The Craft Lab for Writers
with Courtney Sender
What is The Lab?
The Craft Lab for Writers with Courtney Sender is a weekly online small-group reading, writing, and accountability group for creative writers at all stages of their careers, led by New York Times writer and former Yale professor Courtney Sender.
The group supports writers who are working on long-haul projects and goals for which they need ongoing and consistent fortitude, accountability, enthusiasm, encouragement, and excitement—alongside top-quality craft readings and lessons that provide weekly inspiration, energy, and ideas that get you out of ruts.
When working on long-term projects, you need a workshop about 10% of the time; 90% of the work requires unflagging dedication, vision, and daily re-commitment. That 90% is what the Lab provides in our guided small-groups. Join us!
What will you do in The Craft Lab for Writers?
The Lab will meet on Zoom for one hour once weekly, in small groups of 6-12 participants.
Each meeting consists of two parts.
Detailed breakdown of each meeting “In Detail” below.
1) Accountability check-in
An open floor for each participant to share work, set goals and deadlines, get feedback (or not), and ask us for whatever it is you need as a writer that week.
2) Motivation/Inspiration
Guided discussion of a short reading by a literary master, with an eye toward the craft lessons it has to teach us as writers.
Request more info now!
Register here, or request more information.
No obligations when you first sign up.
About Courtney
Why am I qualified to guide you?
I've written for The New York Times' Modern Love, The Atlantic, and Slate. My first book, In Other Lifetimes All I've Lost Comes Back to Me, was called "miraculous" by Ann Patchett, "fierce" by Alice McDermott and Danielle Evans, "literary rock 'n' roll" by Aimee Bender, and "a stunner from the very first page" by Deesha Philyaw.
I'm staff writer for iHeartMedia's #1-charting podcast Noble Blood. My short stories have appeared in Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, Glimmer Train, AGNI, Esquire, and many others. I'm a MacDowell and Yaddo fellow, and I was the George Bennett Writer-in-Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy. I've also taught fiction at Yale, MIT, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, and GrubStreet.
The bottom line
I want to give what you can’t get in school: ongoing and consistent accountability, inspiration, encouragement, and guided readings of the greats, aimed at what you actually need to accomplish your long-term goals as a writer, and without any of the bureaucratic overhead—and at a fraction of the price of a traditional class.
Why am I starting The Craft Lab?
I've been a professor of fiction writing at Yale, MIT, Tufts, and Johns Hopkins. With humility, I've regularly been called the best writing teacher my students have had. But in the classroom, we have to deal with credits, deadlines, grading, busywork, artificially-imposed deadlines, and and the bureaucracy of the organization's goals in addition to our own.
Which means we don't get to the meat of things: the writing itself, and the daily inspiration, dedication, and re-commitment that a real writer needs in order to do it over the long haul.
That's why I'm starting The Craft Lab. I believe that what you need to achieve your longer-term project is ongoing, consistent accountability, encouragement, and inspiration. You need to read the truly great stuff, with a guide who can help you understand the lessons it can teach you for your own work. You need the re-commitment to the work, day after day.
The Craft Lab treats you as an adult. Above all, every session is designed to inspire your passion for your own work and your own vision.
What will you do in The Craft Lab, in detail?
1) Accountability check-in:
Each week, each participant will have dedicated time and an open floor to check in and keep your progress on track.
You might use this time to:
share what you've been working on;
get feedback on a bit of writing;
share your writing without feedback;
set a goal or deadline for what you'll accomplish in the coming week or what you'll bring to us next week;
talk through a snag in your work;
seek inspiration or advice;
ask a writing question to me or to the group;
discuss what you've been thinking lately about writing, reading, and the discipline of the work;
workshop a section; get our help in managing the logistics of time and space so you can write; etc.,
These check-ins treat you like the adult you are. Use the time as you need it each week, and I'll always help guide you.
We always end with goal-setting for the following week.
2) Motivation/Inspiration:
Secondly, we will discuss a short piece of great writing, selected by me each week for one quality: quality.
These are writers whose voices grab you and compel you forward. I'll guide us in a discussion of the craft -- that is, what we as writers can learn from the weekly example. We won't be reading as literary critics or academics here. We're reading as writers seeking actual, useful techniques that we can immediately apply to our own work.
Examples of writers I have on deck include:
Philip Roth, Anton Chekhov, Elena Ferrante, James Salter, George Saunders, Jose Saramago, Sigrid Nunez, Roberto Bolaño, William Trevor, Claire Keegan, Milan Kundera, Katie Kitamura, Joy Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Olga Tokarczuk, and many others.
*Note that readings are short, and the Lab assigns no "homework" per se. We read a short excerpt together as a group, then I send you the rest as optional reading. The Lab is for your benefit, and it will always treat you as an adult; take from it what you need and not what you don't.
My ethos
This is not a for-credit course or a workshop. It's a lab for adult writers, giving you only what real writers need and none of what they don't as you work on your longer-term goals and projects. That means you'll get accountability, encouragement, community, inspiration, networking, exposure to the literary greats, and ongoing guidance.
FAQ
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In a word: everyone!
In a few more words: The Lab is especially useful for writers working on longer-term, ongoing projects and goals. It’s designed to help writers at any stage of their career to achieve over the long haul.
If you're seeking writing accountability, encouragement, inspiration, passion, guided feedback, goal-setting, and weekly engagement with great writing and the lessons it has for your work, then this group is for you.
That means that whether you're a seasoned writer or just a writer in your dreams, whether you're laboring at your novel manuscript all day or just trying to squeeze in an hour to write around your workday, you're welcome here.
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The Craft Lab will operate on a monthly subscription model. We will meet on Zoom once weekly for one hour per week, in small groups of 6-12 people per lab.
For registrants during the pilot period, the cost is $175 per person per month or $150 each if you refer a friend. Too often, writing groups really bond around week 10, right when the group is over; or they workshop one or two chapters of a novel that will have twenty.
At The Craft Lab, you can stay as long as you want. Our ethos is that you're the adult here, and you know what you need to best support your own writing.
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Examples of writers I have on deck include Philip Roth, Anton Chekhov, Elena Ferrante, James Salter, George Saunders, Jose Saramago, Sigrid Nunez, Roberto Bolaño, William Trevor, Claire Keegan, Milan Kundera, Katie Kitamura, Joy Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Olga Tokarczuk, and many others.
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The Lab assigns no "homework" per se. We read a small excerpt together in class, then I will send you the rest as optional additional reading. The Substack supplement is also included with your membership.
The Lab is for your benefit, and it will always treat you as an adult; take from it what you need and not what you don't.
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Yes! The Substack supplement is available to both free and paid subscribers.
I will also be starting a small-group fiction workshop, as well as a themed novel-reading group. I'm open to your ideas in this form.
I currently offer private consulting, workshops, and seminars for your business or party. Feel free to reach out here if you are seeking these services.