Awake on the Page: Voice, Detail and Depth in Fiction
A 5-Session Online Workshop
How do skillful writers immerse us in the worlds they build—make us feel their contours, characters, and conflicts as if we were living inside them? In this intimate, five-session workshop, we’ll learn how to do just that through a curated mix of close reading, craft talks, generative exercises, and focused workshopping.
Specifically, we explore how to:
- Create characters whose interior lives feel urgent, specific, and alive
- Craft sentences that hook and hold
- Use sensory detail to build scene, mood, and emotional resonance
- Integrate research to bring the past (or unfamiliar worlds) vividly to life
Each week, students will come together in a supportive, engaged space to apply these techniques to new work or works-in-progress. No prior workshop experience is required. Enrollment will be capped at 15, and sessions will be recorded so students can view or review at their own pace. Tuition includes a brief, optional one-on-one workshop consultation, designed to help clarify a specific craft question or offer feedback on up to two pages of a work-in-progress. Sessions will be recorded so students can view or review on their own schedule. Tuition includes a brief, optional one-on-one workshop consultation, designed to help clarify a specific craft question or offer feedback on up to two pages of a work-in-progress. (For price information on deeper manuscript feedback, developmental editing, or ongoing private consultation, feel free to reach out through my Contact page for details.)
Led by novelist Jennifer Cody Epstein, the course will also include conversations with two extraordinary writers—Jennifer Egan and Christina Baker Kline—who will speak about their approaches to process, research, and craft, and answer questions.
Join us!
Schedule & Tuition
January 14 – February 11, 2026
Wednesdays: 1:00–2:30 PM EST (Zoom)
Recordings available after each session.
Early Bird Rate (through Dec 14): $825
Two-Payment Plan: $412.50 x 2 (second payment due one month after registration)
Full Tuition: $875*
*Limited partial scholarships available; please inquire if cost is a barrier.
Special Guest Conversations
Jennifer Egan’s 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach, was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was chosen as New York City’s One Book One New York read. Her previous novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was on the list of Best Books of the 21st Century in the New York Times. Her new novel, The Candy House, a companion to A Visit From the Goon Squad, was one of The New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2022 and one of President Obama’s favorite reads of the year. Also a journalist, she recently spent a year writing on street homelessness and supportive housing for The New Yorker. She has served as President of PEN America.
Christina Baker Kline is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, including Orphan Train, The Exiles, Please Don’t Lie (co-authored with Anne Burt), and the forthcoming The Foursome (May 2026), Christina Baker Kline is published in more than 40 countries. Her novels have received the New England Prize for Fiction, the Maine Literary Award, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Award, among other prizes, and have been chosen by hundreds of communities, universities, and schools as “One Book, One Read” selections. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle.
About the instructor
Jennifer Cody Epstein is the internationally bestselling author of The Madwomen of Paris, Wunderland, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, and The Painter from Shanghai. Her work has been published in eighteen languages, won the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Honor Award for fiction, and was a finalist for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. She currently teaches fiction, creative writing, and literature at Stony Brook University and has worked one-on-one with emerging and established writers for over two decades, consulting on hundreds of projects—from personal essays and editorial assignments to full-length manuscripts, screenplays, and novels-in-progress.
Artwork Credit: Rutilio Manetti, Saint Ambrose (detail). Public domain image.