Saturday Evening Post, and more. She won CutBank’s Montana Prize in Nonfiction for "Disembodied" and the San Miguel Contest for her essay, "Teeth." Jen is the proud recipient of grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Ohio Arts Council to complete a collection of narrative essays, At Work, which will be released by Cornerstone Press UWSP. www.jenknox.net
Blues Poetry & The Cento
with María Fernanda CantoMundo Graduate Fellow
Blues poems have many forms. The first half of this poetry workshop considers various forms of the blues poem, both sonically and contextually. To honor the foundational contributions of blues women and femmes in music, generative writing exercises will be shaped by their song lyrics and poetry, alike. For the second half of the workshop, we will write “centos,” a poetry form named after the Latin word for garment pieces sewn together to create a patchwork. Writing exercises will specifically echo the African and African American traditions of quilting, also known as Nsaduaso or Kente. Participants will leave with two new poems. For further reading, I recommend one of my favorite books, author Daphne Duval Harrison’s Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s.
What to expect at a glance:
- A deep understanding of Latin American and African quilting traditions
- A history of the blues poem in all its forms
- Two new poems
María Fernanda (she/hers) writes full time. Her work explores the intimacy of sisterhood, the anchor of intergenerational coexistence, and grief. Awarded The Norma Elia Cantú Award in Creative Writing, María Fernanda has received literary appointments from The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), The Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts.
A published contributor of the Library of Congress, María Fernanda has appeared as a guest speaker and moderator at MoMa PS1, Lincoln Center, and more. She is the founder of a poetry garden, where Black poets and gardeners discuss their creative and historic connections to gardens.
María Fernanda’s literary works appear in Cheryl Clarke's born in a bed of good lessons inspired by Lucille Clifton, Cave Canem's Dogbytes, and elsewhere. She opened for Nikky Finney as part of an anonymous submission pool. María Fernanda is a Callaloo fellow.
Potential, Poetry & Portraits: Self-Portrait as Lyrical Exploration
with Rosebud Ben-Oni CantoMundo Graduate Fellow
How can poets utilize the idea of Self-Portrait both creatively and critically as a means to explore their culture(s), histories and communities? How can the feeling of Belonging in a larger collective sense– those who make up the social fabric of your life– inform and evolve one’s poetry? In this two-day workshop, we will explore the transformative power of poetry, which reveals larger truths stemming from everyday occurrences as well as significant milestones. Touching on themes of family, mythologies and community as gratitude, we will also read and discuss recent work by Robin Coste Lewis, Deborah Paredez, and Ross Gay. During this workshop, you’ll be given writing exercises and poetry prompts, as well as takeaways at the end of the workshop to create new work through self-reflection.
What to expect at a glance:
- New poems
- Poetry prompts and exercises exploring the theme of belonging in one’s community
- Writing exercises to continue your discoveries in self-reflection
Rosebud Ben-Oni is the author of several collections of poetry, including If This Is the Age We End Discovery (March 2021), which won the Alice James Award and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. She has received fellowships and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, City Artists Corps, Café Royal Cultural Foundation,CantoMundo and Queens Council on the Arts. Her work appears in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets’ Tin House, Guernica, Electric Literature, among others. Her poem "Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark" was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in NYC. In 2022, Paramount commissioned her video essay “My Judaism is a Wild Unplace" for a campaign for Jewish Heritage Month. In 2023, she received a Café Royal Cultural Foundation grant to write The Atomic Sonnets, a full-length poetry collection based on her chapbook 20 Atomic Sonnets (Black Warrior Review, 2020), which she began in honor of the Periodic Table’s 150th Birthday in 2019. In January 2023, she performed at Carnegie Hall on International Holocaust Memorial Day, as part “We Are Here: Songs From The Holocaust," and in the summer of 2023, her poem "When You Are the Arrow of Time" was commissioned by the Museum of Jewish Heritage— A Living Memorial to the Holocaust to accompany Andy Goldsworthy's Garden of Stones exhibit.
Learn more about the Piper Writers Studio
About the Studio
At the Piper Writers Studio, we believe in the power of your words. We believe in your artistic momentum and in how education can transform dreams into realities. We encourage professional development in all areas of creative writing and literary professions for beginning writers to intermediate writers to seasoned authors to those who don’t know they are writers yet. PWS welcomes all levels of learners and seeks to meet you where you are at on your creative journey. We offer high-quality educational experiences and multi-genre learning opportunities in a diverse array of creative writing genres as well as multiple classes on the business of writing. Our faculty are all published writers and skilled teachers of writing.
We provide a listening ear and an open door and are honored to be the place where artists go to further their skills and build their imaginations. We strive to foster authentic creativity and craft, one writer at a time.
Discounts
As part of our continuing efforts to increase access to creative writing education across diverse communities, the Piper Center offers a number of discounts for students, veterans, ASU affiliates, and senior citizens, as well as individuals experiencing economic challenges.
Generally speaking, discounts are between 10% and 15% off each class, and are claimed by entering an ID number or contacting the Piper Center at [email protected] to receive a discount code.
Please note: Discounts are not available for every class. Only one discount code can be used for each class. However, there is no limit to the number of classes for which the discount can be used. The Piper Center reserves the right to ask for further verification of all discounts upon request.
Accessibility
Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing is committed to ensuring that all individuals have fair and equal access to Piper Center events and programs.
All venues are accessible to individuals with mobility challenges, hearing loss, or other forms of disability.
ASL interpreting services, printed versions of presentations, large print handouts, translations, and alternative forms of materials for classes, workshops, or other programs are available with two to three weeks advance notice (upon request).
To request materials or contact the Center with any other accessibility questions or concerns, call the Center directly at 480.965.6018 or send us an email at [email protected].
Teach with us
Teach with Piper
Educating and inspiring our writing community
Interested in teaching a class or workshop? Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing is now accepting proposals for creative writing classes and workshops through the Piper Writers Studio (PWS).
Before you begin your application, be sure to have the following ready (as you won't be able to save and return to your application):
- A brief bio (200 words or less)
- Proposed course title
- Proposed course description (200 words or less)
We will NOT ask you for a CV, writers resume, or list of your publications. Instead we will ask you to provide a short personal statement letting us know why you think you're a good fit to teach with us including what your involvement may currently be in our literary community.
We recognize that filling out an application like this can feel intimidating, especially if you're new to processes like this. To help, we will offer some advice along the way. You can also check out our FAQs or our PWS Instructor Informational Guide.
For other opportunities with Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, you can apply for a Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Teaching Fellowship. For more information about course proposals, you can view past classes or contact coodinator for educational programs, [email protected]
Contact
Can't find an answer to your question? Email us!
Can't find an answer to your question? Email our coordinator for educational programs, [email protected] or send a general query to [email protected].
Invest in us
With your support, Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing is able to host free educational opportunities. Give writers from Arizona and the Southwest access to classes and workshops from expert faculty. Help writers of all levels receive the knowledge, training and assistance necessary for their personal, professional and artistic development. Your gifts also ensure excellent free and fair-cost literary programming across our diverse communities. Become an essential part of our community story with your gift to Piper today.
FAQ
The entire registration process can be completed online by following the links above. You will receive a confirmation email once you are registered for the workshop. Registration closes for all workshops at the start of the first session.
Workshops range from $50 to $250.
ASU Students, OLLI Members, and Mirabella residents are eligible for registration discounts of anywhere from 25% to 50% off. Keep an eye out for coupon codes in our monthly newsletter as well. Subscribe here.
All PWS workshops are open to the public!
ASU credit is not awarded for PWS workshops. For-credit writing classes are taught through the ASU Department of English.
Yes, you can. For every 10 instructional hours, you can receive 1 CEU credit. CEU credits require a $30 registration fee in addition to PWS registration costs. Once you’ve signed up for a course, please fill out the CEU Professional Development Form. When you have completed the course, you will receive a certificate via snail-mail confirming your credit hours.
Workshops meet at the Piper Writers House at ASU, local bookstores, and virtually through Zoom.
Class lengths vary. Many of our evening classes meet for 1-2 hours a week. Saturday classes tend to meet between 3-5 hours, allowing participants to explore a topic in depth. Four-week classes are scheduled for two hours each week, on a single night. One-day courses meet for five hours on a Saturday and explore a topic in depth.
Workshops are updated before each new semester. If you would like to receive notices when new workshops are scheduled, please subscribe to our newsletter.
The Piper Center offers registration fee refunds up to 72 hours before the workshop date. A $5 processing fee will be deducted from the refund. We cannot offer refunds within the 72-hour window before the workshop date. Please email Sasha Hawkins, the Piper Center’s Education Coordinator, at [email protected] for more information.