Craft Sessions

During Craft Sessions, Creative Writing Instructors go in-depth on a particular element of craft, allowing participants to expand their writing knowledge by exploring different topics and prompts. Each session offers a lecture period and time for writers to put elements of craft into practice.

Participants will have the opportunity to choose several Craft Sessions as electives, selecting different sessions based on their interests and areas in which they wish to grow as writers. 

Please note that Craft Sessions vary by instructor, and that we offer different Craft Sessions between our residential and online programs. 

JIYW Residential Program Craft Sessions

2026 Residential Craft Sessions will be announced soon.

Here's a look at our 2025 Craft Sessions: 

A List of Possibilities

Instructor: Sarah Ahmad 

When: Session One and Session Two 

Umberto Eco said, “The list is the origin of culture.” In her diaries, Susan Sontag made endless lists: things I like, things I dislike, places I have been, and so on. Nabokov stated that there are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter.

In this craft session, we will travel through these various notions of "a list”: a list as a place of possibility, a list as a place where we can enchant through cataloging, and a list as a daily cultural product we can be creative with. Working to list generatively and intensely, we will look at lists by Nazim Hikmet, Chen Chen, and Linda Pastan, among others, to see if we can rethink marginalia as a space of possibility.

Epistolary Neighborhoods

Instructor: Maya Kuchiyak

When: Session One and Session Two

This generative and thrilling group craft session will be structured around a quick-fire exchange of anonymous letters. Students will first fill out a fictional character-sheet handout and create a new email. Then, after their character bios are exchanged through a daisy-chain link network, the participants will be shown a series of generative writing prompts. The first: to write a letter of complaint from the perspective of their character to another participant’s character, in a fictional situation where they are neighbors. Eventually, after exchanging letters with three different characters, students will see that narratives—even whole cities!—will begin to grow out of their letters.

Dreamwork: Writing with Film 

Instructor: Katerina Zadé

When: Session One and Session Two

Many artists are inspired by their dreams: the nonsensical images, the feelings of lost memory, the faces of people you don’t know but seem to recognize. But what if the dreams don’t come? In this generative craft session, writers will learn to utilize the power of film to “simulate” the experience of having a dream, and, in doing so, realize the capacity for non-writing to inspire writing. Through exposure to a montage of different film scenes, writers will turn observation into generation and gain a new tool to help break writer’s block.

Footnotes: Disrupting vs. Adding to the Narrative

Instructor: Assemay Almazbekkyzy

When: Session Two

In this craft session, we will examine and assess the use of footnotes in texts of literary fiction. We will allow ourselves to be guided by the author as we follow their footnotes while evaluating if we, as readers, have gained anything from reading them. Have the footnotes necessarily changed anything within the narrative? Together, we will read out loud, translate, clarify, and contextualize. In the very end, we will generate a passage of fiction with a footnote of our own.

Modernist Painting and Writing

Instructor: Nathaniel Pinkham

When: Session Two

What can the writer learn from the painter? Can learning the principles of one artistic medium influence how we interact with another? What can exploring the technique of modernist painters teach us about how to write better? In this craft session, we will engage with the medium of paint in order to find ways of describing the world that are both fresh and exciting.

Revision: Opportunity for Play

Instructor: Megan Friedman

When: Session Two

This craft session encourages students to extend creative thinking beyond their drafting process and into their revision process. While the revision process looks different for everyone, many writers find revision to be one of the most difficult aspects of writing. Because revision can often be a daunting task, this craft session will provide students with tools for revision through an exploration and open discussion of various revision practices. Students will be given permission to play with their writing as they revise. We will practice radically reorganizing stanzas/paragraphs, changing the end to the beginning, cutting lines, and seeing what happens!
 

JYWO Online Program Craft Sessions

2026 Online Craft Sessions will be announced soon.

Here's a look at our 2025 Online Craft Sessions: 

A List of Possibilities

Instructor: Sarah Ahmad 

Umberto Eco said, “The list is the origin of culture.” In her diaries, Susan Sontag made endless lists: things I like, things I dislike, places I have been, and so on. Nabokov stated that there are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter.

In this craft session, we will travel through these various notions of "a list”: a list as a place of possibility, a list as a place where we can enchant through cataloging, and a list as a daily cultural product we can be creative with. Working to list generatively and intensely, we will look at lists by Nazim Hikmet, Chen Chen, and Linda Pastan, among others, to see if we can rethink marginalia as a space of possibility.

Writing as Improvisation

Instructor: Riley Jones

Improvise

v. To create spontaneously or without preparation. To produce or make something from whatever is available. 

We are often driven to write towards an end or conclusion. We want to know from the outset where we are going, what we are doing. In this Craft Session, we will approach writing a different way: with no plan, into the unknown. Drawing on improvisational dance, music, and performance practices (don’t worry, I won’t be asking anyone to actually perform), we will engage in writing as a time- and place-specific durational experiment. We will not write towards an end but out of the present. Working through various improvisational writing exercises or ‘scores,’ we will encounter the surprising images, scenarios, voices, and ideas that emerge wondrously when we don’t know what comes next. 

Beginnings and Endings: Crafting the First and Final Impressions

Instructor: Yvette Lisa Ndlovu 

What is the smart way to open a story? How do you hook a reader from the very first line? And how do you leave them with an ending that resonates long after the last page? In this craft session, we’ll explore the art of strong story openings and satisfying, meaningful endings. We’ll examine strategies for establishing voice, character, and setting from the start, as well as techniques for crafting endings that feel earned. Through close readings, discussion, and generative exercises, participants will learn how to create compelling openings that draw readers in and endings that readers will remember long after the last line. 

Developing a Consistent Writing Habit

Instructor: Marcella Haddad

In this craft session, we’ll learn how to identify perfectionism, procrastination, and other common downfalls of our writing productivity. We'll study the four pillars of procrastination and the antidotes for each. With a list of new strategies for making progress, writers will design unique writing processes to help them finish longer projects through a sustainable writing habit. By the end of this session, writers will have gained insight into their own relationship to perfectionism and procrastination, and develop a personalized plan to activate and support their writing habits in the future.

Chronomancy

Instructor: S Coates