Begins Tuesday, November 10th, 2026

Live Seminar via Zoom from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET 

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Instructor Bio

Instructor Maureen Aitken is an award-winning fiction writer whose short-story collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, received a Kirkus star and won the Nilsen Prize and the Foreword Review INDIE Gold Prize for General Fiction. It was reissued by Wayne State University Press in September 2025. Her stories have earned a Minnesota State Arts Board's Artist Initiative Grant, a Loft Mentor Award, an award from Ireland's Fish Short Story Prize, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. The book was also a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. Her stories have been widely published in journals including Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, and New Letters. She has taught writing at the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, and Hamline University.

Who is this class for?

This online fiction workshop is for writers at all levels who want to draft new flash fiction pieces or intensify moments within a larger story or novel. If you're drawn to compressed, high-pressure storytelling and want to see how master writers make it work, this seminar is for you. Come ready to study, discuss, and generate new writing in a single focused session.

What to expect:

When you write flash fiction, description and dialogue do much of the heavy lifting. A well-rendered sense of place can compress years, fuel mood, and deepen nostalgia; time can condense a lifetime into a single sentence or use a ticking clock to raise the stakes. In this two-hour online writing class, we'll look closely at how time and place put pressure on characters as they move through haunted lands, tense relationships, and family rituals.

This live Zoom seminar pairs close reading with hands-on generative work. We'll study three master flash pieces, discuss what makes each one land, and use guided prompts to write your own. The practice of study, discussion, and generative writing is a strong foundation for your best work, and we'll model that path together throughout the session.

You'll leave with fresh drafts in hand. Writers who choose to read their work aloud will receive verbal feedback from the instructor, and every prompt is designed so your new writing can stand alone as flash fiction or feed a story or novel you're already building.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will write two new flash fiction pieces in draft form and study three master flash fiction works for craft in scene, description, and dialogue. Writers who read their work aloud during the session will receive verbal feedback from the instructor.

Readings

Readings may include excerpts from "Reunion" by John Cheever, "Beach City" by Jaquira Diaz, and "Sticks" by George Saunders. Reading the three pieces before class is encouraged; if you're unable to, we'll quote them as models for scene, description, and dialogue so you can follow along.

COURSE OUTLINE

Introduction: A brief discussion of writing time and place, followed by a two-minute freewrite.

Part 1: Cheever's "Reunion" and a Single Day — Discussion of how the father/son relationship is compressed into a single day, with a prompt on time and place in a fictional family.

Part 2: "Beach City" — Nostalgia and What Haunts Us — Discussion of nostalgia, the unseen, and imagery, with a prompt on characters looking back.

Part 3: "Sticks" and Ritual Time Warps — Discussion of strange holiday rituals stuck in time, with a prompt on a weird ritual.

Bonus: Reading a piece or two aloud to the group.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Two new flash fiction pieces in draft form
• A working understanding of how place compresses time, fuels mood, and builds nostalgia
• Techniques for using time — condensed spans and ticking clocks — to raise narrative pressure
• Close-reading insight into scene, description, and dialogue drawn from three master flash pieces
• Generative prompts you can carry into your stories and novels

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $99 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: Maureen Aitken
• Begins Tuesday, November 10th, 2026
• This one-time live seminar meets via Zoom on Tuesday, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET
• Tuition is $99 USD.