Classes
Click on the course title to register (except for the Online Multigenre Workshop and the NYCWriting Intensive. For those, you’ll need to email me directly to enroll.)
November 7, 2026 (Saturday, 12-4 PM Eastern)
The Flexible Lens: Using Third-Person Point of View: A Four-Hour Fiction Intensive
Third-person point of view is the most common way to tell a story, and yet it may be the most varied and complex as well. In the hands of some writers, it goes deep into character consciousness; in the hands of others, it avoids thoughts and feelings altogether and sticks to surfaces, actions, and events. In some stories it stays with a single viewpoint character; in others it travels freely, moving from character to character.
This 4-hour weekend intensive offers a focused overview of the subject, using published stories as examples. Together we'll examine how the various modes of third-person actually function — the distant "journalistic" register, the close and interior, the slippery overlap of free indirect discourse, and the roving narration that shifts between viewpoint characters. After each story, you'll put the craft into practice with generative writing exercises that can be shared with the group.
January 8-10, 2027 (Friday-Sunday)
NYCWriting Intensive Goes to LA: An In-Person Weekend Workshop in Santa Monica, California, co-taught with Karen E. Bender
Join us January 8-10 in Santa Monica, California, for a jam-packed in-person weekend discussing your work in progress, generating new material, talking with publishing professionals, and connecting with other writers in one of the greatest literary cities in the world.
This weekend workshop is multigenre, open to fiction writers, essayists, and memoirists. Karen and I will be team teaching, so you will get written feedback from both of us. Writers will also receive a thirty-minute Zoom conference with Robert or Karen the week after the conference to dig deeper into workshop feedback and help formulate a revision strategy. Cost: $850.
Email me at ranthonysiegel@gmail.com to register or ask questions.
January 27, 2027 (Wednesday, 7-9 PM Eastern)
The Ethics of Memoir: A Two-Hour Craft Talk
Every memoirist knows that honesty is the great force that powers memoir. But what if that honesty causes distress to family and friends? What does the writer owe to others who appear in their story? And what does the writer owe to the story itself?
Though at first glance the ethics of memoir can feel fraught, even intimidating, the truth is that thinking about the people in your story is always a positive step, a way of adding richness and complexity to your understanding of your memoir. Ultimately, this seminar will help you write the story you need to write with greater confidence and freedom.
February 6, 2027 (Saturday, 12-5 PM Eastern)
Writing Flash Nonfiction: A One-Day Nonfiction Zoom Intensive
This one-day online intensive course is designed for writers who want to start exploring the creative possibilities of flash nonfiction—sometimes called micro-memoir or the micro-essay. We will talk about how the genre works, read a variety of published examples displaying different approaches to form, and generate work of our own through in-class exercises, sharing our writing with the group as time permits. We will also discuss further reading and publishing opportunities.
March 20, 2027 (Saturday, 12-5 PM Eastern)
The Art of the Very Small Story: A One-Day Flash Fiction Zoom Intensive
Just a page or two in length, flash fiction is quick and easy to learn, yet endlessly rich and challenging to practice. Its singular power is the sense of imaginative freedom at its core, the "flash." World renowned writers like Kafka and Kawabata have done some of their most evocative work in the genre.
This one-day online writing workshop is designed for writers who want to explore the creative possibilities of flash fiction. We will talk about how it works, read a variety of published examples, and generate work of our own through in-class exercises, sharing our writing with the group as time permits.
April 28, 2027 (Wednesday, 7-9 PM Eastern)
Making Your Characters Physically Present on the Page — Two-Hour Online Multigenre Craft Talk
In real life, we observe the people around us to understand what they are thinking and feeling. Facial expression, body language, clothing and other forms of adornment all convey deep and meaningful information about the person in front of us.
But what comes naturally in real life can be maddeningly hard to reproduce on the page. How do you make your characters vividly, physically present in your writing? How do you use their looks to reveal their personalities? This two-hour craft talk is designed to help.
Through a mixture of lecture, discussion, and creative exercises, this multigenre craft talk will show you how to capture a character's physical presence on the page, using all aspects of appearance to convey the thought and emotion underneath. We will start by reading outstanding examples from published work and discussing the many ways people in real life reveal themselves through their looks. Afterwards, we will do a series of descriptive exercises that can be utilized in an ongoing project or can become the basis of a new one.
May 11 (Tuesday, 7-9 PM Eastern)
Find Your Fiction Voice: A Two-Hour Craft Talk
Writers talk a lot about voice, but what is it, exactly? Why is it so important? How does it work? And how is it constructed? We’ll look at several examples of voice from great published stories, and then explore how to create a range of distinctive voices in our own writing through in-class exercises.
May 23–28, 2027 (Sunday-Friday)
Writing Workshops Iceland 2027 is led by National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender in fiction, Best American Essays contributor Robert Anthony Siegel in nonfiction, and New Yorker fiction contributor Ramona Ausubel, whose Master Class & Generative Seminar is open to writers of every genre who want to make new work on the ground. Mornings are for workshop, craft seminars, and one-on-one conferences. Afternoons are for Þingvellir, Öxarárfoss, the Blue Lagoon, and the northern light that in late May doesn't quit until nearly midnight.
Each cohort is capped at 10 writers. Fiction and nonfiction participants submit two pieces before we arrive: one for group critique, one for a private conference with your instructor. Ramona's cohort comes empty-handed and leaves with pages.
September 21- November 9, 2027 (Tuesdays, 7- 9 PM Eastern)
If you need creative inspiration, there is no better place to look than the Seven Deadly Sins. Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth may be problems in real life, but they are perfect subjects for fiction, offering powerful emotions, high stakes, and dramatic conflicts. Even better, they are open to interpretation: you can write about them as tragedy or comedy.
This weekly online writing class will use the Seven Deadly Sins to help you start seven new stories in seven weeks. Each week, we will focus on one sin from the list, using a series of guided exercises to start a brand-new story that you can continue to develop at home.