Advanced Craft Class: The Shape of Stories
Join us for this exciting 6 week course!
Saturdays, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
September 12 to October 24th, 2026 (skips Oct 10)
$360/person
Hybrid: In-Person at Jersey City Writers and on Zoom
Jersey City Writers:
157 First Street
157B Entrance, 6th floor, Room 608
Jersey City, NJ
Instructors
Shelby Wardlaw
M.F.A in Creative Writing from Columbia University
Short Stories nominated for Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories
Outgoing Professor in the Writing Program at Rutgers University
More at www.shelby-wardlaw.com
Jason Gots
Author of the memoir Humanity is Trying (HarperCollins)
Creator/Host of Two Critically Acclaimed Podcasts, Think Again and Clever Creature
Teaching since 2020 in Columbia University M.F.A. Writing Program
More at www.jasongots.com
Course Description
Course Description
What new shapes can stories take? How do modern stories break with the traditional Hero’s Journey? What opportunities are available to writers when they deviate from linear narrative form? How do you hold a reader’s attention without a clear beginning, middle and end?
In this advanced craft class, we will focus on how to write stories that deviate from the norm. We will look at stories without heroes, stories without plots, stories without linear narratives and stories without any characters at all. Each week we’ll focus on a different aspect of formal innovation, culminating in each student writing a new, boundary-breaking story of their own.
Schedule:
Week 1: How Do Stories Get Their Shapes?
Week 2: Undoing the Hero: Stories Without A Main Character
Week 3: Undoing the Journey: Stories that Bury the Action
Week 4: Undoing the Journey: Stories Without Plots
Week 5: Rebuilding After Revolution: New Story Structures
Week 6: Writing Workshop
