Writing Workshops

Reading as Writers: The Craft of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror with Alaya Dawn Johnson

$445

6 Sessions

Out of stock

Once a week Saturdays, 6:00 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT April 4 to May 16, 2026

The Center for Fiction

This workshop has sold out. Please email [email protected] to join the waitlist—and become a member for early access to future programming.

It’s the oldest and truest piece of writing advice: If you want to write well, you have to read. So far, so good—but are there ways we can learn to read that will help our writing craft?

These linked sessions emerge from my experiences as a writer, reader, and teacher over the last twenty years. In each session, we will focus on an expertly handled area of craft in one speculative fiction short story. Instead of treating the text as inviolate and finished, we’ll imagine the other choices the writer could have made and ask ourselves why they chose one path over a myriad of others. Using their finished text as a stand-in for process, we’ll consider: What craft elements did the writers use to shape their stories? What can we learn from them?

We’ll dig into worldbuilding, characterization, emotion, voice, plot, structure, and sentence-level craft with the idea of getting into the story from the writers’ side and improving our own craft, whatever our skill level. After our in-depth craft discussion, I will lead the group in a generative writing exercise targeting the craft area highlighted during our discussion. Writers of all skill levels are welcome.

Course Outline:

Each week, we will meet to discuss one speculative fiction short story (about an hour and fifteen minutes), followed by a generative writing exercise in dialogue with the short story and its craft focus (about 45 minutes). The texts and their craft foci are as follows:

“Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler (Focus: Worldbuilding)
“What I Didn’t See” by Karen Joy Fowler (Focus: Showing and Telling)
“The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado (Focus: Narrative voice)
“The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson (Focus: POV and Structure)
“Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes (Focus: Building emotion)
“The Grinnell Method” by Molly Gloss (Focus: Characterization)

Teaching Style: I will begin the class with a brief overview of the text and the particular craft element highlighted that week. I’ll then open up the discussion for all, with everyone’s insights welcomed and integrated into a wide-ranging discussion of craft through close reading.

Level: All Levels

This course is held in person at The Center for Fiction. Please note there will be no meeting on April 25th.

Led by

Alaya Dawn Johnson

Alaya Dawn Johnson

Alaya Dawn Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and the author of eight novels for adults and young adults. Her most recent novel, The Library of Broken Worlds, was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin prize. Her novel Trouble the Saints won the 2021 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her debut short-story collection, Reconstruction, was an Ignyte Award and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, most notably the title story in The Memory Librarian, in collaboration with Janelle Monáe. She is currently the visiting professor in the MFA program of Queens College (CUNY), and writes essays for her newsletter, A stranger comes home.

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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