Writing Courses

Online Creative Writing Courses for Every Writer, Every Stage

Online Creative Writing Courses

Whatever you are writing — memoir, fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction — our Imaginative Storm online writing course will show you how to begin, continue, and complete it. Our audio and video creative writing courses pair the generative power of the Imaginative Storm method with focused instruction, so you are never learning craft in the abstract. You are applying it in real time to the work you actually want to do. That is the difference between a class you sit through and a course that changes how you write.

What sets our video and audio writing courses apart is an unusual combination. Most programs give you one or the other. Pure free-writing that leaves you with raw pages and no idea what to do with them, or dry craft theory with nothing of your own to apply it to. Imaginative Storm gives you both at once. Timed prompts drop you into a flow state and draw the material out of you, often material you did not know was there. Then the craft instruction shows you how to shape it. Generative freedom and real technique, in the same course. And you can go through the course at your own pace whenever you have time. Early morning, midnight, lunch hour—you decide.

About Your Instructors

Allegra Huston and James Navé lead every module, so you get access to their method straight from its originators on your own schedule.

Allegra Huston is Oxford-educated and spent four years as Editorial Director at Weidenfeld & Nicolson before turning to writing full time. She knows the page from the inside, having shaped other people's manuscripts at the highest level, and from her own desk as an author.

James Navé holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has spent more than twenty years marrying language, imagination, and human connection in workshops and retreats across the United States and Europe.

Writing Courses by Genre

The beauty of the Imaginative Storm method is that it applies to any creative writing. It works as well for creative fiction as for memoir. Pick the form that calls to you. The course goes deep into the method and craft, so you can follow your strongest instinct or try something new.

Memoir
Fiction
Poetry
Creative Nonfiction
Beginners

Creative Writing Courses for Beginners

Never taken a writing course before? Good. The Imaginative Storm beginner course was built for exactly that: for people who have always meant to write and never quite found the door in. You do not need a background in literature, a finished idea, or any proof that you belong here. You need a willingness to show up and see what the page gives you. The method does the rest, lowering the stakes until the writing comes on its own.

Explore the Beginners Course

How Imaginative Storm Writing Courses Work

Every course follows the same essential shape. Timed prompts generate real material, the kind you did not plan and could not have outlined. Craft instruction then works directly with what surfaced on the page, so the teaching is never theoretical and never one-size-fits-all. This is a creative writing course for adults that respects your intelligence, your time, and the seriousness of what you are trying to make. We respect your time, so every module is purposeful. And as you go through each section, if you want live support, there is a Weekly Writing Circle, Workshops, and Retreats you can join. The program will gently guide you into productive work, and you will leave each session with new pages that you didn’t have before.

Across the full course, those pages add up. What begins as scattered prompts become a body of work, and the weekly rhythm becomes a practice you can carry long after the course ends.

The Course Curriculum Overview

The "Write What You Don't Know" audio and video courses by Imaginative Storm are designed to invigorate your writing by tapping into the latent power of your imagination. This course is suitable for writers of all levels, from beginners to seasoned authors, promising a journey of inspiration and self-discovery that will lead to astonishing creative output.


Whichever format you choose, audio or video, the course features 10 main sessions, plus a welcome session and a concluding one. Each session is approximately 90 minutes long and includes an introduction, warm-up prompts, two 10-minute writing exercises with a shorter list-making prompt in between, and a "Surf the Storm" prompt for independent work. Participants also gain access to a Prompt Archive to review what others have written.

Key learning areas across the sessions include:

  • Discovering techniques to write spontaneously, with originality, and without self-censorship, helping you find your authentic voice and express your insights with genuine emotion.

  • Learning to evoke strong emotions in readers through visceral descriptions, crafting dialogue that brings characters to life, and energizing your writing practice.

  • Utilizing all five senses, along with bodily sensations and intuition, to make scenes feel real and create deep emotional connections.

  • Using details of setting and elements of nature symbolically to deepen emotional resonance, develop characters, and ground narratives in universal cycles.

  • Understanding and portraying the nuances of human interaction, subtext, and social cues to create complex, believable characters.

  • Moving beyond surface traits to uncover the emotional truths and hidden motivations behind character choices, even those the characters themselves don't understand.

  • Drawing on your own life stories to add authenticity and depth, shaping moments into universally resonant narratives.

  • Building strong storytelling foundations, identifying the core of your narrative, and creating momentum to keep readers engaged.

  • Harnessing contradiction and paradox to add complexity, truthfulness, and dimension to your writing, reflecting the multifaceted nature of life.

The course is led by Allegra Huston, a critically acclaimed author and former Editorial Director, and James Navé, an educator with extensive experience in spoken word and creative workshops. They emphasize a method that encourages writers to surprise themselves and "write what they don't know," fostering originality and authenticity. The course is suitable for all ages, though audio samples may contain adult themes.

What Past Students Say

Writers come to this course from every starting point and complete it with more than pages. They finish it believing they are writers. Here is what some of them have said.

  • “BRILLIANT! Your exercises are both common-sensical and revolutionary. I love this course. It's so true and so excellent and kick-ass!"

    — Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist and visiting professor, Iowa Writers’ Workshop

  • "Like a writer's recipe box! It helps you recognize the ingredients you already have at your fingertips, then its clever exercises help you create a banquet out of your own stories."

    — Nicole Perlman, screenwriter, Guardians of the Galaxy

  • "I used your exercise in a generative workshop. The writing turned out more original, more surprising, than what they'd been working on previously."

    — Lan Samantha Chang, director, Iowa Writers’ Workshop