It's time to register for summer classes! 🍧🍦🏝️

Summer class registration is now open to everyone!

We’re excited to share over 80 brand-new classes in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, the writing life, reading, and more with our community this spring—including four free classes.

Free class topics include a promotional PR cheat sheet, breaking the seal and finally submitting work, and a personal essay workshop held in partnership with Humanities Washington. Plus, a Spanish-language workshop with Rosario López para todos los niveles.

Scroll down for details on a selection of this summer's upcoming classes!

Register before June 7 to get our early bird pricing discount!

Why are we still hosting most of our classes virtually?
The Hugo House building is precious to us, a gathering space for writers of all backgrounds to be together to learn, share, and build their craft.

However, you may have heard about a pesky little problem—our broken front door. Unfortunately, the repairs of this door have taken much longer than anticipated due to a lack of available contractors and materials to get the job done. We've had to use a side door to let people into the building without the front door available. This entrance requires more staff to be on-site to facilitate classes—more staff than we currently have available.

We're on track to hopefully have this issue resolved by our upcoming fall quarter. Remaining online continues to be a difficult decision, particularly during our 25th anniversary, a year in which we hoped to be back in person. But, we've always been a scrappy little organization and we know the Hugo House community has our back.

We are offering a few in-person classes this summer, including an introduction to the emerging field of human-animal studies and how this field can inform our writing, a workshop exploring the fantastical and writing with ghosts, a course exploring the intersections of lust, vulnerability, and desire with cultural constructs like whiteness and heteronormativity. Use our "Format" sorting feature on the class catalog page to discover all upcoming in-person classes.

Registration Notes
Because our office is still mostly closed, we only have one phone line to take your call-in registrations. Please try to register online. If you need to call in and are having trouble getting through, please send an email with your name and phone number to our community support team at welcome@hugohouse.org. A staff member will get in touch to help you register for your classes as soon as they are able.

If you are a member and your account is not reflecting your membership status correctly, please reach out to us at welcome@hugohouse.org, and we will help resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

If you haven't yet, we encourage you to browse the full catalog or take a look at the classes we've highlighted below.

Nature Is All of Us: Decolonizing Nature Writing with Jennifer Perrine
All Levels | 4 sessions | Jun 15 - Jul 6 | Online

Nature writing is often viewed as a Eurocentric practice, but it has roots throughout global majority cultures. In this class, we’ll read nature-centered poetry, essays, and fiction by Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and Latinx writers.

Awaken into Infinite Blue: Writing with Vishnu with Shankar Narayan
All Levels | 8 sessions | Jun 15 - Aug 3 | Online

Arguably the most popular god in the Hindu pantheon, Vishnu, the preserver, maintains the cosmic balance no matter what it takes. In this multi-genre, part-generative, part-analytical class, we’ll turn to key texts and episodes from the mythology of this fascinating god, and use them to fuel our own diverse, electric pieces. No prior knowledge required—but come ready to write!

Demystifying the Submission Process (for BIPOC) with Camille Wanliss
All Levels | 4 sessions | Jun 23 - Jul 14 | Online

This course will uncover resources and offer tips for making the most out of your application, and you’ll develop a strong artist statement, bio, and project proposal that will help you stand out. In the last week, we'll celebrate with an interactive submission party.

Contemporary Poetry For People Who Don’t “Get” Poetry (But Want To!) with Leigh Sugar
All Levels | 6 sessions | Jul 10 - Aug 14 | Online

In this short session, we’ll recover audience from the taboo, declare whom exactly we’re writing for, and discuss how we engage with readers’ expectations. This course includes exercises and a short reading.

Art and Craft, Aesthetics and Politics:
On Individual and Collective Voices
with Viet Thanh Nguyen
All Levels | 1 session | Jul 21 | Online

In this workshop, we’ll discuss some issues common to all storywriting—plotting, pacing, imagery, rhythm, and so on—through a close reading of Carolyn Forché’s poem/narrative “The Colonel.” We will also discuss how to deal with history and politics, and the problems of representation and translation for so-called minority writers (which so-called majority writers can also learn from).

Worldbuilding: Outside & In with Scott Driscoll
All Levels | 6 sessions | Jul 26 - Aug 30 | Online

Dive deep into worldbuilding, an essential process for all fiction writers. In this class, we will look at how to build exterior worlds--place, culture, and atmosphere--and explore the interior world of needs, wants, fears, etc. Finishing out the class, the final week will be focused on workshopping.

Befuddled, Bereft, Broken: Resistance to Poetic Closure with Dilruba Ahmed
Intermediate | 1 session | Jul 26 | Online

In this class, we’ll think together about how selected poems create an interplay between closure and openness. Specifically, we’ll examine poems that grapple with difficult (and therefore not easily resolved) content. How do poets use syntax, diction, and more to thwart our sense of closure in ways that are emotionally resonant with the content?

Haunted: Incorporating Found Text in Poetry with Tiana Nobile
Intermediate | 1 session | Aug 14 | Online

Poems often contain many ghosts: historical, ancestral, former versions of the self. In this workshop, we will explore two strategies for haunting our poems: erasure and collage. Using sample poems as models, participants will compose their own poems incorporating found text.

What Is Love? Writing Queer Love Stories
with Kamala Puligandla
All Levels | 1 session | Aug 7 | In-Person

In this workshop, we’ll discuss the craft components that make a compelling, contemporary, queer love story. We’ll examine excerpts from examples and deconstruct the love stories that move us and inform our lives to open more expansive ways for our stories to twist, turn, and transform.

Hybrid Moments: Exploring the Lyric Essay
with Sasha LaPointe
All Levels | 2 sessions | Aug 20 - 27 | Online

We live in a time that challenges the binary and explores intersection and identity. In this class, we will radicalize our approach to the personal narrative by intertwining poetry and personal memoir. We will write lyric essays, explore the braided form, and produce hybrid essays that celebrate both personal story and the lyricism of poetry.

View the Full Catalog

Update to our COVID-19 Policy for Adult Classes and Events

Starting June 1, 2022, Hugo House will no longer require masks or proof of vaccination/negative tests upon entry for people attending adult classes or events on-site. However, we still strongly encourage the use of masks and support all people that choose to do so.

Hugo House is using King County's recommendations for masking and vaccination or negative test requirements to design our guidelines. If any changes are made to our policy, we will notify registrants before the dates of the class/event. Learn more about our policy »