Writing Workshops

Crafting Desperate Characters with Peter Kispert (June 2025)

$445

6 sessions

Out of stock

Once a week Saturdays, 3:00 pm EDT - 5:00 pm EDT June 28 to August 9, 2025

Online via Zoom

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We’ve all heard the advice: give your character a desire. Some big “want.” Put them in a difficult circumstance—make them choose. While every character has desires and faces a kind of conflict, a drop or two of desperation administered at just the right moment can bring a character, a story, to life, and make for compelling, page-turning fiction.

In this intermediate six-week workshop ideal for writers with some workshop experience, we’ll read stories that feature characters made desperate in and by a variety of circumstances and desires, consider what that looks like on the page, and discuss both what brings a character to life and how we can translate this into our own fiction.

We’ll do in-class writing exercises and use prompts to generate starting points for new stories, and spend the majority of the course workshopping our original short fiction, or a standalone excerpt from a longer work. We’ll consider how to dial up, when to dial back, and get good at scanning for narrative opportunity—all while bearing in mind how the elements of craft work in tandem, not isolation, and consider strategies for revision. Please note: this course will require weekly peer feedback and short craft and story readings.

Course Outline:

We’ll read and discuss stories by Kevin Brockmeier, Catherine Carberry, Steve Almond, and other writers. Each week will include a combination of lecture, reading discussion, student workshop, and writing exercise/take-home prompt.

Level: Intermediate

This course will be held online via Zoom. Please note that this course will not meet on July 5th.

Led by

Peter Kispert

Peter Kispert

Peter Kispert is the author of the story collection I Know You Know Who I Am (Penguin Books), named a best book of the year by Elle, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Electric Literature. His writing has recently appeared in Esquire, the New York Times Book Review, Sewanee Review, Story, and elsewhere. He lives in New York.

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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