Begins Sunday, September 13, 2026 Class will meet once via Zoom from 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET

Live Seminar via Zoom from 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET

🌍 Class Times by Time Zone: Los Angeles (PDT): 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM / Chicago (CDT): 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM / New York (EDT): 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM / London (BST): 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM / Berlin (CEST): 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM

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Instructor Bio

Instructor Lacey Herbert is a television writer and producer, currently a co-producer on Amazon Prime's upcoming Reacher spin-off, Neagley. Before that, she wrote for STARZ's NAACP Image Award-winning Power Book II: Ghost, where she became the go-to writer for high-stakes, mid-season finales — the kind that either kills your favorite character or flips everything you thought you knew upside down.

Originally from Washington, DC, Lacey got her start in broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland. In a past life, she worked in unscripted TV, producing a show for HGTV and a handful of mini-documentaries on social justice and culture. Her writing explores family drama, identity, magical realism, and the thin lines of morality — especially as they shape and complicate the Black experience in America.

Outside of TV, her writing has appeared in Civil Eats, Half and One, and even in the New York Times, where she published a tiny love story.

When she's not writing, she's probably on a plane with '70s funk playing in her headphones — looking for the best beach on Earth.

Who is this class for?

This course is open to writers of all levels. Whether you are exploring personal history for the first time or you are an experienced writer looking to deepen characters, stakes, and intergenerational storytelling in your fiction, this one-day writing workshop will give you the tools and structure to transform inherited material into compelling narrative.

What to expect:

Family stories are often where our most powerful narratives begin — but how do we transform our history into compelling fiction without simply writing memoir? And how do we shape inherited lore into stories that resonate beyond our own circles?

In this one-day online writing workshop, you will explore how to draw from family lore and oral history to create vivid, character-driven stories with emotional depth and momentum. Through guided exercises, discussion, and scene-building techniques, you will learn how to heighten your ideas, shape real-life material into structured fiction, and make thoughtful choices about what to keep, alter, or reimagine. The workshop examines questions of ethics, distance, and creative license while focusing on craft tools such as point of view, conflict, tension, and the central dramatic question.

Led by television writer and producer Lacey Herbert — whose own pilot, inspired by her grandmother's lore, led directly to two TV writing jobs spanning six seasons — this workshop offers practical insight into how deeply personal material can be shaped into compelling, high-stakes narrative. You will leave with a clear story concept rooted in the histories that shaped you, along with a drafted opening and a concrete plan for developing the material into a short story, novel, or screenplay.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will identify a compelling family-based story seed, clarify the dramatic question at the heart of that story, learn how to heighten the stakes without losing the emotional truth, and draft at least one scene. Students who are comfortable sharing their work will receive feedback from both the instructor and their peers. Even those who choose not to share writing will receive feedback on their story idea.

Readings

Instructor Lacey Herbert will share the opening scene of her pilot — a fictionalized version of her grandmother's real life story that directly led to two television writing jobs.

Additional recommended readings include:

Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club — a novel inspired by Tan's mother's stories about her life in China before immigrating to the U.S., and a powerful example of fiction rooted in family history.

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude — inspired by Márquez's maternal grandparents' storytelling and Colombian history, expanded into a sweeping multi-generational narrative. Also available as a Netflix series with English subtitles.

COURSE OUTLINE

1. Welcome, rules & context — Brief intro of instructor's background; laying out expectations of respect for peer sharing; discussion on why ancestral material is powerful but tricky; the difference between memoir and historical fiction.
2. Finding the dramatic engine — Introducing the concept of the central dramatic question, conflict vs. nostalgia, emotional truth vs. factual loyalty, and how to "heighten" real life.
3. Exercise: Students boil down their concept to two sentences and answer: Who is the main character? What do they want? What happens if they don't get it?
4. Group share! Feedback from both the instructor and the group.
5. Mini lecture on heightening the stakes without betraying the truth.
6. Exercise: Mapping out the lore and identifying where the gaps are in order to heighten the stakes.
7. Scene drafting.
8. Group share and reflection (optional, but encouraged, scene share).
9. Mini lecture on ethical considerations and when to fictionalize heavily.
10. Final exercise: Story roadmapping and identifying the central question of the story.
11. Group share & reflection on the final exercise. Feedback from the instructor and positive feedback from peers.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Understand the difference between memoir and fictional adaptation of real-life material
• Be able to identify and articulate the central dramatic question in an inherited or family story
• Learn techniques for heightening stakes and building narrative tension from personal histories
• Leave with a drafted scene or opening paragraph rooted in family lore
• Receive instructor and positive peer feedback on both story ideas and drafted work

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: Lacey Herbert
• Sunday, September 13, 2026
• Class will meet once via Zoom from 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET
• Tuition is $99 USD.