Writing Workshops

Writing a Coming-of-Age Novel with August Thompson (July 2025)

$445

6 sessions

Out of stock

Once a week Tuesdays, 6:00 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT July 1 to August 5, 2025

Online via Zoom

This course will examine the “coming-of-age” novel—what it is, what it isn’t, where it started, and how it’s changed—through a variety of reading and writing exercises. This is a generative course meant to help you with your own manuscript. Whether you’re just writing the first sentence or have a polished draft, this course is intended to help you find ways to inhabit and subvert the genre at once.

During the class, we will read texts by Ocean Vuong, Scott Spencer, André Aciman, James Baldwin, and others in order to better understand how some of the great coming-of-age novels were written. This class will also feature workshops of each student’s writing. The page minimums and maximums will be approachable.

With an emphasis on practical skills, this six-week course will also examine how to build a writing practice, how to approach the mystifying publishing world, and how to try and package your book to get it into the world.

Course Outline:

Session I: What is a coming-of-age novel?
- A survey of the history of coming-of-age novels, combined with a look at each writer’s project.
Session II: Tired tropes and how to subvert them.
- By engaging with established texts, we’ll cover what it means to view the coming-of-age novel as a genre, what is satisfying to read, and what is played out.
Session III: Mining your life.
- The debate over the differences between autofiction, autobiographical fiction, and good old-fashioned fiction-fiction rages on. We’ll look at these concepts in conjunction with what an author can take from their own lives in order to enliven their novel.
Session IV: POV and structure.
- Figuring out a vantage and a structure will help create the skeleton of your story and offer a chance to find new ways to tell the tale.
Session V: Moving through time.
- A look at how to handle time—its manipulation, its scope, its benefits—and what time period to set your novel in.
Session VI: Setting, situation, and publishing.
- Deciding where to set your coming-of-age novel is key to making it unique. How can an author create a setting unique enough to stand out but relatable enough to appeal to a wide swath of readers? The last hour of the final class will feature insights, and a Q&A, into the publishing world itself.

Level: Intermediate

This course will be held online via Zoom.

Led by

August Thompson

August Thompson

August Thompson is from the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire, and has lived in Los Angeles, NYC, Berlin, and Madrid. His debut novel, Anyone’s Ghost, was longlisted for The Center For Fiction First Novel Prize and named a best book of the year by Amazon, Debutiful, Vogue, and Elle. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times magazine and beyond.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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