Starts Wednesday, November 4th, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays from 4:00 - 6:00 PM PT

🌍 Class Times by Time Zone: Los Angeles (PST): 4:00 – 6:00 PM / Chicago (CST): 6:00 – 8:00 PM / New York (EST): 7:00 – 9:00 PM

Note: This 6-week course runs Nov 4 – Dec 16 and does not meet on the week of Thanksgiving, November 25.

Now Enrolling!

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Instructor Michelle Kicherer covers books and music for the San Francisco Chronicle and teaches writing classes in fiction and memoir. She is a former ghostwriter of memoir and nonfiction books and a current writing coach and founder of Banana Pitch Press, an indie press specializing in novellas and memoirellas. Her fiction has appeared in The Master's Review, The Sierra Nevada Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, and others. Her debut novella Sexy Life, Hello came out digitally September 2024 and arrives in print March 2025. Willamette Week called it "one of the most compelling short reads of the year." Michelle aims to have one weird new experience every day.

Read an interview with Michelle on Writing the Novella.

The novella is a great form of literature that fits somewhere between a short story and a novel. In this six-week online writing workshop, we'll read several novellas appreciated for their different tones, topics, and genres and pick them apart at the craft level, asking what each story did to make it successful. With novellas, we have a little more room to advance the plot and explore our characters—but not a whole lot—so how do we take best advantage of our pages?

This course has a special focus on the editing and development of your novella. You'll get several different types of homework assignments designed to strengthen your draft, including a focused look at opening pages and how writing a back-of-the-book summary can sharpen your plot and "aboutness." Each student is in a different stage of their novella project, so all levels of completion and experience are welcome.

This class is meant to be as helpful as possible—but also fun. We'll learn from each other and foster a positive, productive, judgment-free classroom where every writer can share questions and insights.

A Note on Workshops: Each writer will have one opportunity to submit their work for written feedback and discussion. Please plan on reading and providing feedback on your peers' work as well, so we can all support each other equally.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• How to start a novella with an immediate hook
• What other novellas set up for and what the story delivers
• How to structure a novella
• What these novellas do (and don't do) to make them successful stories
• How to start, climax, end, and edit a novella

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week One: Strong Openings

After an intro to the novella, we'll look at several examples of strong novella openings, which we'll read and dissect together in class.

Week Two: Plot vs Aboutness

In this session, we'll outline the plot of Old Man and the Sea and learn how to reverse engineer an outline so that we can work backward from plot to "aboutness."

Week Three: Conflict and Tension

We always want our reader to be a little worried and curious: how do we give them that "what will happen next" feeling? We'll look at the novella The Factory and pick out where the conflict is and how it's giving us that "I gotta keep reading" feeling.

Week Four: Identifying themes in my novella

George Saunders often talks about how he doesn't know what a story is "about" until he's written it and gone back in for editing. This week, we'll talk about themes, using some Saunders excerpts and Emma Cline's White Noise as our inspiration.

Week Five: Character (development)

So who is your character? How is this story revolving around them? How can you tweak the story a bit to strengthen their development?

Week Six: Reading your work with an editorial eye

We'll conclude this class by talking about some nitty-gritty of editing. Michelle will include real examples from student work (anonymous, as desired) and lay out some step-by-step editing techniques for you to employ on your work after this class.

CLASS SUPPLIES:

• Please bring a notebook and writing utensil to each class for brief in-class writing activities. Michelle highly encourages pen and paper for the exercises we'll be doing.

READING LIST:

• Harvey, aka "White Noise," by Emma Cline
• The Factory, by Hiroko Oyamada
• The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
• And excerpts from novellas by Clarice Lispector, George Saunders, and others

Each class starts with a short writing warm-up using fiction-focused, generative writing prompts. Writing is such a deeply personal endeavor—this online writing class provides a safe space to share your questions and insights so we all feel productive and judgment-free.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $445 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: Michelle Kicherer
• Begins Wednesday, November 4th, 2026 (does not meet November 25; runs through December 16)
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:00 PM PT
• Tuition is $445 USD