Begins Wednesday, May 13th, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 6:30-8:30 PM EST

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Instructor Bio

Instructor Minda Honey's (she/her) essays on politics and relationships have appeared in Harper's Bazaar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Harvard's Nieman Storyboard, and Longreads. Her work is featured in "Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger", "A Measure of Belonging: 21 Writers of Color on the New American South", and "Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown's Cult Classic." Her debut memoir, THE HEARTBREAK YEARS (Little A, October 2023), is a hilarious and intimate portrait of a Black woman finding who she is and who she wants to be, one bad date at a time.

Who is this class for?

Limited to just 10 writers, this course is for writers ready to transform the true tale of a past love from a journal entry into a publishable essay about one of the most meaningful human experiences. This intermediate-level online writing workshop is ideal for nonfiction writers who want to explore the craft of writing about heartbreak with honesty, vulnerability, and skill.

What to expect:

At the end of a relationship—platonic, romantic, somewhere in between—there are your feelings about what happened and then there's the Truth of the matter. How do we come to the page honest, even when our heart might still be tender? How do we remain transparent about the events that transpired without going full tabloid? And how can we write something singular about our experience when so much has already been said about what it feels like to have loved and lost?

For each session of this online nonfiction writing workshop, you will read and discuss published pieces on love lost—a mix of short memoir, personal essay, and craft essays—and dive into generative exercises that use the techniques gleaned from reading writers we admire. There will be an opportunity to share your work at the beginning and/or end of most sessions. The last two sessions will be reserved for workshopping; each student will submit to the workshop once for written and verbal feedback on a personal essay or memoir excerpt of 5,000 words or less. This creative writing course is capped at 10 students for an intimate, supportive experience.

Although a vent session to friends about the person who broke your heart can be satisfying in the moment, a piece written for public consumption must offer something in return to the reader for their time. This writing workshop will teach you how to craft a piece around your personal tragedy in a way that taps into the universal human condition, through gleaning craft insights from reading writers we admire and generative exercises that encourage you to practice a new writing muscle.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will develop a personal essay or memoir excerpt of 5,000 words or less on the subject of heartbreak. Each writer will receive written and verbal feedback from the instructor and their peers on their workshop submission. Writers can anticipate guidance on character development, plot, pacing, timeline, transitions, structure, and recommendations for other writers they should be reading to inform their craft.

Readings

Readings may include work by Edgar Gomez, Hanif Abdurraqib, Samantha Irby, Brian Doyle, CJ Hauser, and others.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: How to Be True

Week 2: Let's Get Physical

Week 3: Dealing with the Murky

Week 4: It's Me, Not You

Week 5: Workshop

Week 6: Workshop

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• How to be transparent in your writing without being salacious
• How to be emotional without being sentimental or saccharine
• How to be unapologetic yet balanced in your Truth
• Craft techniques for transforming personal heartbreak into essays that tap into the universal human condition
• A draft of a personal essay or memoir excerpt (5,000 words or less) with written and verbal feedback from the instructor and peers
• A deeper understanding of how published writers craft essays about love and loss

PRAISE FOR MINDA HONEY

"I have to invent words and phrases to express my gratitude for the spaces that Minda curates in support of BIPOC women writers - of all stages, abilities, voices, and experiences. This is my second time being in one of her workshops and my third time in her care. I've never participated in anything before that is so enriching, fulfilling, affirming, encouraging, enlightening, and fun that also includes substantial critique and feedback. Minda does a beautiful job curating brave spaces for Black women writers to bond, learn from one another, and to provide helpful feedback when it comes to critiquing writing. We get a lot done in a very carefully planned timeline, one that does not feel rushed and is handled with grace. I now model Minda's feedback techniques in my own classes. I also love how much Minda offers of herself as I've done 1:1 with her. She is also a brilliant educator as the readings she chooses for workshops is done with intention including work representative of diverse voices. If you ever have an opportunity to work with Minda Honey, please do so. You'll be so grateful afterwards."

"My "essay" shelf is three david foster wallace collections, two david sedaris collections, a greatest hits from Joan Didion and my latest attempts to be culturally engaged - the Margaret Renkl collection Graceland at Last and the Orwell's Roses collection by Rebecca Solnit. That is to say, super white, super gate kept literary journalish stuff. This class turned me on to Ross Gay and Joy Priest. Those introductions were reason enough to do the class and do another one. That core thing, guided reading, was really valuable to me. The breadth of stuff, and the studies on form, particularly the Joy Priest piece, were helpful to me in my own writing."

"Minda is such a great teacher! The readings, discussions, and exercises were expertly crafted. Teaching and learning via Zoom isn’t easy, but Minda still created a warm and welcoming classroom feeling, even among a group of socially distanced Zoomers. This class was amazing and I hope to The Porch will offer many many more classes with Minda!"

“[Honey’s] candid self-reflection illustrates the depth of her transformation, and her conflicted and at times contradictory desires add a welcome layer of complexity to an already nuanced narrative. . . . Honey’s witty, frank storytelling makes this book compulsively readable.” -Kirkus Reviews

“[A] nuanced and engaging narrative of a young woman struggling through love and heartbreak.” -Booklist

“Every few decades, there’s that one book that shapes directly how we all understand the potentially radical, and radically heartbreaking, space between touching and being touched, running to and running away, f’ing shit up and feeling f’ed. Minda Honey has created a momentous piece of art, of course, but most importantly, The Heartbreak Years will teach a generation of us what’s possible when writing through, to, and beneath the pulpy inside of desire and fear.” -Kiese Laymon, bestselling author of Long Division and Heavy

“If The Heartbreak Years were a person, it’d be the girl you meet in line for the bathroom at the club. Vulnerable, hilarious, there to whisper hard-earned wisdom into your ear while holding back your hair. Minda Honey has written a fierce rallying cry for the single and lovesick, for those who dare to see the hope in being a romantic. The stories in this book are vibrant, tender, self-aware without being jaded, compulsively readable but never easy. When some f’boy has got you down, Honey’s words are an outstretched hand reaching to lift you back up.” -Edgar Gomez, author of High-Risk Homosexual and Alligator Tears

"Minda Honey has written a great memoir for her generation, and for right now.  Her memory is so precise, I felt as if I were in the bar or car for these devastatingly honest chapters - as a writer, she's never sentimental or compromised, but searing and truthful and often hilarious in her narratives, seeking realistic love and life and community.  She's like a stand-up comic, but one whose prose is laden with insight, literary heroines, and the perfect detail." -Susan Straight, author of Mecca

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Minda Honey
• Begins Wednesday, May 13th, 2026
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 6:30-8:30 PM EST
• Tuition is $495 USD.
  
• Class is limited to 10 writers.