Imaginative Storm Writer Training
A 10-week get-fit challenge to stretch and strengthen your writing
Sept 9 – Nov 18, 2025 Facilitated by James Navé
Commitment. Discovery. Community.
About Imaginative Storm Writer Training
11 sessions, Tuesdays, 3–5:30 pm PT / 6–8:30 pm ET
Developed by Allegra Huston, who holds a Double First in English from Oxford University, and James Navé, who holds an MFA from Vermont College, Imaginative Storm Writer Training is the equivalent of the first year of an MFA program.
In 10 sessions, you’ll cover all the major aspects of creating a story: authenticity, voice, sensation, setting, environment, social life, character, memory, narrative, and thematic tension. You’ll finish with a wrap-up session to celebrate your newly strong, supple writing!
What you’ll learn:
How to write with emotional truth and imaginative power
How to connect to your authentic voice—not the one you’ve been told to use
How to silence your inner critic and build lasting confidence
How to write freely—even when you feel stuck or unsure
How to develop a sustainable writing practice that gives you great joy
How to banish writer’s block forever
You’ll also get:
An open channel of communication with Navé throughout the week
Opportunity to “hand in” your work each week, creating accountability
PDF download of the book Write What You Don’t Know
Lifetime access to private Zoom recordings of every session
Limited to 10 participants • $625 • Payment plans available
Praise for the workshop
Your Facilitator: James Navé
Poet, spoken-word performer, and co-creator of the Imaginative Storm method
James Navé, who holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College, brings decades of experience as a writer, performer, creativity teacher, and mentor to Imaginative Storm Writer Training. He teaches more than craft. He teaches trust—trust in your imagination, your instincts, and your voice.
"I came to the Imaginative Storm method from the spoken word tradition. As a founder of Poetry Alive!, I memorized over 600 poems and performed them in schools across the country, reaching more than 5 million students. I competed in the National Poetry Slam finals, and I’ve hosted the LEAF festival poetry slam for 30 years.
In 1995 I co-founded The Artist’s Way Creativity Camp with Julia Cameron, and those years shaped much of the work I do now. My focus has always been creativity—where it comes from, how it moves through us, and how we can learn to trust it.
The principles that make up the Imaginative Storm method are the result of a lifetime spent exploring how imagination, emotion, and voice come together in powerful writing. What matters most to me is helping people discover that they already have all they need to write something true—and unforgettable.”
Navé’s latest poetry collection, 100 Days: Poems After Cancer, was published by 3: A Taos Press in 2023, and his work has appeared in many literary journals. He has been on the advisory board of the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) since its inception in 1995. He hosts the podcast Twice 5 Miles Radio: Fertile Ground for Conversations Worth Listening To and Remembering, where his guests are artists, thinkers, and creators. He has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition.
“James Navé and I worked together for over 20 years. His work as a poet, teacher, and facilitator is an important force for change.”
— Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way
“Imaginative Storm Writer Training is not just about instruction; it’s about creating a vibrant, interactive learning community. As your facilitator, I guide the sessions rigorously, ensuring we stay within our allotted time while maintaining the pace and energy of an MFA program.
Each session includes two hours of generative writing and reflection, followed by an open mic where each participant shares a piece written during the session.
This course allows each participant to focus on personal objectives. Whether it’s Kelsey, a poet, or Krista, who is crafting a memoir, or Raechel, a published writer trying something new, the writing prompts keep you aligned with your goals. My job is to hold you accountable—to ensure your work progresses from handwritten drafts into typed form, moving closer to a final product.
Surprisingly, some of these 10-minute pieces come together so swiftly that they could be considered final products. I compiled a short film featuring readings from just one session, using AI-generated imagery to create a collage of narrative and visual art. It combines community work, imaginative exploration, and narrative creation.
And don’t worry if you miss a Tuesday—every session is recorded and uploaded to a YouTube, viewable only by the course participants. While nothing replaces the energy of participating live, these recordings ensure you never miss out on a session. You will have lifetime access to these recordings so you can return to them and do the course again, if you wish!
Join us for this immersive and transformative writing journey, where every session brings new opportunities to explore, create, and share.”
Session Breakdown
Session 1: Spin the Kaleidoscope of Your Mind
Ground yourself in the Imaginative Storm method. Start retraining your inner critic.
What you'll learn:
How to invite your imagination to play
How to make your writing authentic to your experience, your perspective on the world, and your voice
How to maximize your chances of writing well without trying to write well
Session 2: Let Rip
Rant! Release your inhibitions. Discover new freedom and humor in your writing.
What you'll learn:
What may have been holding you back
How to find comedy in intense feelings
How to imbue your writing with tenderness
Session 3: Common Senses
Explore the sensations of your physical body to add immediacy and emotional power to your work.
What you'll learn:
How to make your reader's mirror neurons fire
How to focus on the details that matter
How to make your writing pack an emotional punch
Session 4: Go There
Discover ways to use setting to give a scene emotional resonance.
What you'll learn:
How to describe an event with immediacy and emotional impact
How to avoid a "know-all tone" in your writing
How to imbue past and future into a present moment
Session 5: Elemental Alchemy
Connect with the natural world and make symbolic connections in your writing.
What you'll learn:
How to make connections with the natural world in your writing
How to rack focus between micro and macro
How to enrich your observations so that nothing is ordinary
Session 6: Socialese
Explore the unspoken language of human interaction.
What you'll learn:
To notice and interpret “Socialese”
To track the undercurrents of a situation
To suggest aspects of your characters' lives outside the facts of your story
Session 7: Tender Spots
Discover what drives a person's actions and create strong, multi-dimensional characters.
What you'll learn:
How to understand what drives a person's actions
How to create multi-dimensional characters: good and bad
How to honor the individuality of minor characters
Session 8: Take Yourself Back
Examine your own life and explore what you don't know about yourself.
What you'll learn:
How to identify and develop the deep story of your memoir
How to write about yourself without seeming egocentric
How to know which events are part of your story and which aren’t
Session 9: There's No Story If Nothing Changes
Learn what makes a strong narrative and how to give your story momentum.
What you'll learn:
The building blocks of a strong narrative
How to know where your story begins and ends
What gives a story momentum—and why momentum sags
Session 10: The Oxymoronic Inversion
Experiment with framing scenes and characters with contradictions and paradoxes.
What you'll learn:
How to play in the paradox sandbox
How to balance a scene on the fulcrum of an opposition
How to flip your conception of a scene upside-down
Session 11: Write On!
Take the Imaginative Storm into your future.
What you'll learn:
How to keep you writing momentum going
How to explore the Imaginative Storm method more deeply