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Elements of Story: Characterization

with Vicki Phillips

Next session: October 25th, 2026

$30 More Info

Central to story is the main character, the protagonist. This is the person our readers will invest in, emotionally resonate with, and go on a journey with.

The focus of this workshop is how to create a compelling character, to render them as embodied, with a physical and spiritual self, dwelling in a specific cultural and social location, with their unique personalities, agency, desire and goals.

  • Class runs: Sunday Oct 25, 3-5 PM
  • Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

Elements of Story is a series of three new classes focusing on key elements of story telling: Scene, Characterization, and Energy. Take one, two, or all three! Each class can stand alone and all are suitable for writers of fiction, memoir, or creative non-fiction. 

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

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Elements of Story: The Energy

with Vicki Phillips

Next session: November 8th, 2026

$30 More Info

What gives energy to a story, drives the main character, motivates their opponent, and engages readers? Having desire, taking steps to fulfill it, being thwarted, facing the decision to fold or to persist.

Typically craft talk names this element “conflict.” Ursula K. LeGuin says, “Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.”

This workshop will invite writers to explore the diversity of behaviors, including conflict, identify the specific challenge their story relates, so that the best shape of the story will emerge.

  • This class runs: Sunday Nov 8, 3-5 PM
  • Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

Elements of Story is a series of three new classes focusing on key elements of story telling: Scene, Characterization, and Energy.  Take. one, two, or all three! Each class can stand alone and all are suitable for writers of fiction, memoir, or creative non-fiction. 

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

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Interest Session on Writing a Novel – Virtual

with Vicki Phillips

Next session: November 10th, 2026

Free More Info

Writing a novel has challenges, contours and craft issues specific to that form. Women Writing for (a) Change would like to support novel writers by offering a class designed with your needs in mind.

With that as our goal, we are holding two one-hour "interest sessions" - one in person and one virtual - to assess interest and to learn from novel writers what issues, topics, and types of support a course in novel writing can offer you.

Wherever you are on your novel-writing journey, please join us for one of these interest sessions.

  • This session runs: Virtually
  • Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

About the Facilitator: Vicki Phillips holds an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College. She has been a regular participant in National Novel Writing Month. Vicki has drafted three novels and is currently nearing the final draft of a murder mystery. 

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Wednesday Evening Core Class (Women & Nonbinary)

with Diane Debevec

Next session: September 16th to December 16th, 2026

$489 More Info

Core Class is where you find your writing community! Facilitators create a welcoming space with inspiration, writing prompts, small groups for feedback, and opportunities to read and listen in community. 

  • Class runs: Virtually for 13 weeks, skipping Nov. 25
  • Open to: Women & Nonbinary, Ages 18+

About the Facilitator: Diane Debevec has been involved in the WWfaC community for over 25 years, as participant, facilitator, board member, volunteer and executive director.  While her creative life includes visual art, music, yoga and gardening, she considers writing to be her foundational life practice. Diane lives with her husband Jeff (and assorted four-leggeds) in a small downtown community they call Artful Habitats.     

PRICING POLICY: We use a three tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here

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Sunday Afternoon Sampler

with Janie Baer

Next session: August 30th, 2026

Free More Info

This is a 90 minute sampler for our Sunday afternoon core class. Samplers are a great way to check out a Women Writing for (a) Change class for free. A sampler can help you decide if a class is a good fit for you, from our practices, to the facilitator, and more.

  • Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+
  • Meets virtually, via Zoom

 

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Writing from the Body: Finding the Wisdom Beneath the Story

with Amy Stenger-Sullivan

Next session: November 7th, 2026

$45 More Info

Mind-body awareness is a key component of self care, and has never been more important than in these stressful times. In this 3 hour class we will first very briefly cover the basics of how the nervous system affects mental health, and then move into prompted reflective writing and optional sharing, using our traditional Women Writing practices and mind-body practices to explore when and how different states of our nervous system are "talking" to us through our writing. 

Open to: All Genders, 18+

About the Facilitator: Amy Stenger-Sullivan is devoted to helping people understand and befriend their nervous systems — through therapy, training, and writing circles. She believes writing and words are a powerful pathway to emotional safety and connection.

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

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Elements of Story: Scene

with Vicki Phillips

Next session: October 11th, 2026

$30 More Info

A person, in a place, taking an action: this is the core structure of a scene.

The purpose of scenes is to bring your reader into the story, close up, as it happens, with the reader feeling what the characters in the scene are feeling.

Scenes are a building block in your narrative. This workshop will discuss why scenes are essential to one’s story and then review the elements of constructing scenes: how to set a scene, create drama, and close the scene.

  • Class runs: Sunday, October 11, 3-5 PM
  • Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

Elements of Story is a series of three new classes focusing on key elements of story telling: Scene, Characterization, and Energy. Take one, two, or all three! Each class can stand alone and all are suitable for writers of fiction, memoir, or creative non-fiction. 

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

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Interest Session on Writing a Novel – In Person

with Vicki Phillips

Next session: November 14th, 2026

Free More Info

Writing a novel has challenges, contours and craft issues specific to that form. Women Writing for (a) Change would like to support novel writers by offering a class designed with your needs in mind.

With that as our goal, we are holding two one-hour "interest sessions" - one in person and one virtual - to assess interest and to learn from novel writers what issues, topics, and types of support a course in novel writing can offer you.

Wherever you are on your novel-writing journey, please join us for one of these interest sessions.

  • This session runs: In person 
  • Open to: All Genders, Ages 18+

About the Facilitator: Vicki Phillips holds an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College. She has been a regular participant in National Novel Writing Month. Vicki has drafted three novels and is currently nearing the final draft of a murder mystery. 

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Exploring Publication

with Vicki Phillips

Next session: September 12th to October 10th, 2026

$90 More Info

Explore and name why we writers resist and fear sending work out for potential publication. Explore why we want to, and what we can learn together so that more writing by women makes it to publication. Continue the journey with some tips on knowing when a piece is ready to meet the wider world, how to find appropriate possible homes for it; draft a bio and cover letter, as well as the process of sending work out. Let’s increase Women and Nonbinary voices in the world!

  • Class runs: In person, biweekly on Sunday (Sep 12 & 26, Oct 10)
  • Open to: Women & Nonbinary, Ages 18+

PRICING POLICY: We use a three-tier pricing structure based on your financial circumstance. During registration, please select the tier that feels most true to your current financial ability. Learn more here.

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Bounty of Words

Next session: September 18th, 2026

$85 More Info

Register Now!

Bounty of Words is Women Writing for (a) Change's annual fall fundraiser celebrating stories, community, and the power of voice. Join us for an evening of connection and inspiration while supporting outreach writing programs, free classes, author readings, and scholarships—helping ensure that more voices are heard, valued, and shared.

This year’s keynote speaker is Jackie Congedo, Chief Executive Officer of the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center. Jackie will share reflections on storytelling, her background as a journalist, and why bearing witness through story matters in her work today.

Please bring yourself, a partner, and a friend or five. What happens at Women Writing for a Change is worth celebrating!

Doors open at 5:45pm and attire is business casual. 

Click the link below to see ticket price options and to register online. Tickets will not be sold at the door. 

Register Now! 

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