Begins Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays at 7PM - 9PM Eastern

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us. 

Micaela Blei is a storytelling expert, educator, and performer with a PhD in Education focused on narrative identity and storytelling performance. She is a two-time winner of The Moth GrandSLAM championship, and her stories have been featured on This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour, Risk, and Family Ghosts, among other platforms. Micaela’s debut memoir, You Will Not Recognize Your Life, was published as an Audible Original and hit the #2 spot among memoir and pop culture titles for the year. Her full-length memoir is forthcoming from Harper One in 2026. Micaela is the former founding Director of Education at The Moth. Her teaching philosophy is centered on helping writers find their unique voice, rather than following rigid formulas. She believes everyone has stories worth telling and loves creating supportive environments where people can discover what those stories are.

This course is for writers who want to find and shape stories from their lives – whether you're working toward a memoir, personal essays, or simply want to tell better stories out loud! Open to all levels.

We all have stories worth telling, but not all stories feel like STORIES. And telling stories to one another is one of the best ways to learn how to engage your audience, find your own purpose in writing personal material, and expertly navigate story structure.

In this 6-week intensive, you'll learn to identify the narrative threads in your own experience and shape them into powerful personal narratives that feel both true to your own voice and engaging to readers and listeners. You can use these stories as the beginning seeds of written pieces or performed stories onstage (think The Moth).

Drawing from techniques used by award-winning Moth storytellers, you'll discover how to find the universal in the personal, create meaningful structure without losing spontaneity, and develop confidence in your own storytelling voice. You don’t need the most dramatic story, to have a great story. We’ll recognize the inherent drama and meaning in the experiences that have shaped you. We'll also talk about the ethics and challenges of memoir and personal narrative.

Through guided exercises both written and out loud, peer feedback, and instructor coaching, you'll move from raw memories to polished narrative. You'll learn when to zoom in and when to pull back, how to handle time and pacing, and most importantly, how to trust your own perspective as worthy of attention.

Perfect for writers interested in new techniques for memoir, personal essay, creative nonfiction, or anyone who wants to bring more narrative skill to their storytelling in any medium.

COURSE TEXTS

We will be listening to (and reading) personal stories from The Moth and other similar podcasts. We will also read a selection of essays about storytelling.

WRITING GOALS

Students will work on (and possibly complete) 2-3 personal narrative pieces (1,000-2,500 words each) and develop a toolkit of techniques for approaching personal storytelling.

FEEDBACK

Students receive written feedback on all submitted work, as well as real-time coaching during live sessions.

CLASS OUTLINE:

Week 1: Finding Your Material: What makes a story worth telling? Identifying narrative potential in everyday experience.Exercise: Memory mapping and story seeds. Reading: Examples of "small" stories with big impact.

Week 2: Voice and Perspective: Developing your narrative voice vs. trying to sound "writerly". The difference between the narrator and the character. Exercise: Retelling the same incident from different perspectives.

Week 3: Structure and Time: When to start, when to end, and how to handle the middle. Using scene, summary, and reflection effectively. Exercise: Structuring your first complete narrative.

Week 4: The Art of Revelation: What are you really writing about? Finding deeper meaning. Workshop: First complete drafts.

Week 5: Revision and Refinement: Cutting what doesn't serve the story. Strengthening your ending. Workshop: Revised pieces.

Week 6: Publication and Next Steps: Where personal narratives live in the world. Building a sustainable personal narrative practice.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS: 

Students will work on (and possibly complete) 2-3 personal narrative pieces (1,000-2,500 words each) and develop a toolkit of techniques for approaching personal storytelling.

Identify Strong Story Material: Learn to recognize which life experiences contain the seeds of meaningful narratives.

Develop Personal Voice: Find and trust your unique storytelling perspective and style.

Master Narrative Structure: Understand how to shape a story, use scene and summary, and create effective story endings.

Handle Sensitive Material: Develop strategies for writing about difficult experiences with appropriate boundaries.

Build Revision Skills: Develop concrete tools for editing and strengthening your narratives – both individually and in a community setting.

TESTIMONIALS:

"Micaela was truly a delight. She is open, honest, and provides a wonderful model for the type of teaching I'd like to do... She was very clear about expectations, the rationale behind her assignments, and was not afraid to stray from the exact curriculum for our class's unique makeup. The reason I wish this class was longer is so that we could spend more than 4 quick days learning from her."

"Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and leading us through this empowering, bonding, transformative experience. I've learned so much about storytelling, but even more about myself; the past few weeks have been incredibly special for so many reasons. Thank you for making space in which we could be both safe and courageous. I will truly never forget this experience."

"You were marvelous beyond expression. Thank you so much for being exactly what they needed (and wanted) at this point in their training. Your listening skills, your cultural sensitivity, your ability to connect with the 'audience' of new teachers through the Zoom screen and embody what you were teaching was wonderful. One of the participants who is a professional educator said that not only was the content brilliant and illuminating, but that the level of pedagogy and teaching method was so incredibly sophisticated and impactful."

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

• Instructor: Micaela Blei
• Begins Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026
  
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays at 7PM - 9PM Eastern
• Tuition is $425