Begins Monday, October 26th, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Mondays, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET

Note: There is no class on Monday, November 23rd (Thanksgiving week). The final session meets Monday, November 30th.

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Instructor Bio

Instructor Kate Milliken is the author of KEPT ANIMALS (Scribner Books), longlisted for the 2020 First Novel Prize, and the Iowa Award winning collection of stories, IF I'D KNOWN YOU WERE COMING. Kate holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars and her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, the Sewanee Writers Conference, Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale, and the In Cahoots Writing residency, among others. She has been a freelance editor and a writing instructor for nearly twenty years. She is also the founder of Story Therapy, a mentoring and editorial company for aspiring and career authors.

Who is this class for?

This online writing workshop is for fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid writers at all levels — from those early in a draft to those revising a manuscript that isn't quite working — who want to test whether they're using the point of view their material actually needs. Students will leave with a scene reworked through multiple POV treatments and a clearer diagnostic sense of what point of view their project as a whole should be told in.

What to expect:

Point of view isn't just a technical choice a writer makes once and moves on from — it's the lens that determines what a story is actually about. Most writers default to whichever POV feels most comfortable and never test it against the one their material might actually need. This five-week creative writing workshop gives writers across every genre a set of tools and generative exercises for interrogating and reworking point of view in a piece already in progress.

Each week combines craft instruction, discussion of assigned readings, and in-class generative writing, building toward a single scene revised through several distinct POV treatments. Along the way, students will examine the sliding lens from first person to close third to omniscience, the mechanics of unreliable and withholding narration, and the structural choices behind multiple-POV storytelling, before closing with a final session where students share and discuss their work with the group.

Because POV is a lens rather than a genre, this online writing class is genuinely cross-genre: memoirists wrestling with how much of the "I" to reveal, novelists deciding between close third and first, and story writers testing whether a piece wants one perspective or another will all find direct application to work already underway — and are equally likely to be inspired toward something new. Rather than treating POV as a single choice made once and left alone, Kate teaches it as a diagnostic tool, a way to name what a piece of writing is actually trying to do, so that students leave able to interrogate and rework point of view in any future project, not just the pages they bring to this class.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will produce ten to twenty pages of new writing, working the same scene (or related material) through several distinct POV treatments — testing distance and intimacy, unreliable and withheld narration, and structural or multiple-POV shifts. Students will share excerpts aloud and discuss their evolving work throughout the five weeks. After Week 4, each student may submit up to 1,500 words for written feedback from the instructor, delivered ahead of the final session, where that work is then shared and discussed live with the group.

Readings

Readings may include Adam Haslett's "Notes to My Biographer," Sarah Thankam Mathews' "Rubberdust," poems by Carrie Fountain and Rachel McKibbens, an excerpt from Kate Milliken's Kept Animals, and excerpts from craft essays by Christopher Castellani and David Jauss.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1 — Diagnosing Your Default: Why writers gravitate toward the POV they use by habit, and what it costs the work. Discussion of David Jauss's craft essay on point of view. In-class exercise: students identify the default POV in a scene they bring and diagnose what it's hiding or flattening.

Week 2 — Distance and Intimacy: First person, close third, and the sliding scale between them. Discussion of Christopher Castellani's craft essay on perspective and Adam Haslett's story "Notes to My Biographer." Generative exercise: students rewrite their Week 1 scene at a different point on the distance/intimacy scale.

Week 3 — Unreliable Narration and Withheld Knowledge: What a narrator doesn't say, and how withholding shapes reader trust. Discussion of Sarah Thankam Mathews' story "Rubberdust" and poems by Carrie Fountain. Generative exercise: students revise their scene to introduce an unreliable or withholding narrator.

Week 4 — Multiple POV and Structural Point of View: When and why to shift perspective across a piece. Discussion of poems by Rachel McKibbens and an excerpt from Kate Milliken's Kept Animals. Generative exercise: students revise their scene from a second vantage point, completing all three POV treatments.

Week 5 — Sharing Work: A dedicated workshop session. Students share the work they submitted for written feedback and receive live group discussion alongside the instructor's response.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Ten to twenty pages of new writing, generated across five weeks of guided exercises
• A single scene reworked through several distinct point of view treatments, from first person to close third to omniscience
• Written instructor feedback on up to 1,500 words of your choosing, plus live discussion in the final session
• A working method for diagnosing the default POV in any draft and naming what it hides or flattens
• Practical command of unreliable and withholding narration, and of the structural choices behind multiple-POV storytelling
• A repeatable diagnostic approach to point of view you can bring to any future project, in any genre

TESTIMONIALS:

"Working with Kate has been one of the most clarifying and generative experiences I've had as a writer. She brings an extraordinary combination of deep literary intelligence, emotional precision, structural rigor, and genuine care to the page." — Teru

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $395 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Kate Milliken
• Begins Monday, October 26, 2026
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Mondays, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET
• No class on Monday, November 23 (Thanksgiving week); final session meets Monday, November 30
• Tuition is $395 USD.