Course Types

Write your true story & join CNF’s growing writing community

Creative Nonfiction provides learning opportunities to help you connect with the broader creative nonfiction community year-round. From intensive online courses to hour-long webinars, CNF offers a variety of ways you can learn new skills, generate new writing, stay focused, and create your best work.

Online Classes

Take a deep dive

Since 2011, Creative Nonfiction’s online courses have helped thousands of writers from all over the world tell their stories better.

Our 5- and 10-week courses offer firm deadlines, a flexible schedule that fits your needs, and feedback to help you keep writing and improving your work. Terms start quarterly, and sections are capped at 14 to help foster community and connection. 

Whether you’re just starting out or are looking for an advanced course to help you refine and polish your work, there’s something in our schedule for you.


Self-Guided Online Courses

Stay motivated & inspired while you work at your own pace

Self-guided classes enable you to work on your writing while gaining valuable knowledge, skills, and resources. There are no due dates, no cap on enrollment, and no instructor, but you can engage with other writers and give and receive feedback on writing posted in the classroom.

New lessons open weekly. After the course closes at the end of the final week, you will receive a zip file that contains all the course content and work you developed during the course. You’ll also continue to be a member of our private Wet Ink Creative Nonfiction Writing Classes Community Page, where you can continue to share writing and calls for submissions, recommend books, and stay connected with other writers. 

Self-guided classes are open to writers at all levels, and new classes are announced regularly. Late registration is often available; regardless of when you enroll, please note that the class closes on the date indicated on our website.


Webinars

Weekly presentations on the art, craft, and business of writing true stories

Webinars are a convenient and affordable way to focus on practical writing, revision, and publishing skills. 

Our professional instructors offer inspiration, suggestions for further reading, and concrete, actionable tips that can help you tackle new projects or revisit works in progress with a fresh eye. Programs range from the basics to the book proposal, offering choices for writers at all levels of experience.

Join a webinar in real time and take part in the conversation. Afterward, the recording will be shared as a resource you can return to again and again.


Pathways

Make a yearlong commitment to your craft

Whether you’re new to the genre or you’re looking to add more rigor and accountability to your writing practice, these thoughtful progressions of courses will help you learn (or revisit) the fundamentals of the genre, develop your craft, enrich your knowledge, and sharpen your skills. 

By the end of the year, you’ll have mastered the basics of the personal essay or memoir, written and revised new work, and grown significantly as a writer.

Pathways begin every January.


In-Person Writing Workshops

Take your writing to the next level with hands-on instruction and inspiration at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation’s office, located in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Each workshop, whether five weeks or a few hours long, will teach you long-lasting strategies and skills to apply to your personal and professional writing practices.

We are not hosting in-person writing workshops at this time.