Attending Workshops In-Person

If you register to attend in-person, your workshop(s) will be held at Thurber Center (91 Jefferson Avenue, Columbus, OH 43215), next door to Thurber House. There is free parking on Jefferson Avenue and in our back parking lot, accessible off N. 11th Street.

ABOUT

Are you looking for ways to transform your memories onto the page? Memory is an evocative thing, and in some cases, a ceaseless tyrant. The personal essay is a powerful way to explore these ideas more deeply to create a compelling narrative. In this workshop, we’ll learn and apply techniques for writing memory as personal essay, including how to “unpack” transformative moments about a person, place, or thing. We’ll also experiment with voice and point of view. By the workshop’s end, you’ll leave with at least three drafts to get you started, as well as tips for how to keep writing—and revising. This workshop is geared toward all, from the beginning writer who has “all these great ideas” in their head, to the writer who needs a jumpstart to keep going.

INSTRUCTOR

Lisa Lopez Snyder is an essayist and short story writer. Her pieces have been featured in 34th Parallel, Adelaide, The Raleigh Review, The Summerset Review, The Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, and other publications. Her essay, “In Transit,” won The Chattahoochee Review’s 2011 Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction and she was named the 2015 Carl Sandburg Writer-in-Residence. She received her MFA in creative writing at the University of South Carolina and went on to teach first-year writing at Dartmouth College. She is currently working on a memoir-in-essays about being a paper girl in Huber Heights, Ohio.

ABOUT

Readers love complex, flawed characters. We may not always admire them, but we’re drawn to them. We remember them. Think Macbeth’s vaulting ambition or Gatsby’s tragic illusions. Think Miss Havisham or Sherlock Holmes or Lisbeth Salander. In this workshop, you will learn how to add depth, complexity, and memorability to your fictional characters by mining their human imperfections. We’ll explore descriptive, dialogue, and psychological techniques to help keep your characters captivating—and authentically complicated.

Instructor

Connie Berry, self-confessed history nerd and unashamed Anglophile, is the author of the USA Today best-selling and multi-award-nominated Kate Hamilton Mysteries, set in the UK and featuring an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. Like her protagonist, Connie was raised by antiques dealers who instilled in her a passion for history, fine art, and travel. After teaching for 25 years, she embarked on a new career as a crime writer. Connie is a member of the Authors’ Guild, Crime Writers' Association (UK), Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Buckeye Crime Writers, and Guppies, of which she is the immediate past president. Connie lives in Ohio and northern Wisconsin with her husband and adorable Shih Tzu, Emmie. Her latest novel, A Grave Deception, was released in December 2025.

ABOUT

Creativity isn’t just “making something new.” It is transformation. In this class, we will use images, metaphors, and the written word to explore deeper understandings of ourselves and the challenges we have faced. Through prose and/or poetry, we will memorialize our searches and transformations, thus enriching our perspectives on writing and life.

Instructor Nicole Gnezda, Ph.D. will lead participants through a process of self-exploration, investigating topics such as entropy vs. creativity, deterioration vs. growth, repressing vs. addressing pain, and finding resilience. We will build bridges between the unconscious and the conscious, using writing to transform the painful and ugly into something meaningful and beautiful.

Activities will include idea searches via “burning questions,” idea development with spoke charts, changing prose into poetry and vice-versa, and stream of consciousness writing. Focus will be on meaning and expression instead of technicalities and grammar. As we work through our narratives, we will experience support from and for each other.

INSTRUCTOR

Nicole Gnezda (Niki) is a writer, artist, speaker, and educator with a Ph.D. in creativity studies. Included in her body of publications is the book, Teaching Difficult Students: Blue Jays in the Classroom (Rowman and Littlefield), professional articles, and poetry published in Ohio Bards Poetry Anthology, Common Threads, Crone Magazine, and Uppercase. Niki makes bobbin lace with her ancestor’s bobbins, paints, cooks, and travels. She believes creativity takes life apart and reassembles it in magnificent ways. It gets us through and sometimes heals us.

ABOUT

Creativity isn’t just “making something new.” It is transformation. In this class, we will use images, metaphors, and the written word to explore deeper understandings of ourselves and the challenges we have faced. Through prose and/or poetry, we will memorialize our searches and transformations, thus enriching our perspectives on writing and life.

Instructor Nicole Gnezda, Ph.D. will lead participants through a process of self-exploration, investigating topics such as entropy vs. creativity, deterioration vs. growth, repressing vs. addressing pain, and finding resilience. We will build bridges between the unconscious and the conscious, using writing to transform the painful and ugly into something meaningful and beautiful.

Activities will include idea searches via “burning questions,” idea development with spoke charts, changing prose into poetry and vice-versa, and stream of consciousness writing. Focus will be on meaning and expression instead of technicalities and grammar. As we work through our narratives, we will experience support from and for each other.

INSTRUCTOR

Nicole Gnezda (Niki) is a writer, artist, speaker, and educator with a Ph.D. in creativity studies. Included in her body of publications is the book, Teaching Difficult Students: Blue Jays in the Classroom (Rowman and Littlefield), professional articles, and poetry published in Ohio Bards Poetry Anthology, Common Threads, Crone Magazine, and Uppercase. Niki makes bobbin lace with her ancestor’s bobbins, paints, cooks, and travels. She believes creativity takes life apart and reassembles it in magnificent ways. It gets us through and sometimes heals us.

ABOUT

No matter your writing wheelhouse, it's important to know how to write funny. A sharp punchline, a witty character, or an uproarious scene can inject life and balance into your work. Satire and humor writer, editor, and teacher Brooke Preston (former faculty member at The Second City, co-founder of The Belladonna, and co-author of the satire book New Erotica for Feminists, whose humor work has appeared in The New York Times, Real Simple, McSweeney's, The Cut, and many more) will guide aspiring, emerging, and experienced writers alike through the basic rules of humor and satire writing, including practical tips and exercises that help evolve funny ideas into fleshed-out characters, jokes, or scenes that strike the right tone for your writing project. We'll also explore how a smart punch-up and edit process is the secret ingredient that turns half-baked hahas into perfectly prepared guffaws.

INSTRUCTOR

Brooke Preston is an Ohio-based humor writer. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Real Simple, The Cut, McSweeney’s, Reductress, Men's Health, and many fine crumpled napkins. Brooke is a co-founder of The Belladonna Comedy—she and her fellow editors co-wrote the surprisingly-safe-for-work book New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust and Equal Pay, which Vulture named one of its Top Humor Books of 2018. She has served as head writer of the Thurber Prize for American Humor award show (winner of a Best of Columbus 2022 award) and has taught satire and writing to everyone from high school students to multiple Emmy winners for The Second City, Thurber House, MadLab and more. She is currently developing her first solo collection of comedic essays. Follow her from a safe distance on X at @bigu.

ABOUT

You’ve written an essay, a short story, some poems, or maybe a novel. So, what’s next, if you want to publish it? This session offers a step-by-step process for how to conduct a targeted search of where to publish your work, plus tips for organizing that process. Specifically, you’ll learn about online tools for doing a targeted search, the protocols for submitting your work (including links to drafting query letters), and how to create your own action plan. This session will also include a handout that lists ways to find agents (primarily fiction/novel) and non-agented, small independent presses. Please note: this session does not focus on how to self-publish your work.

INSTRUCTOR

Lisa Lopez Snyder is an essayist and short story writer. Her pieces have been featured in 34th Parallel, Adelaide, The Raleigh Review, The Summerset Review, The Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, and other publications. Her essay, “In Transit,” won The Chattahoochee Review’s 2011 Lamar York Prize for Nonfiction and she was named the 2015 Carl Sandburg Writer-in-Residence. She received her MFA in creative writing at the University of South Carolina and went on to teach first-year writing at Dartmouth College. She is currently working on a memoir-in-essays about being a paper girl in Huber Heights, Ohio.

ABOUT

Do you have a writer/author “platform”? If so, do you know how to consistently create compelling content and build your audience? Did you know that a smart online presence can also be the key to securing your next writing assignment, agent relationship, or publishing deal?

This workshop will help writers identify, build, and present their platforms on social media and Substack to grow followers, keep audiences engaged, and reach their ideal readers, agents, and publishers.

Social media guru Diane Callahan and Substack expert Amy Turn Sharp will share easy, actionable plans and best practices for building an engaged social media and Substack following capable of generating work opportunities and winning over industry decision-makers. From choosing a platform and handle to learning how to draw readers in and boost views, writers of all genres will walk away with newfound social savvy.

INSTRUCTORs

Diane Callahan is a writer, editor, and YouTuber who also happens to work at an art gallery as a marketing manager. On her YouTube channel, Quotidian Writer, she provides practical tips for aspiring authors. You can read her work in Consequence, Translunar Travelers Lounge, Paper Butterfly Flash Fiction, Short Édition, and The Sunlight Press, among others. Her debut poetry collection, The Ship and the Storm, was released in September 2025 with Story Garden Publishing.

Amy Turn Sharp is a mom of three boys, an avid reader, traveler, creative director, and the owner of Secret Studio, a recording studio and art gallery in Franklinton. She hosts poetry and creativity workshops, both in person and virtually, for people around the world. Her writing is for the brokenhearted, the joyful, and the weirdos of the future. Amy believes we all need reminders of life’s little truths—the words that connect us, turn us on, and tune us in. She invites you to raise your hand if you want a poem.

ABOUT

We are living in an age where our attention span is manipulated and bombarded on a daily basis with too much information, thanks to laptops, iPads, and phones. But remember that sense of wonder as a child when walking your neighborhood and you could feel and see and smell the changes of the seasons and how that shaped your behavior? In this workshop, we will explore how to get back to a more sense-based existence—that will both inform and shape your writing, as well as help with your editing. We will discuss methods and habits that can enhance your situational awareness by using all of your senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. And we will examine and discuss the writings of authors known for their descriptive ability to place the reader in a certain time and place.

Watching urban wildlife in your own backyard, taking daily walks in your neighborhood or an evening drive in the country with the windows down, or walking into a bakery and being engulfed in the aroma of freshly baked breads and cookies all are sensory experiences. In this workshop, we will complete a series of writing exercises to hone your writing skills using the power of observations—noticing the extraordinary in the everyday, and noticing the ordinary with a sense of wonder.

INSTRUCTOR

Author Beth Armstrong’s memoir Voices From The Ape House was published in 2020 by Trillium/Ohio State University Press. Since 2023, she has been a monthly columnist for the Clintonville Spotlight newspaper. Her essays have appeared in The Columbus Dispatch and 614 Magazine. Prior to becoming a writer, she was a gorilla keeper and the first conservation coordinator for the Columbus Zoo. Those years spent observing animal behaviors taught her the power of quietly watching the world, with many of those moments becoming the basis for her essays and stories. Beth believes that every person has a story to tell, that stories have the power to change the world, and that stories can alter people’s perspectives by creating space for empathy to grow and thrive. Beth earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from OSU while working full-time at the zoo. Beth has given numerous lectures at international conferences about captive gorilla behaviors and husbandry, as well as the zoo community’s conservation efforts and commitment.

ABOUT

Whether it's overthinking, a hectic schedule, or lack of confidence, nearly every writer suffers through dry seasons or times of feeling stuck in a less-than-satisfying routine. Jen Knox will share practical tips and exercises to help writers at every level bust through limiting patterns, increase momentum, and explore freely on the page. This class will include practices to help you rediscover inspiration and jumpstart your writing, such as creating and defending a writing schedule, dealing with the inner critic, and finding flow. You'll leave the class with new writing and creative resolve. Join us!

INSTRUCTORs

Jen Knox is an educator and storyteller who leads workshops on writing, leadership, and meditation. After teaching writing for over a decade and managing a leadership program at The Ohio State University, Jen began to combine meditation techniques, leadership research, and the power of creativity to launch Unleash Creatives, a holistic arts organization. Her books include We Arrive Uninvited (Steel Toe Books Award Winner), The Glass City (Press Americana Prose Winner), Radicals (Library Tales/Simon and Schuster, 2027) and At Work (Cornerstone, UWSP, 2027). Jen's short fiction can be found in the Chicago Tribune, Prose Online, McSweeney's Internet Quarterly, The Saturday Evening Post, and more. She’s the proud recipient of grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Ohio Arts Council, and blogs about writing and mindfulness at The Resilient Creative.

ABOUT

We’ve all heard the old adage, “Write what you know,” and it’s true that every individual writer comes to the page equipped with a unique tool that can’t be taught: their own life story. But the adage can actually be a drawback for fiction writers, as it can trap writers in the “But it really happened” mindset (which can limit your story potential). The truth may be stranger than fiction…but it doesn’t always make the best story. A series of exercises will help you mine for and unearth great material from your life, and give you lots of tips (and traps to avoid) for using them as inspiration for great fiction.

INSTRUCTORs

Katrina Kittle's latest novel, Morning in This Broken World, was an Amazon First Reads pick for August 2023. She is the author of four other adult books—Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, The Kindness of Strangers, and The Blessings of the Animals—and one tween novel, Reasons to Be Happy. Katrina teaches creative writing at the University of Dayton and through Word’s Worth Writing Connections. Katrina lives south of Dayton with her fella, her anxious cat, her sweet beagle, and her out-of-control garden. You can find out more at www.katrinakittle.com and follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

Thank you to our major arts supporters:

The Harry C. Moores Foundation