Workshops

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Upcoming workshops:

Keep scrolling for details and registration links…

July 2025

Tin House Craft Intensive
Strange Places with Nova Ren Suma
Sunday, July 13
10 AM – 1 PM PST (1 PM – 4 PM EST)
Online
$75

This generative fiction intensive will delve into crafting fantastical, haunted, hallucinatory, or just simply strange settings that stem from the world around us and the world of untapped ideas inside your own mind. Through sensory-infused worldbuilding exercises, spot-lit excerpts from mentor texts, and generative writing opportunities, we will explore magical, unsettling, and uncanny settings on the page and consider the ways they can be used in fiction to heighten tension, reveal secrets, suspend disbelief, and illuminate characters. From the infamous places found on maps to those lifted from the depths of your imagination, we will look into how setting can act as a character, and how to choose details that bring an unfamiliar place to resonant life. If you want to ground your stories with strikingly memorable settings and journey into more unusual places in your work, this class is an opportunity to forage for ideas, experiment with possibilities, and turn the otherworldly into a tangible place that serves your story. Fiction writers of all genres and those writing for all age levels are welcome. A brief collection of reading will be shared before class, and writers should come to the session ready to write.

Scholarship 
We have one scholarship available for this intensive. Scholarships are conducted through a lottery.

REGISTER FOR THE INTENSIVE HERE!

August 2025

The Writing Barn Online Webinar

Compelling Characters in YA and Coming-of-Age Fiction with Nova Ren Suma

Friday, August 22, 2025
11:00am–12:30pm CENTRAL
Cost: $35
Online

Most worthy and affecting coming-of-age stories depend on one significant thing: a compelling young character on the precipice of change. This rings true from YA to adult to books that cross over and dangle between audiences. In this online craft webinar taught by New York Times bestselling YA author Nova Ren Suma, writers will gain tools to aid in embodying young characters with complexities, histories, and layers.

We will consider the ways to build a satisfying, memorable coming-of-age story and delve into methods to deepen your young characters and illuminate their inner journeys. We will spotlight character-focused craft elements such as voice, perspective, motivation, and transformation, and we will consider exercises that can be used to uncover your characters’ interconnected wants, fears, histories, and ultimate needs, showing how the plot can organically stem from these discoveries. Writers will leave with hands-on character prompts that can be continued and expanded beyond the session. This webinar is for writers of all genres who want to go beneath the surface and write riveting and resonant character-driven coming-of-age stories.

Who should take this class:

  • YA writers drafting or revising a novel
  • Writers working on coming-of-age novels for adult, crossover, and upper middle-grade audiences
  • Writers looking for hands-on exercises and prompts to generate new pages
  • Writers wanting to strengthen their manuscripts before querying agents
  • Writers who enjoy deep text analysis and craft exploration
  • Writers who want to work with award-winning authors

You can attend this webinar live, but you don’t have to! Just watch the recording after if you can’t be there on the day.

REGISTER HERE

October 2025

Tin House 2025 Autumn Online Workshop — speculative fiction focus

Online October 4–13, 2025

Applications close: June 9, 2025

Cost: $800

I’m one of the faculty joining this online workshop, focused on speculative fiction! This is a place where futuristic settings, fresh takes on old myths, and supernatural happenings are all welcome. ⁠I’ll be leading a workshop for writers working on YA fiction of any and all speculative genres.

The Tin House Autumn Online Workshop itself consists of curated workshops, industry panels, craft lectures, agent meetings, affinity groups, social hours, and online karaoke. Before the official workshop, enrolled participants will have the opportunity to attend multiple pre-workshop events including: (1) a guest agent panel, (2) guest editor panel, (3) a query letter: do’s and don’ts session.  Additionally, every enrolled participant will have the opportunity to meet with one guest agent for ten minutes. Each workshop will have no more than ten participants. Enrolled participants will have access to a private Slack, which will open in September.

More details about the workshop schedule and application can be found here.

APPLY HERE!

Scholarships are available. Application deadline: June 9!

(Graphic design by Charlie Joy, courtesy of Tin House)

Coming Fall 2025: A 10-week online course to be announced and some other ways to work with me. Sign up to my workshops mailing list for announcements before they are shared on social media.

Past Workshops:

2025

2024

  • Tin House Online Seminar: Character Craft in YA Fiction with Nova Ren Suma: April 21–June 20, 2024.
  • Fall 2024 Prompt Hour: live generative workshop in Zoom only for newsletter subscribers: October 27, 2024.
  • Fine Arts Work Center/24PearlStreet Workshops: Crafting the Young Adult Novel (Asynchronous, with live elements): Fall Session November 11–December 8, 2024.

2023

  • Crafting the YA Novel Creative Lab at the Winter 2023 SCBWI Conference: Weekend intensive, Feb. 10–12, 2023, New York City.
  • Tin House Craft Intensive: Memory Trove: A Generative Fiction Workshop with Nova Ren Suma (Online): May 2023.
  • Tin House Craft Intensive: Haunt Your Fiction: Writing Ghost Stories with Nova Ren Suma (Online): September 2023.
  • Tin House Craft Intensive: Haunt Your Fiction: Writing Ghost Stories with Nova Ren Suma (Online): October 2023.
  • Making Magic: Writing and Refining Fantastical and Otherworldly Stories at the Highlights Foundation, October 2023, Honesdale, PA. Co-led with Anna-Marie McLemore and featuring special guests Alison Green Myers, Alexandra Villasante, and Kat Brzozowski.

2022

  • Fine Arts Work Center/24PearlStreet Workshops: Crafting the Young Adult Novel (Asynchronous, with live elements): Summer Session July 18–August 12, 2022.
  • Fine Arts Work Center/24PearlStreet Workshops: Crafting the Young Adult Novel (Asynchronous, with live elements): Fall Session Nov. 7–Dec. 2, 2022.

2021

  • Tin House 2021 YA Fiction Workshop (Virtual): Feb. 11–15, 2021. Second annual YA fiction workshop directed by Tin House. Faculty: Jennifer De Leon, Mason Deaver, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Yamile Saied Méndez, Mark Oshiro, Ben Philippe, Nova Ren Suma, Ashley Woodfolk.
  • Paranormal Fiction Workshop with the Manhattanville College MFA in Creative Writing Program (Virtual): October 23, 2021.
  • Canceled due to COVID-19:
    —2021 Djerassi YA Novel Workshop

2020

  • Postponed or canceled due to COVID-19:
    —Making Magic at Highlights Foundation (postponed to 2023)
    —Ghosts, Witches, and Craft: A Salem Writing Retreat (canceled)

2019

  • Blue Stoop YA Novel Weekend Intensive: April 6–7, 2019. Indy Hall, Philadelphia, CA. Sponsored by Blue Stoop.
  • Djerassi YA Novel Writing Workshop: May 4–10, 2019. Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • Ghosts, Haunts, and Haints: Paranormal Writing Weekend: June 28–30, 2019, Charleston, South Carolina. Co-led with intuitive and medium Holly Raychelle Hughes.

2018

  • Djerassi YA Novel Alumni Reunion Workshop: April 16–21, 2018. Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.

2017

  • New England SCBWI Conference: April 21–23, 2017. Sheraton Monarch Place, Springfield, MA. Conference faculty. Workshop leader of two first pages workshops.
  • Djerassi 2017 YA Novel Writing Workshop: June 19–24, 2017. Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • SCBWI 46th Annual Summer Conference: July 7–10, 2017. JW Marriott at LA LIVE, Los Angeles, CA. Conference faculty. Workshop leader of two Monday intensives.
  • Highlights Foundation Books with Bite Workshop: October 4–8, 2017. The Highlights Foundation, Honesdale, PA. Co-taught with Micol Ostow.

2016

  • Djerassi 2016 YA Novel Writing Workshop: March 6–12, 2016. Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • Djerassi YA Novel Alumni Reunion Workshop: March 17–23, 2016. Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • Highlights Foundation Books with Bite Workshop: October 19–23, 2016. The Highlights Foundation, Honesdale, PA. Co-taught with Micol Ostow.

2015

  • Djerassi 2015 YA Novel Writing Workshop: June 21–26, 2015, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • Columbia University Young Adult Novel Writing Workshop: July 6–August 12, 2015. Columbia University, School of the Arts Writing Program, New York, NY.
  • Highlights Foundation Books with Bite Workshop: September 16–20, 2015, The Highlights Foundation, Honesdale, PA. Co-taught with Micol Ostow.
  • A Week in Residency with Nova Ren Suma Workshop: November 8–14, 2015, the Writing Barn, Austin, TX.

2014

  • Djerassi Writes: YA Novel Workshop: Feb. 9–14, 2014, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • Djerassi Writes: YA Novel Workshop (second session): June 22–27, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA.
  • The Craft of Creativity: The Inaugural Showcase Featuring the Master Class Room Instructors: Sept. 8, The Writers Room, New York, NY.
  • Highlights Whole Novel Workshop with Sarah Aronson and Nancy Werlin: Sept. 10–11, Highlights Foundation, Honesdale, PA. Special guest author.