72 Best Nonfiction Writing Classes in 2026

A two-day online event focused on getting published, with sessions on pitching, publishing avenues, and storytelling techniques. Includes personal critiques and optional one-on-one meetings with agents.

Free weekly workshop in Room 3.09 above the Manchester Poetry Library, Wednesdays 6.30pm to 8.30pm, run by Cultureword, which has been developing Black and Asian writers in Manchester and the north for over three decades. Open to Global Majority writers - African, Caribbean, South, Southeast and East Asian, Middle Eastern diaspora and Indigenous communities. These are proper critique sessions rather than drop-in writing time: you bring your own poem, story, novel extract or memoir, and there is a stated expectation that you both give and receive constructive feedback and return with revised work. Spoken word poetry and short fiction are the group's strongest suits. Join by emailing admin@cultureword.org.uk.

Single-day in-person workshop at the Rozelle campus, 2A Gordon St, on Saturday 19 September, 10am to 4pm, with Elizabeth Gascoigne Rosa. Fee $202 AUD including GST - the cheapest taught creative writing day currently running in Sydney. The focus is the short true story: essay-length non-fiction rather than a book-length project. This is the only session the college has scheduled for this course, so there is no later date to fall back on.

Single-day in-person workshop at Sydney Community College's Rozelle campus, 2A Gordon St, on Friday 6 November, 9am to 3pm. Fee $263 AUD including GST. Taught by Gabiann Marin, a script and story-writing consultant and lecturer with a professional writing degree and honours in film and television production. Six hours in one sitting, so you get a whole day on your own life material rather than a weekly commitment. Places were available at the time of listing, and the college gives 15 per cent off if you book two or more writing courses together.

Eight-week early-evening workshop at the QWF office in Westmount, Montreal, Wednesdays 5.45-7.45pm from 7 October to 2 December, with Leith Gollner - note there is no meeting on 28 October. The focus is narrow and practical: building scenes in factual writing rather than surveying the whole genre. Runs in QWF's default format, in-person at the Westmount office with a small number of virtual seats by prior request. Currently full with a waitlist open; fees are displayed again when registration reopens.

Thirty-hour evening course on Dawson College's downtown Montreal campus, Tuesdays 6-9pm from 6 October to 8 December. Fee $250 CAD plus tax - by some distance the cheapest structured creative writing course in the city. No prerequisite, class capped at 20, and the teacher is listed as TBA. It moves across short fiction and poetry with peer critique as the core method: every participant must submit at least one story or two to three poems for the group to workshop. Registration closes 1 October.

Two full Saturdays at the QWF office in Westmount, Montreal, 14 and 21 November, 10.30am to 4.30pm, led by Afreina Noor, ending in a live in-person showcase. Fee $240 CAD for non-members, $210 CAD for QWF members, $120 CAD students. You leave with one true personal story of seven minutes or less, built through guided writing, editing, peer feedback and performance coaching - aimed at people who want to tell at events like The Moth or Confabulation. Capped at 12; the showcase itself is in-person only.

Eight-week in-class creative non-fiction course on the St. George campus in Toronto, Mondays 6.30-9pm from 19 October, taught by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Down to This and Hungover. Fee $699 CAD. It covers memoir, personal essay and literary journalism - telling factual stories with the techniques of fiction. Counts towards the SCS Certificate in Creative Writing.

Four-week in-person memoir course at The Porch House in Nashville led by bestselling memoirist Marianne Richmond, $242 ($206 for members). Richmond teaches a Choose - Shape - Share framework, working through theme, voice, scene, reflection and revision, and treats memoir as an argument rather than a chronology. The final sessions cover publishing pathways, so it suits writers thinking about where a finished manuscript goes.

In-person workshop in Denver, $110 non-member, taught by Alexander Shalom Joseph. Saturday 5 September 2026, 10:00am-1:00pm, held at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science rather than at Lighthouse itself. Three hours writing from and about Colorado - its past, present and future - with the museum’s collections as source material. The only fully in-person, non-hybrid class on Lighthouse’s current adult list.

In-person workshop in Boston, $445 ($430 for members), taught by Ethan Gilsdorf. Six Tuesdays, 15 September to 20 October 2026, 10:30am-1:30pm at GrubStreet’s Seaport centre. The structure is the point: one finished essay a week for six weeks, so it produces a body of work rather than fragments. Daytime slot.

In-person workshop in Boston, $750 ($725 for members), taught by Frankie Concepcion. Ten Mondays, 14 September to 23 November 2026, 6:00-9:00pm at GrubStreet’s Seaport centre. For writers already working on a memoir manuscript rather than deciding whether to start one - ten weeks of sustained workshop on work in progress. Three-hour sessions, so more workshop time per week than the six-week courses.