MFA for All was born from our desire to create a space where MFA-quality instruction is widely accessible to writers no matter their age, background, location, or financial situation. MFA for All is not a degree-granting program—it is a community-rich online educational experience led by top-notch faculty, free of the significant hurdles of time, expense, and geography that MFAs demand.
These master classes will offer structured insight into your craft and writing practice, giving access to a rarified level of instruction that is usually reserved for students at privileged institutions. Taught by some of the most elite authors of our day, the lectures are designed to be as rewarding for seasoned authors as they are for writers earlier in their careers.
Each semester is comprised of three classes taught by three different authors; each class—two linked lectures, a couple weeks apart—will include the opportunity to engage in Q&As with the instructor and fellow students, writing prompts, suggestions for further reading, and more. Students may sign up for one class or a full semester. Those who enroll for the semester will receive a 20% discount on tuition and access to virtual seminars and expert-led writing sessions in the company of their fellow students.
Classes will be held via Zoom Webinar. Students will not be visible or audible during class but can participate actively through the chat. Depending on the instructor, participants may occasionally be invited to speak or appear on screen. All sessions will be recorded and available for one month following each class, and live attendance is not required to enroll. Zoom access and recording links will be sent to the email address used at registration, so please be sure to register with an email you check regularly, and please add mfaforall@americanshortfiction.org to your email account’s safe list. This is the only way to make sure you get our emails. If you are purchasing classes for someone else, enter the participant’s email address at checkout.
Class details subject to change. Answers to our FAQs can be found here.
Full Semester: $360 (20% discount)
• Three two-lecture classes (one full semester)
• A curated reading list and writing exercises from faculty
• A recording of each lecture for one month after the class’s completion
• Two virtual writing sessions, hosted by ASF senior editor and writer Adam Soto, including time for writing and feedback in small break-out groups
• One virtual seminar on the submission process with ASF editors
• One virtual seminar on the publishing process, featuring an esteemed agent and editor
• Discount on a year’s U.S.-based subscription to the magazine
Registration for the full semester will close on September 28, 2026.
Single Class: $150
• One two-lecture class
• A curated reading list and writing exercises from faculty
• A recording of each lecture for one month after the class’s completion
• Discount on a year’s U.S.-based subscription to the magazine
Purchase single-class registrations below.
Stick the Landing
Laura van den Berg
Wednesdays, September 30 & October 14
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. to 8 p.m CST
In this class, we’ll break down what makes an ending soar. We’ll explore how writers chart the path to their ending well before the final line; how an ending can deepen—and, in some cases, transform—meaning; and strategies for creating an ending that truly completes your short story or novel. We’ll also develop a toolkit for what to do when you feel stuck on how to stick the landing.
Laura van den Berg was born and raised in Florida. She is the author of six works of fiction, most recently the novel State of Paradise. Her work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her books have been twice shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. Laura teaches fiction and directs the creative writing program at Harvard University. Her next novel, Ring of Night, is forthcoming from FSG in 2027.
Registration for Laura’s class will close on September 28, 2026.
Put the Pieces Where you May: Working with the Narrative Fragment to Create Story Fields
Lidia Yuknavitch
Wednesday, November 4 & Monday, November 16
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. to 8 p.m CST
“Arrange whatever pieces come your way” is a quote from Virginia Woolf. She was describing how one might find and arrange meaning from disparate, small, or seemingly unimportant “pieces” of experience. As anyone has ever witnessed in her work, rather than linearity, she created patterns where stories emerged from kaleidoscopic turns. In this creative lab we will generate narrative fragments (fiction, nonfiction, poetic, doesn’t matter) and explore different modes of arrangement to yield stories. In particular, we will look at examples of as well as create diptychs, triptychs, and a narrative braids. You create narrative braids the same way you braid hair and bread. Let’s do this.
Participants will leave the creative lab with draft material for further development, possibly (it happens!) juicy completed works, and even material that could inject vibrancy back into dormant or stuck work.
Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the award-winning The Chronology of Water, Reading the Waves, Thrust, The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children, Dora: A Headcase, and The Misfit’s Manifesto. You can find her fiction, nonfiction, hybrid works all over the place. She is the founder of Corporeal Writing in Portland, Oregon. Her TED Talk, On the Beauty of Being a Misfit, has over four million views, which seems strange and confounding. Kristen Stewart adapted and directed her memoir The Chronology of Water into film, which is now streaming, also strange. She’s won two Oregon Book Awards, and she is a very good swimmer.
Registration for Lidia’s class will close on November 2, 2026.
Novel Whispering: Roadblocks and Road Maps
Mat Johnson
Wednesdays, December 2 & December 16
7 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. to 8 p.m CST
Do you have a novel-in-progress that’s lost its way? Or are you starting a novel but lack a road map toward your literary destination? Does typing more pages just seem to take your manuscript further from reaching its full potential? In this course, we will identify the biggest hurdles in successful novel creation and offer tools to overcome them. This class will provide participants with practical techniques to kickstart their manuscripts, or kick them into shape. We will explore using the fundamentals of story structure to decide what to write, what to cut, and what to further develop on the page; how to tune your characters, place, and plot so they ring in harmony; how to identify what your book is actually about thematically, and the method of leaning into that knowledge to create something greater than you could have ever imagined. Whether beginning a new novel or rescuing an older one, this analysis of technique will provide the craft skills you need to allow your art to flourish.
Mat Johnson is a Philip H Knight Chair of Humanities at the University of Oregon. His publications included the novels Invisible Things and Pym, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the graphic novel Incognegro. Johnson is the recipient of the American Book Award, the United States Artist James Baldwin Fellowship, The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.
Registration for Mat’s class will close on November 30, 2026.
