Eight MFA graduates. Eight weeks. Each one brings their greatest hit — the single most transformative lesson from their own writing practice.
Writers working on a novel or story collection who've done the work, but want to see the next level. Intermediate to advanced. Fiction-focused — literary, genre, or the terrain between.
Point of view isn't a technical choice — it's a moral one. Every narrative position commits you to what a character can know, doubt, and refuse to see. We treat POV as the architecture of your story's ethics, not its camera angle.
Author of The Hollow Season (Scribner). Short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Paris Review. Teaches at Sarah Lawrence.
Mariana rebuilt how I think about first person. I stopped writing the book I was writing and started the better one.— Former Sarah Lawrence student
A sentence has weight, velocity, and torque. Most writers only learn to manage length. This session is about the hidden physics — where pressure distributes, where a verb wants to land, and why some sentences detonate while others fizzle.
Author of Static (FSG), a NYT Best Book of the Year. Essays on craft widely anthologized. Teaches at UW-Madison.
I've been teaching myself to write for twelve years. Daniel showed me in ninety minutes what I should have learned in year one.— Former UW-Madison student
Every scene is a first date — your reader can still walk out. We break down the first-date rule: how to make an opening paragraph so physically present the reader forgets they had somewhere to be. Less blocking, more gravity.
Author of The Light on Fourth Street (Knopf) and Small Hours. 2023 Rome Prize recipient. Teaches at Columbia.
I now know the difference between a scene that happens and a scene that happens to the reader.— Former Columbia MFA student
A metaphor you haven't earned is a check you can't cash. This session is about the permission ledger — why some figurative leaps feel electric and others embarrassing. When to reach, and when your prose hasn't yet bought you the right.
Author of Appalachia, In Rooms (Norton), winner of the Whiting. Stories in Tin House, Zoetrope, Granta. Directs the writing program at Bennington.
I wrote a metaphor I was proud of for the first time in my life.— Former Bennington student
Revision isn't editing — it's excavation. We reject the polish model entirely. Instead, you learn to read your own draft as a stranger would, and let that stranger's questions remake the book you thought you were writing.
Author of Middle State (Riverhead) and the forthcoming The Seventh Letter. Teaches at the New School.
Priya taught me that my draft isn't a failed version of what I wanted to write — it's evidence of the book I actually want to write.— Former New School student
Most dialogue fails because it's too polite. This session is about writing conversation as performance under duress — two people trying to win, lie, or survive a moment while appearing just to be talking.
Author of The Translator's Wife (Harper), NPR Book of the Year. Screenplay in development with A24. Teaches at Columbia's School of the Arts.
My dialogue used to read like a podcast. Now it reads like a scene.— Former Columbia SOA student
The unreliable narrator is trusted by craft textbooks and distrusted by readers — usually because it's been executed lazily. We examine the paradox: how to write a narrator the reader shouldn't believe, who the reader cannot stop believing.
Author of four novels, most recently The Long Room (Graywolf). NBA and Kirkus Prize finalist. Hosts the craft podcast The Margin Notes.
I finally understand why my unreliable narrator wasn't working — it wasn't unreliable enough, and it wasn't lovable enough.— Former Hunter College student
The last page is a different problem than the first. We close with the art of endings — how to land a story without resolving it, how to detonate an ending without cheating, and why the final paragraph is usually the one the writer gets wrong.
Author of Cairo, The Interior (Coffee House Press) and the essay collection On Last Pages. NMA recipient for essays in The Atlantic. Teaches at Brown.
I rewrote the ending of a novel I've been working on for four years. Rashid showed me it was never supposed to resolve.— Former Brown student
Live on Zoom, 90 minutes each, Tuesday evenings 7–8:30pm ET. Every session is recorded and replays are available for 30 days after the session airs. The one-sheet PDF for each week is yours to keep forever.
You'll miss the generative prompt and the real-time Q&A, but you'll still get the full lecture recording, the chat transcript, and the one-sheet. Live attendance is ideal; not-live is workable.
No. Each week includes an optional generative prompt during the session, but sharing is opt-in. You'll leave with pages, not with public embarrassment. Pilcrow is not a workshop — we don't critique anyone's draft in session.
Writers who've done the work. You've drafted a story or a novel, you've read widely in the form, and you're looking for the leap to the next level. Not beginner-focused — we assume you know what a scene is. Not PhD-level either — we assume you're still figuring some things out.
Yes — after the course, you can book private sessions with any faculty member directly through their Pilcrow profile. We take $0. Every cent of the fee goes to the instructor. Rates are set by each faculty member based on the length of manuscript you submit.
Full refund within 14 days of enrollment. Once the course begins, enrollment is non-refundable.
Greatest Hits in Fiction runs twice yearly, Fall and Spring. If enrollment closes before you reserve your seat, join the waitlist and we'll notify you when the next cohort opens — waitlisted writers get first access.
12 Seats · Fall 2026
$450 · Starts Sept 15
14-day full refund · No questions asked
Greatest Hits in Fiction runs Fall and Spring. Nonfiction, Poetry, and Memoir editions follow. Drop your email — you'll hear about new cohorts before the general public does.