Brief Bursts: The Fiction Edition

A workshop about how to write short, fun, untrue things.

Do you have endless ideas for fictional stories — more than you could ever write in a lifetime? The solution might be flash fiction.

In this workshop, we’ll explore the joy of bite-sized world building and character development. We'll play, imagine, and delete, delete, delete, bringing our ideas into their smallest possible parcels. We’ll come out with a renewed love for erasers, and the power of saying less.

If you want to explore genre fiction but aren't sure if you want to commit to a longer project, this workshop is for you.

Here’s how it works:

This is a 5-session workshop for a small group of writers who are ready to be thrown into surprising and random mashups of characters, settings, and genres to simply… see what happens.

Think — a romance between an ant and a cowboy alien. And it has to be told in 200 words. Go.

We'll embrace silliness and radical brevity as we craft story after story in as few words as possible.

As with all Firefly workshops, we’ll laugh lots, listen close, lean in, and support each other deeply along the way. Our workshops are deliberately kept small (this one is capped at 8 participants) to make sure everyone’s work gets the time and space it needs.

- Don't want to commit to one story and instead want to jump from idea to idea.
- Are excited to get random prompts that may take you in weird and wonderful directions.
- Love the idea of a notebook of tiny stories that you might expand or keep exactly as they are.
- Are interested in dipping a toe into different genres. We'll pull in elements from romance, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. You don't need to be familiar with any of these to get started.
- Thrive in small, cozy groups.
- Feel aligned with our fundamental beliefs.
- Lots of first drafts of many micro fictions.
- Writing tools and practices to try later on.
- A bunch of ideas about where your stories might go next.
- A joy-boost of creative confidence.
- Creative momentum, direction and drive.
- Critique or competition. Our feedback on writing will be aimed entirely on helping each participant recognize their own gifts.
- Lots of homework. We'll mostly be playing and writing during the sessions.
- Strict rules on “how to write.” We’ll work on developing your writing skills but we don’t subscribe to the idea that there’s one way to create powerful work.
- Pressure to write things you don’t want to write. You'll be encouraged to follow your curiosity in this workshop.

Details for Spring 2025:

On Zoom with Britt (she/her)

5 Tuesday mornings, weekly
10am - 12pm ET
April 29 - May 27

Cost:

The fee for this workshop is $475. If you prefer, you can pay in 4 monthly installments of $118.75. Tax will be added for Canadians in your local provincial rate. See our financial policies.

Four times a year, we give out bursaries for our programs to people with financial barriers. Check out our upcoming dates.

If you don’t have a credit card, let us know and we’ll gladly find a way to make it work.