My Top Teacher Reco: Steve Almond
This month I’m pleased to share my most-recommended writing instructor. Steve Almond’s classes are so good they’re worth repeating.
When I’m asked what’s next on my writing calendar, the answer usually includes a class by the bestselling author and journalist, Steve Almond. If you haven’t met Steve, I’m delighted to introduce you. I’ve taken nine classes with him, some of which are repeats or part of a series.
I first attended class with Steve in 2018, early in my writing journey. It was the in-person version of his How to Create an Irresistible Narrator. I still have the notebook I took to class:
It reads like a teenage diary with all my cringey new-writer ideas. But, looking back on those pages, I find Steve’s essential wisdom sprinkled throughout my early attempts to understand fiction. He explained the difference between writing and storytelling, how to establish what’s at stake for characters, the importance of exposition, and how to deploy a story narrator. It was all new to me, and I was eager to hear it.
Steve’s classes are fast-paced and well-organized. They cover material suitable for beginner to advanced writers. In fact, that first class was attended by novices like me, as well as published authors. (I know because I wrote down everyone’s names.) Many of his classes take place in a single day and last just a few hours, creating accessible, high-value bursts of learning. Steve’s a master at unpacking and rapidly presenting craft essentials in a lively, humorous way. During class, students are given prompt-based exercises to apply concepts and generate new work.
Then comes the terrifying part: Steve invites students to read aloud. In that 2018 class, I took a chance and shared what I had written during the exercise. I felt the way a new actor or comedian must when they first hit the stage. According to my notebook, and through no fault of Steve’s…I bombed.
He patiently explained that I had confused my audience. Then, and in future classes, Steve helped me understand why my stories were less than irresistible. His real-time feedback cleared the path to who was telling the story, and why. He talked to me as if I were a promising writer experiencing a curable problem. Steve’s attitude taught me to step over the mess I’d made, and keep on writing.
Since then, I’ve continued to read in Steve’s classes—sometimes to praise, sometimes to criticism—but always with new tools and his encouragement. It gives me the confidence to tell my stories from wherever I’m at in my development as a writer, cringey as my notebooks may be. Until I can look back at them without embarrassment, I plan to keep showing up to Steve’s classes—sometimes more than once.
This brings me back to the idea of repeating classes with a favorite instructor. I took that same class, Irresistible Narrator, in 2020, and found I could better “hear” the craft advice the second time around. As a writer, I was in a different place than the first time. The principles Steve taught were the same, but having written many more words by then, I was better acquainted with the elements of story. Repeating a class is a great way to measure how far you’ve come as a writer. In the case of Steve’s 2018 class, all the components were there for me early on, I just didn’t yet know enough to apply them to the many aspects of fiction. After all, fitting character, setting, POV, narrative stance, plot, and theme—just to name a few story elements—isn’t easy to fit into three hours. It’s a lot to hear and absorb, novice or not.
Great instructors like Steve have shown me it’s not enough to take a single class and expect to master writing. When you find an instructor who inspires you, repeating those classes is a way to re-examine what you’ve learned so far. Listening from a different point in your writing evolution can bring new skills. Steve’s irresistible classes are why I consistently recommend him to other new and emerging writers.
This month, Steve Almond is teaching The Ultimate Craft Class over the course of two days (July 10 and 11). I took TUCC last year and highly recommend it, along with all his classes. Many of Steve’s are offered regularly in case you’d like to join me in repeating them. Check out Steve’s website or find him on Facebook for his latest teaching announcements.
Happy writing, and see you in class soon!
Steve Almond is the author of twelve books of fiction and non-fiction including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His new book, the novel All the Secrets of the World, will be published in 2022. His short fiction has appeared in the Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize, and Best American Mysteries. His essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine and elsewhere. Almond teaches at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and Wesleyan University, and lives outside Boston with his wife, three children, and considerable anxiety.
