Today, you told me you never had romantic feelings of any kind. Those words knocked the breath out of me. My chest squeezed tight and I had to swallow multiple times to keep tears from spilling.
But do you remember when we walked through downtown so late it was practically morning? You offered your arm to me like a gentleman, and I took it. We walked aimlessly for hours. As the sun rose, we confided in each other about what insecurities shredded our souls and what embarrassing dreams made life worth living: things no common acquaintance or coworker shares with one another.
Today, you told me I didn’t add anything to your life.
But do you recall when you had to write a ten-page paper about that absurd foreign film for your Humanities class? I watched the film with you multiple times until we understood it and typed the whole thing as you dictated it to me.
Today, you told me you never had romantic feelings of any kind. Those words knocked the breath out of me. My chest squeezed tight and I had to swallow multiple times to keep tears from spilling.
But do you remember when we walked through downtown so late it was practically morning? You offered your arm to me like a gentleman, and I took it. We walked aimlessly for hours.
When you do an internet search for “death of an unrequited love,” some interesting things pop up, but never the right ones. What about when the person for whom you have an unrequited love dies? What then? What about the closure that will never be, the hope that continued to exist, the possibilities that have now vanished? We had a story, in my mind. Now it will never have a resolution.
At first, I thought I’d killed you. The Friday before, you texted to tell me you were going to drown yourself in the Monongahela River. It was late Spring. You were drinking again.
“Go to the ER,” I told you. “Please don’t give up.” But, I didn’t offer to sit with you or hold your hand till the pain stopped. Instead, I just imagined you wandering along the trail by the river’s edge, staring into the murky rush.
I met a man. It was during the winter months leading up to spring 1994. It wasn’t that type of meeting-a-guy situation, it was purely business, and for the sake of art.
I was twenty-two years old and had been dancing professionally for about four years. I was part of a dance company that performed traditional dances from the African diaspora.
Dear Mom,
As you know, I’ve been wearing glasses since kindergarten. Even though Dad is always trying to get me to take them off for picture taking, you’ll see I’ve managed to keep them on in almost every photo. In my developmental years my glasses were a part of my identity. I was that girl with the ponytail and glasses. I revelled in being identifiable, as if my glasses gave me a reputation.
Dearest You,
I need to peel off my flesh. Just a small slit on the wrist to get things started, then slice it back like puckered chicken skin with a paring knife and fry it in a pan.
Today, you told me our “friendship” exhausted you.
But what about the first time we made love? We stayed up all night, giving in to the attraction we had had for years. The euphoria extinguished any fatigue. We both stared in awe at the other after the passionate night that you only read about in romance novels.
Today, you told me you never depended on me like I depended on you.
Did I imagine those thousands of text messages and hundreds of phone calls you initiated? The text messages that began with a question we both knew you already had the answer to? The phone calls where you desperately conveyed how much you wanted to talk to me and hear my voice?
Today, you told me you never loved me.
I guess that’s my mistake.
Sincerely,
Me
-Taryn Hinderland
The hermit crab essay is a term originally coined by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola in their craft book Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction. Like its namesake, the hermit crab essay borrows an existing container, such as a list, set of directions, tarot card reading, or real estate listing, and makes it its own.
In this workshop, we’ll explore how different authors use the Hermit Crab Essay as a creative vehicle for approaching topics that may feel too difficult, vulnerable, or traumatic to write about directly. I’ll share writing exercises, practical tools, and techniques that you can take with you to experiment with this form and begin crafting your own next essay.
The success of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) heralded a new era of domestic suspense. Most of the novels that came to define this genre featured white women narrators behaving badly. While this convention invokes the precedent of the pathologization of hysterical women, we must also consider how this convention relies on contemporary white privilege. How do Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear (2026), Alice Feeney’s My Husband’s Wife (2026), and Meagan Church’s The Mad Wife (2025) use unreliable narration to suggest that madness is a privileged state?
Women characters are still too often judged by one question: Is she likeable? That question can do a lot of damage on the page. Anger gets softened. Ambition needs an explanation. Bad decisions need a sympathetic reason behind them. A woman can be selfish, difficult, ruthless, jealous, furious, or want something she probably shouldn't, but writers often start sanding those edges down because they're afraid the reader won't like her. But liking a character and wanting to keep reading about her are two very different things. Stop Making Her Likeable is a 90-minute workshop about what actually keeps a reader invested in a complicated woman. We'll look at why readers can become completely absorbed by characters they don't approve of, what makes difficult behaviour fascinating rather than simply frustrating, and how motivation, contradiction, desire, and agency affect the way a reader responds to her. We'll also look at our own pages. Where are we explaining a woman because we're afraid she'll be judged? Where are we making her apologize for wanting something? Where have we given her a tragic reason for behaviour that we might simply allow from a male character? The goal isn't to teach writers how to create an “unlikeable female character.” It's to stop treating likeability as the price a woman has to pay to be worth reading about.
In this course, author Piper L. White will discuss feminism through the use of fairytales and how to take these beloved childhood stories and twist them into our modern writing by delving deep into the psyche of women-identifying people and their everyday horrors to craft their own prose pieces.
This product gives you access to all four weeks of the workshop. Purchase one or more drop-in sessions here.
Build a habit in 20 sessions. In this 4 week workshop that meets Mondays through Fridays from 8:00-9:00 AM CST, we will focus on generating new writing—making headway on a current project, reviving an old project that’s been gathering dust, or writing based off of the daily prompts Leigh provides.
The first 45 minutes of class are a gentle, camera-off, silent writing session. The remaining 15 minutes are an opportunity to share excerpts of our work, reflect on progress made, and set intentions for the following day. Then we will read a passage together on the writing life and close each class with a new learning about habit formation. By the end of this course we’ll have a morning writing habit that is each our own to continue and build upon.
This listing is for an individual class. To purchase access for the full 4-week workshop, click here.
Build a habit in 20 sessions. In this 4 week workshop that meets Mondays through Fridays from 8:00-9:00 AM CST, we will focus on generating new writing—making headway on a current project, reviving an old project that’s been gathering dust, or writing based off of the daily prompts Leigh provides.
The first 45 minutes of class is a gentle, camera-off, silent writing session. The remaining 15 minutes are an opportunity to share excerpts of our work, reflect on progress made, and set intentions for the following day. Then we will read a passage together on the writing life and close each class with a new learning about habit formation. By the end of this course we’ll have a morning writing habit that is each our own to continue and build upon.
Many writers feel drawn to write about their lives but struggle with uncertainty: Why this story? Why now? And who is it really for? This workshop is designed to help writers move beyond doubt and toward clarity by focusing on the deeper meaning and purpose beneath their story.
In this interactive, craft-forward session, participants will be introduced to the Memoir Compass, a practical framework that helps writers articulate their motivation (why they are writing), mission (who the story serves), and message (what meaning or insight the story carries). Through guided reflection and writing exercises, participants will begin shaping a personal narrative rooted in intention rather than overwhelm.
This workshop is ideal for writers interested in memoir or personal narrative, as well as fiction writers drawing from lived experience, who want to move forward with greater confidence, focus, and direction.
Some of the most compelling creative nonfiction begins with the feelings we are tempted to avoid: anger, resentment, shame, fear, or the sense that we have an axe to grind. In this six-week workshop, writers will explore how to follow that emotional heat toward deeper, more honest work—without sacrificing compassion, complexity, or craft. Through close readings, writing exercises, discussion, and constructive feedback, we’ll consider how to transform strong feelings into writing that reaches beyond catharsis and connects with readers.
IT’S NO SECRET THAT FEEDBACK IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS.
In fact, we argue that it might be the most important part of the process.
But it’s hard to find a writing community. It’s hard to find the people who are willing to take the time and the effort to read your work and give the feedback you really, truly deserves.
That’s where HerStry Critique Groups come in!
HerStry Critique Groups are small groups of 6 women who gather online for 6 weeks to share their writing, give constructive feedback and gain skills as writers.
Weekly online sessions last approximately ninety minutes, with three women sharing their work each week. Writers of all genres and levels are welcome and you may share both works of fiction and nonfiction.
Sessions take place on Mondays 7PM CT, Tuesdays 11AM CT, Fridays 11AM CT
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE HERSTRY CRITIQUE GROUPS?
Six 90 minute live workshop sessions
Three 20 minutes sessions in the “hot seat” to get you work critiqued
Written and verbal feedback from your fellow workshop participants
A weekly in depth edit and critique of your work from the group leader after each session
Weekly writing goals and accountability check ins
Full video recordings of each session to keep for your records
Say goodbye to the lonely, stuck in your head writing life!
LET’S WRITE!
From conception to submission. Let’s make summer sizzle with stories.
Writing a short story doesn’t happen in one session. It takes multiple drafts to get it exactly right, to create characters that come to life for the reader and a world they can’t stop thinking about. In this seven week course we will work on a single short story from conception to submission ready. The seven week session will include generative brainstorming sessions, short story craft talks, multiple workshops for feedback from fellow writers, and detailed line by line feedback and edits from your instructor. Plus, we’ll talk about submission venues, cover letters, and when to know if your story is ‘finished.’
Taryn Hinderland is a writer living in Los Angeles. She went to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a film degree and found a love of writing. Her obsession with Star Wars has resulted in many Sci-Fi romance stories that bring her immense joy and a fascination with space travel.
Dear N_____,
This letter is a little late, fifty years is a sizable chunk of time, but I wanted to tell you that you can stop searching for that lovely brown linen skirt you left behind after a week’s visit with me when we were young girls on the brink of life. I hope you have not spent too many of the decades between that summer and this one riffling through closets, calling various hotels, reaching out to friends to whom you might have lent it.