Writing with Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon Edition — 6-Week Online Fiction and Nonfiction Workshop with Leila C. Nadir Starts Tuesday, April 6th, 2027
Song of Solomon Writing Workshop: Learn Craft from Toni Morrison | April 2027 Online
Writing with Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon Edition, a 6-Week Fiction and Nonfiction Workshop with Leila C. Nadir
Begins Tuesday, April 6, 2027
Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET
🌍 Class Times by Time Zone:
- Los Angeles (PDT): 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
- Chicago (CDT): 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
- New York (EDT): 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Now Enrolling!
Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.
Instructor Leila C. Nadir is a 2026 New York Foundation for the Arts Nonfiction Fellow, 2026 Kenyon College Peter Taylor Fellow, and MacDowell Fellow. Her creative work appears in scholarly and literary journals, in museums and galleries, and in forests, classrooms, and kitchens, and she is at work on a memoir about the global geopolitics that invade our private living rooms and the intimate violences that reverberate across the planet. Her art has been collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the New Museum, and her essays have been published or are forthcoming in The Nation, Michigan Quarterly Review, Salon, The Markaz Review, Black Warrior Review, North American Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and was founding director of one of the first Environmental Humanities programs in the nation before joining the editorial team at Los Angeles Review of Books.
Who is this class for?
This cross-genre online writing class is for fiction writers, nonfiction writers, and writers of every genre and level who want to learn from a literary icon: how to read like a writer, and how to write from what you read. Open to all levels, from first-time students to writers deep in a manuscript. You will leave with new tools to draft or revise your own work.
What to expect:
"You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."
In this six-week creative writing workshop, we will spend six weeks with Toni Morrison's Pulitzer-era masterpiece Song of Solomon and study how we can write better fiction and nonfiction by examining her prose. Each week covers two to three chapters. You can read alongside the class week by week, finish the whole novel before we begin, or skip the reading entirely and simply enjoy the craft lectures and generative exercises.
Each live Zoom session opens with critical conversation about the thematic and historical contexts of Song of Solomon, followed by close readings of specific passages as models for our own writing. After the analysis, we turn to generative exercises built straight from the text: beginnings, voice, character, point of view, dialogue, subtext, the personal and the political, place, turning points, patterns, and endings. Your instructor spent twenty years as a professor of literature and is also an award-winning literary writer, so you get both the critic's eye and the writer's hand in the same room.
You'll finish this online fiction and nonfiction workshop with a deep understanding of the inner workings of a literary masterpiece, a set of new craft skills, and a portfolio of written exercises to carry into your writing projects. Students receive in-class feedback on the writing they generate each week.
To make sure we are all on the same page (literally), students should have the Vintage International edition of Song of Solomon (ISBN 9781400033423).
What are the writing goals?
In this course, students will produce new writing or revisions each week, built on the strategies we see at work in Song of Solomon. The result will be six drafts of new work or revisions, with in-class feedback from the instructor and your fellow writers.
Readings
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, Vintage International edition (ISBN 9781400033423). Please use this edition so page references match in class.
COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1: Beginnings and Voice (chapters 1 and 2). Close reading of the opening (Robert Smith's leap) and the shape of the narrator. Generative exercise on narrative point of view.
Week 2: Character Construction (chapters 3 and 4). Analysis of free indirect discourse and character construction through objects and habits. Exercise: building character through object and movement.
Week 3: Dialogue and Subtext (chapters 5 through 7). Close reading of dialogue, speech, and the unsaid. Exercise: crafting dialogue with competing points of view and narrative progression.
Week 4: The Personal and the Political (chapters 8 and 9). Analysis of masking, respectability, class, and retaliation as Part I closes. Exercise: private needs and public politics.
Week 5: Place and Turning Points (chapters 10 through 12). Close reading of setting as a character, along with interiority, turning points, and epiphanies. Exercise: moving a character through an unfamiliar place and the loss of certainty toward new realizations.
Week 6: Patterns and Endings (chapters 13 through 15). Analysis of building closing resonance, the decoded song, and an ending that returns to the beginning. Exercise: crafting conclusions.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Six drafts of new writing or revisions, one per week, built from strategies in Song of Solomon
- A working method for reading like a writer that you can apply to any book you love
- Craft tools for beginnings, voice, point of view, character, dialogue, subtext, place, turning points, patterning, and endings
- A deep understanding of how a literary masterpiece is built, chapter by chapter
- In-class feedback on your generative writing from the instructor and a community of fiction and nonfiction writers
TESTIMONIALS:
"Leila brought both depth of knowledge and broad examples to the workshop, drawing on her academic training and her wide-ranging reading life. I especially appreciated that she shaped the course around the needs and preferences of the participants, creating a safe space that valued our varied experiences and backgrounds. Her clearly explained craft lectures were coupled with supporting examples that demonstrated how theme and recurring motifs strengthen a powerful conclusion. Overall, the course gave me new confidence in approaching rewrites and revisions for my nearly finished novel. This workshop was exactly the combination of expertise and thoughtful guidance I sought." — Kathy, 2025
"Leila is an incredible writing teacher with a sharp eye for editing, beautiful insights, and sincere care for her students. I was blown away at how she was able to make space for the diversity in our class, from backgrounds to subject matters. She creates an encouraging and supportive container for everyone to develop their work. She also makes herself available outside of class with thoughtful and thorough responses. Invaluable!" — Alyx, 2025
"After feeling so lonely and in my head during my writing process, Leila brought such a fresh perspective to my writing practice. Teaching us in class how to look at writing in the most nourishing and expanding way. She communicates so clearly what can often feel so abstract and difficult to pinpoint. I left with so many tools after taking her workshop and can't wait for more!!!" — Halleta, 2025
"Leila Nadir is an excellent writer and teacher. My writing skills improved, and my memoir moved to the next level during her class. This change occurred for two reasons. First, she used examples to teach us how authors organized their work and 'spoke' to readers. Second, we watched and learned as she helped each of us struggle with these same issues. I would like to add that Leila created a supportive environment for diverse students. I look forward to taking another class from her." — Leonard, 2025
"This course was incredibly helpful. I learned many craft skills to use for my memoir. Leila is a wonderful, knowledgeable instructor, who creates an amazing supportive and inclusive community for all." — Elizabeth, 2025
"Leila's course was one of the most enriching, productive writing workshops I have ever participated in. She provided a great balance of instruction, writing exercises, and discussion. Each week she incorporated relevant lessons and themes that we then applied to our reading and writing exercises. I was really impressed with the way she encouraged and inspired participation by creating a safe and comfortable workshop environment. I learned so much from her over a short period of time." — Katie, 2025
PAYMENT OPTIONS:
Tuition is $495 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: Leila C. Nadir
- Begins Tuesday, April 6, 2027
- Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET
- Six sessions: April 6, April 13, April 20, April 27, May 4, and May 11, 2027
- Tuition is $495 USD.