Sackett Street Writers

5,000 creative writers since 2002 in NYC & ONLINE

Class Schedule

Sackett Street workshops are limited to nine writers (8-week classes) and eight writers (6-week classes), and meet in private spaces throughout NYC and online. Every class includes the opportunity to have work critiqued in class, written feedback from both the instructor and classmates, and private consultations with the instructor.

A $250 deposit is required to reserve a spot (refundable up to two weeks before the class start date). To register, please complete an application and include a sample of work (1500-2000 words).

All returning writers receive a discount–$25 off 6-week classes; $25 off 8-week classes for writers returning for a second workshop and $50 discount off 8-week classes for writers returning for a third or more workshop.

Looking for ONLINE CLASSES?

Check out our Online Workshops in Fiction, Creative Nonfiction and Novel Intensive!

Not sure what class is right for you?

Submit an application and we’ll let you know!

8-week Fiction Writing II Workshop – begins 1.13.20 – taught by Karen Heuler in the West Village

By

A writing sample is not necessary but recommended to apply for this workshop.

Writers participating in this selective course will learn to recognize successful techniques in their fiction–what engages the reader, and how that success is achieved. In-class discussions will focus on analyzing student work, particularly the many choices (point-of-view, tone, detail, pacing, etc.) a writer must make concerning structure, character and language. Each writer will have two opportunities to have his or her work critiqued in class (up to 25 pages each time) and will receive typed feedback from both the instructor and his or her classmates.

A private conference with the instructor is included. This course is intended for writers who have writing and workshopping experience.

Begins: January 13, 2019
Day/ Time: Mondays 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Instructor: Karen Heuler
Location: West Village
Fee: $625.00

APPLY NOW

Karen Heuler’s stories have appeared in over one hundred literary and speculative magazines and anthologies, from Conjunctions to Clarkesworld to Weird Tales, as well as a number of Best Of anthologies. She has published five novels and four story collections with university and small presses, and her collection The Inner City was included in Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2013 list. Her latest collection, The Clockworm, was just published by Tartarus Books and Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review. She has received an O. Henry award and been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the Bellwether Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction.

8-week Creative Nonfiction Writing – begins 1.16.20 – taught by Sarah Perry on the Upper West Side

By

A writing sample is not required for this class but welcome. Please fill out an application with your contact info.

Through group discussion of student work, plus that of published authors, writers in this workshop will examine the art and craft of creative nonfiction. The focus will be on learning to understand and use a full range of literary techniques in order to tell a truly compelling nonfiction story. Topics such as the use of dialogue, the creation of scene, attention to style and how to craft structure from true events will be discussed. Participants will also spend time talking about the particular responsibilities that come with writing creative nonfiction. In-class writing prompts will be used to inspire and motivate students to produce new work.

This workshop is open to writers working on memoir, personal essays or in-depth journalism.

A private conference with the instructor is included.

Instructor: Sarah Perry
Begins: January 16, 2020
Day/Time:  Thursdays 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: Upper West Side
Fee: $625

APPLY NOW

Sarah Perry is the author of the memoir After the Eclipse, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Perry is the recipient of the 2018 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and a fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Her work has appeared in Elle magazine, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University and is the 2019 McGee Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Davidson College. She lives in Brooklyn.

8-week Creative Nonfiction I/II – begins 1.16.20 – taught by Xeni Fragakis in Brooklyn Heights

By

A writing sample is not required for this class but welcome. Please fill out an application with your contact info.

Through group discussion of student work, plus that of published authors, writers in this workshop will examine the art and craft of creative nonfiction. The focus will be on learning to understand and use a full range of literary techniques in order to tell a truly compelling nonfiction story. Topics such as the use of dialogue, the creation of scene, attention to style and how to craft structure from true events will be discussed. Participants will also spend time talking about the particular responsibilities that come with writing creative nonfiction. In-class writing prompts will be used to inspire and motivate students to produce new work.

This workshop is open to writers working on memoir, personal essays or in-depth journalism.

A private conference with the instructor is included.

Instructor: Xeni Fragakis
Begins: January 16, 2020
Day/Time:  Thursdays 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: Brooklyn Heights
Fee: $625

APPLY NOW

Xeni Fragakis received her BA in English from Yale University and her MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa. At Iowa, she was awarded an Iowa Arts Fellowship and taught Creative Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and Salon, and she is a winner of the Moth GrandSLAM Championship.

8-week Fiction Writing I/II – begins week of 1.20.20 – taught by Heidi Diehl in Park Slope

By

 A writing sample is not required (but welcome) for this course.

Please fill out an application with name, contact info, and writing/writing class experience fields below.

In this workshop, writers will learn how to manipulate the tools of fiction-writing (point-of-view, plot, characterizing detail, tone, etc.) to craft complete and unique stories that engage the reader. In-class critiques and exercises, as well as lectures and feedback from the instructor, are used to help students further develop their writing. This course is intended for writers with some writing experience who are looking to learn more about what makes a story, “a story.”

A private conference with the instructor is included.

Begins: week of January 20, 2020
Day/ Time: weeknight tbd* 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Instructor: Heidi Diehl
Location: Park Slope
Fee: $625.00

*in your application, please let us know what weeknights (M-Th) do NOT work for you

APPLY NOW

Heidi Diehl’s debut novel, Lifelines, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June 2019. Her short fiction has appeared in Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, Mississippi Review, StoryQuarterly, Witness,and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Marble House Project, Norton Island/Eastern Frontier Foundation, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center; she holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Since 2010, she has taught expository and creative writing at Brooklyn College, where she is also the assistant director of the freshman writing program.

20-wk Manuscript Generator (meets every other week) – for writers working on novels, memoirs, story and/or essay collections – begins 2.5.20 – Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn

By

This generative workshop meets ten times total, and every OTHER week. Students have the opportunity to hand in chapters (up to 5000 words pages) every other week, and receive feedback from the instructor on these pages. The workshop is open to writers working on novels, memoirs, story and/or essay collections. Writers participating in this course will learn how to recognize the successful techniques in their writing – what engages the reader, and how that success is achieved. In-class discussions will focus on analyzing the many choices (point-of-view, tone, characterizing details, pacing, etc.) a writer must make concerning structure, character and language. This course is intended for writers who have some experience writing and workshopping.

Begins: Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Day/Time:  Wednesdays (class meets every other week) 7pm – 9pm
Instructor: Heather Aimee O’Neill
Location: Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn
Fee: $1350.00

APPLY NOW

Heather Aimee O’Neill has worked with hundreds of novelists, memoirists, short-story and essay writers in Sackett Street’s popular Manuscript Generator Workshop (sessions offered either online or in Brooklyn), helping writers finish, polish, and find representation and publication for book-length projects. A novelist, essayist and poet, her most recent collection of poetry, Obliterations, is co-authored with Jessica Piazza and forthcoming by Red Hen Press. A recent Lambda Literary Poetry Fellow, her poetry chapbook, Memory Future, won the University of Southern California’s Gold Line Press Award, chosen by judge Carol Muske-Dukes. She is a freelance writer for publications such as Time Out New York, Parents Magazine and Salon.com.

8-week Creative Nonfiction I/II – begins 2.11.20 – taught by Piper Weiss in Brooklyn Heights

By

A writing sample is not required (but welcome) to register for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info.

Through group discussion of student work, plus that of published authors, writers in this workshop will examine the art and craft of creative nonfiction. The focus will be on learning to understand and use a full range of literary techniques in order to tell a truly compelling nonfiction story. Topics such as the use of dialogue, the creation of scene, attention to style and how to craft structure from true events will be discussed. Participants will also spend time talking about the particular responsibilities that come with writing creative nonfiction. This workshop is open to writers working on memoir, personal essays or in-depth journalism.

A private conference with the instructor is included.

Instructor: Piper Weiss
Begins: Tuesday, February 11th
Day/Time: Tuesdays 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: Brooklyn Heights
Fee: $625

APPLY NOW

Piper Weiss is the author of the memoir You All Grow Up and Leave Me, named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Marie-Claire, Town and Country and PopSugar, and listed among the top true crime reads by Buzzfeed, CrimeReads and Elle Australia. She had previously served as an editor at the New York Daily News, and as editorial director at HelloGiggles, in addition to writing for print, TV and film. She was a fellow at VCCA and earned her BA in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.

8-week Fiction II/III Workshop – begins 2.13.20 – taught by Chandler Klang Smith on the Upper West Side

By

Writers participating in this selective course will learn to recognize successful techniques in their fiction–what engages the reader, and how that success is achieved. In-class discussions will focus on analyzing student work, particularly the many choices (point-of-view, tone, detail, pacing, etc.) a writer must make concerning structure, character and language. Each writer will have two opportunities to have his or her work critiqued in class (up to 25 pages each time) and will receive typed feedback from both the instructor and his or her classmates.

A private conference with the instructor is included. This course is intended for writers who have writing and workshopping experience.

Begins: February 13, 2020
Day/ Time: Thursdays 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Instructor: Chandler Klang Smith
Location: Upper West Side
Fee: $625.00

APPLY NOW

Chandler Klang Smith is a graduate of the MFA creative writing program at Columbia University. Her new novel The Sky Is Yours (Hogarth/Crown, 2018) was listed by Entertainment Weekly as a “Best New Book.” The Wall Street Journal called it “mesmeric… a great and disturbing debut,” and NPR described it as “a wickedly satirical synthesis that underlines just how fractured our own realities can be during periods of fear, unrest, inequality and instability.” Chandler has worked as an editorial assistant at literary agencies and as a ghostwriter. She is currently serving as a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards for the second year in a row. She teaches and tutors in New York City.

8-week Creative Nonfiction Writing II/III – 2.13.20 – taught by Piper Weiss in Brooklyn Heights

By

A writing sample is required for this class. Please fill out an application with your contact info.

Through group discussion of student work, plus that of published authors, writers in this workshop will examine the art and craft of creative nonfiction. The focus will be on learning to understand and use a full range of literary techniques in order to tell a truly compelling nonfiction story. Topics such as the use of dialogue, the creation of scene, attention to style and how to craft structure from true events will be discussed. Participants will also spend time talking about the particular responsibilities that come with writing creative nonfiction. In-class writing prompts will be used to inspire and motivate students to produce new work.

This workshop is open to writers working on memoir, personal essays or in-depth journalism.

A private conference with the instructor is included.

Instructor: Piper Weiss
Begins: February 13, 2020
Day/Time:  Thursdays 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: Brooklyn Heights
Fee: $625

APPLY NOW

Piper Weiss is the author of the memoir You All Grow Up and Leave Me, named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Marie-Claire, Town and Country and PopSugar, and listed among the top true crime reads by Buzzfeed, CrimeReads and Elle Australia. She had previously served as an editor at the New York Daily News, and as editorial director at HelloGiggles, in addition to writing for print, TV and film. She was a fellow at VCCA and earned her BA in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.