I thought, for the split-second between my brain recognizing that I was being called out to speak and my mouth automatically responding, that I should give a fake name.
I always had an inexplicable liking for “Veronica.”
I can not say where that comes from. I feel like it predates high school and watching Veronica Mars, or any familiarity with the Riverdale gang—comic or CW form.
I didn’t. The fake name, I didn’t give it.
I was too afraid that would make this whole meeting not work its magic. Too afraid that a lie would undermine my earnest desire to have a second-chance.
To not spiral.
To be able to make it through two days (before I had started).
To remember what I had said and what I had done.
To be able to make it more than two months without caving (after I had started).
To not be so afraid to look at my phone.
Those mornings were the worst—the mornings I wondered if I had texted or called or messaged something unforgivable, unforgettable, embarrassing, shaming.
I could not do it again…and again…and again. Ad Infinitum.
I walked through that overgrown tree shaded back corner Methodist church-basement door—with all the ironic vibes of a speak-easy, even the peppering of smokers that always pointed the way despite apparent attempts to hide the entrance.
I had never felt so undesired, unwanted, like the building and the people who really belonged there would never look me in the eye if they passed me, but it made them feel better to pretend.
Does that make them kind, or human? I don’t know if that is kind, or not. Selfish, or not. I just knew I did not want to tell my name to a room full of strangers.
“Nature’s the ultimate inspiration.”
The woman speaking was ageless and poised in a way that made me feel homely and naive. Her blowout looked freshly fixed, and her workout clothes looked as though she’d never actually worked out in them—a start contrast to my faded sweatpants. Her make-up was so natural I wondered if she was wearing make-up at all—but no one could look that good at 6:00 am without make-up, could they? Maybe she just had flawless skin. Maybe it is the giant jar of green juice she’s touting.
“Oh, thanks.”
I try hard not to let out disappointment through my sigh as Caroline hands me the clear, water-filled baggie. It’s bulging and reflecting the only sliver of sun that shines in from the outside world.
I thought, for the split-second between my brain recognizing that I was being called out to speak and my mouth automatically responding, that I should give a fake name.
I always had an inexplicable liking for “Veronica.”
The box from James arrived months after my birthday, tattered and misshapen. In it, a black-and-white striped purse, gray scarf, face masks, a knockoff Purple Rain CD, and two cardigans: one small yellow one for my eleven year old daughter and another for me the color of a bright orange Boston autumn leaf where James and I had gone to college together.
I was next to my father in the back of a police cruiser as the resentment towards my mother grew. I was six months pregnant and when I realized that the door locked from the outside, echoes of my doctor’s voice flooded me. You have to remain calm when you’re pregnant, eat well, play music for your baby to hear in the womb. They internalize your emotions in utero and can be traumatized before they are even born. I tried to breathe as I looked ahead through the grates that divided me from the backs of the policemen’s balding heads and put a hand on my hard misshapen stomach as I rolled my window down the two inches that it allowed.
From October 2020 until February 2022, every Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. until 11:15 a.m., I dedicated my time to taking a shower. My weekly Wednesday ritual also included my virtual therapy session at 1:00 p.m., so I began my day changing out the week-old unwashed pajamas to shampoo and deep condition my hair, shaving my legs, and exfoliating my body. As I undress, starting with my crew socks, I focus on my parent’s medicine cabinet. Although not my bathroom, this is my childhood bathroom, as there is one shared shower. Next, my black sweatpants and long sleeve-stained John Mayer tour shirt from 2017 hit the blue tile.
The despair is back. It’s so familiar that its return is almost comforting like seeing an old friend until you remember that friend is misery. I am miserable.
It is mid-February. I have made it through the big three without incident: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. My sober family had a party on January 2 to celebrate getting through the holidays without a drink and hopefully a minimal amount of amends. I proudly celebrated one year of sobriety on January 8.
abecedarian twenty-six letters, each one a compact unit of communication, a twisted riddle, a maze of red tape from well-lit offices; the only means of containing my sorrow now that all I have left of my brother are memories and letters.
A lot can happen in ten years. You lose a baby, or choose to lose a baby, though at the time, it doesn’t feel like a choice, more like a pre-ordained outcome. You spend time blaming everything outside of you—your OB, your job, your husband. Blame comes easily; it’s a ready distraction from the blame you hold close to you, like a secret: you were not brave enough, not in love with the baby enough, not selfless enough. When your water broke months too early, you panicked, you decided against hope.
Once again, I find myself in a strange place where nobody knows me. I am naked. And drunk on Jack Daniels and fucked up on Quaaludes and coming out of another blackout. The blackouts are coming more frequently now since I am drinking on a daily basis. Because of the blackouts, I’m never sure where I’ll wake up.
I was sitting upright for the first time in about a week. I’d tried a few days earlier, but very soon my head pounded, and I vomited down myself. They said the lumbar puncture could do that. Now though, I could use the bed remote control to sit myself up. Under the white sheets I could make out the shape of what was supposed to be me.
Dear Younger Connie,
I’m sorry I tried to starve you.
I tried to starve you by going on diets. “Going on” sounds like there’s actually an itinerary and destination, but with diets, the finish line slides out of reach. I took you to weigh-ins. I made you write down every piece of food you ate. I made you go to bed hungry.
It was almost three years ago when I went over to his house. He was a sophomore in college that already lived off campus and that was kind of cool. He was into anime and when I had been the desk manager at the dorm he had lived in the year before that was how we became friends. Kind of.
June 10, 1993
Dear Girl:
I saw a version of you today. She’s about your age and looks a little like you except she’s skinny and you are a miserable pudge. I bet she’s been living the life you live although you have cut out all the drugs by now. That near arrest scared the fuck out of you so now you have winnowed all your bad habits down to getting drunk every day. This girl slammed her car, going forty, into another car because she was high.
I hate folding chairs. I feel wrong in them. And there are no donuts like they show on TV.
They say women can’t drink as much as men because of differences in chemical makeup, body, fat, and so on. All very likely.
I am sure there is truth in that. I am not a scientist. I claim no real expertise in such studies or data. I just didn’t personally experience it, mostly.
I do know that ninety percent of the time, I could drink most of a bottle of whisky on my own and feel maybe tipsy. Toward the end of a night I had to work a little harder, force clear speech and clever quips a little more. But I thought that was normal. Holding on to clarity by focusing my energy on acting ‘normal.’ I was certainly not completely immune. But I had trained for years to be an academic, and there is, in my opinion, no better breeding ground for high-functioning alcoholism than higher education.
But I was arguably not just high-functioning, but built in some way that made me good at hiding it.
Someone very close to me (they get to be anonymous now) told me my eyes didn’t change and that was the scariest thing. He could always tell by looking in someone's eyes if they were wasted, if they would or would not remember the next day. My eyes wouldn’t tell on me.
I had a sterling reputation for being able to drink most men under the table—pub, cocktail, or picnic. I admit, I had always craved something that made me special. I felt like I brought nothing except my chugging abilities and drinking stamina to any social interaction.
And now I had to admit that the only thing that made me special was out of my control.
I walked into the room and was immediately met by four older adults, smiling, and all repeating the mantra: “you are the most important person here today.”
I had a hard time looking up, meeting eyes, not being a little teary eyed that I was here. Not just guilt. Shame.
In my heart I kept thinking about how the night before went. The last night. The last drink. The screaming, the broken glass, the EMTs. I moved my hand to my bandaged side and felt the road rash my boyfriend had cleaned and gauzed. God it hurt. I couldn’t move right. Stiff. And these chairs did not help.
I had promised this was it. It was his it. It had to be mine. My second-chance or the inevitable: spiral, self-destruction, death.
Salty drops scrolled down my face as I played with my hands in that awful chair that made it difficult to sit without wrinkling my side’s gravel filled skin into my bandage.
“Would you like to introduce yourself?”
-Natalie W.
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.’
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!
January 18, 25, and February 1 at 11 AM CT
CRAFTING COMPELLING NARRATIVES FROM LIVED EXPERIENCES WRITERS ARE CONDUITS FOR THE STORIES OF OTHERS.
We share in our writing the human condition, whether through compelling themes in fiction or real lived experiences in nonfiction. Both are art forms, and both often require gathering more than one’s viewpoint and experience to tell the story. Interviewing experts, witnesses, and avatars for character-building is its own art form, one many writers may find daunting. This course is designed to demystify the interview process, help writers stay organized, and develop a system that makes every step of the process a breeze. Writers will learn about ethical interview practices, how to design an interview that encourages effortless sharing, how to work with interviewees across cultures and generations, and receive tools to structure the interviews into story. This course is perfect for the fiction writer who is researching lived experiences to flesh out their characters as well as non-fiction writers who require individual stories to build a compelling narrative.
October 7, 14, 21, 28, November 4 and 18 CT
There is no class on November 11.
WRITING THE SEX SCENE.
Writing a sex scene can be delirious fun, a harrowing challenge, a literary milestone—possibly the most important part of building your short story or book. In our six weeks together, you’ll experience just about every possible emotion as you explore the erotic in different modes: comic, tender, harrowing, soul-shattering … because it really is all about the characters’ feelings, not just the mechanics. So we’ll talk about tone. Vocabulary. Metaphor. Sensory detail. How to get big emotions on the page … and when to pull back and let the reader’s imagination go to work.
This is a course for writers who want to explore the intersection between the novel and short stories, and would like to weave their short stories into a story cycle (or collection of "linked stories" or "composite novel"). This is also a class about the interaction of form and content, and how one influences the other. We will read works of interlinked stories by writers from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, focusing on modern classics and contemporary practitioners of these hybrid forms. Weekly discussions will center on elements of craft, such as the expansion and compression of time, setting as an organizing and connecting principle, character development within and between stories, structure and plot for interconnected stories, and responding to literary influences in the same genre.
This six-week course guides writers through the literary submission process, offering insider insight and practical tools to help you get your work into the world. We’ll demystify everything from reading submission calls to writing cover letters and choosing the right journals. Along the way, we’ll workshop short bios, develop submission trackers, and build personalized plans that align with your voice and goals.
By the end of the course, you’ll walk away with a polished piece ready to send, a tailored submission list, and the confidence to navigate the lit mag world with clarity and purpose.
Ideal for writers of literary fiction, poetry, personal essay, memoir, and hybrid forms.
Natalie Whitaker has dabbled since she was in grade school writing creative poetry, stories, mystery novels, and plays for her and her siblings to perform in the family living room—á la Jo March. In college this amateur passion developed into an academic exploration of writing, language, and storytelling. She earned degrees in History (BA), Literature (MA), and Library Science (MLIS), and now is completing her PhD in Medieval literature and women's emotions in early medieval Old English, Old Norse, and Latin literature. Recently, Natalie has felt the urge to return to her creative writing pursuits, exploring her creative expression through poetry and storytelling. She enjoys writing, academically and creatively, at the intersection of history, culture, literature, and emotions, hoping to support and strengthen modern women through a better understanding of the past and our human experiences.
On my study’s display shelf devoted to cherished objects stands a miniature porcelain Dutch clog from Delft. HOLLAND it proclaims above a hand-painted image of a windmill and house by a river, small waves brought to life by slashes of cobalt glaze applied by a skilled hand.
At first, I wonder if this is a memento from a trip to the Netherlands, homeland of my maternal grandfather. My cousin sends me photographs of other Delft blue and white porcelain brought from Zeeland by our great-grandmother and given to her mother, my aunt: a set of two canisters, a platter, a dairymaid statuette. I fantasize that this clog creates a connection between me and relatives I’ve never met. I want this heirloom to show me how I belong to this family, and it does, but not in the way I expect.