Class Starts Monday, October 27th, 2025

The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Monday, 6PM EST - 8PM EST).

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us. 

Instructor Laura Dzubay is a writer from the Midwest, with stories and essays appearing in Electric Literature, Gulf Coast, Blue Earth Review, Mid-American Review, Cimarron Review, Consequence, Southern Humanities Review, and TIMBER, and anthologized in A Flame Called Indiana: An Anthology of Contemporary Hoosier Writing (IU Press 2023). She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Indiana University, where she won the AWP Intro Prize. Her debut short story collection, Pure Fear, American Legend, was published by Sundress Publications last year. In addition to writing, she loves hiking and has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Colorado Trail.

Get to know Laura in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

This course is for fiction writers who are looking to revitalize their stories while taking inspiration from the songwriting of Taylor Swift. All levels of familiarity with Taylor Swift are welcome!

This 8-week workshop will explore fundamental elements of creative writing (primarily fiction) through the lens of Taylor Swift. Our priority will be generating new writing and sharing it with each other; in each session, we’ll complete focused exercises practicing key writing elements like characterization, setting, scene building, perspective, conflict, and physical detail, using song lyrics as guideposts.

There will be optional “homework” as well as tools and exercises participants can use to further their writing outside of class, but this is mainly meant to be a fun, low-stress workshop to be taken alongside whatever else writers are doing in life, so there won’t be any required reading or listening outside of what we examine together.

Together, we will explore why we love what we love, and how we can carry that feeling of inspiration into our own ideas and storytelling. What is it about Swift’s music and her lyrics that so many people around the world have connected with? What narrative tools does she use, and why are so many people drawn to the ways in which she uses them? What can we learn from the ways in which she seeks out inspiration, and from her relationships with criticism and revision? How can we find good balances between personal details and universal themes in our own stories?

Important note: Swifties of ALL exposure levels and backgrounds are more than welcome in this class! Anytime we discuss a song in detail, we will listen to it together as a group first. This is meant, ideally, to be an invigorating creative space for anyone, and there is absolutely no need to have any particular level of familiarity with Taylor Swift’s music beforehand.

WRITING GOALS

In this course, students will generate new fiction writing on a weekly basis and find a new community of writers to share motivation and encouragement. Students will leave each week with new resources relevant to the topic discussed, templates for planning out stories, and lists of optional recommended reading.

There will be opportunities in each session to share work generated in the session with the instructor and peers; later on in the course, we will also practice some creative revision strategies together using previous drafts of work. While formal feedback outside of class is not a component of this course, the instructor is available throughout the course for any and all brainstorming and craft questions.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS

• Students will produce new writing every week.
• Examine key elements of the craft of fiction from unique angles tailored to the things that inspire them most.
• And practice the balance of approaching their writing craft rigorously while keeping joy at the forefront of the process.

COURSE OUTLINE

Session 1

I Left My Scarf There, At Your Sister’s House: Physical Detail & Observation
Introductions and overview of the course. We’ll establish community goals and have a framing conversation about why we enjoy Taylor Swift or feel drawn to her music, and we’ll discuss what makes physical detail “pop” or resonate, the value of strong description, and how to train ourselves to play more with metaphor and diction.

Session 2

Rooting for the Anti-Hero: Characters and the Choices They Make
We’ll discuss how we get to know people and characters, what defines the important people in our lives, and the intersections between character-building and scene-building. We’ll also explore possible ways to level up our introductions to, and understandings of, our characters, and the role of conditions and setting in understanding the characters who populate our stories. 

Session 3

All By Design: Structure, Scene-Building, and the Passage of Time 
We’ll discuss how we know when we’ve found the right “beginning” or “end” to a story, interweaving character revelations with plot and conflict, and how song structures can offer clues about how to approach fiction when we’re stuck. We’ll also investigate the differences between plot and structure, and the dramatic potential of subplots and secrets. 

Session 4

I Got Smarter, I Got Harder in the Nick of Time: Conflict as a Crucible
We’ll explore crisis and conflict in fiction and in Taylor Swift songs—when does it occur? How do we know when we need it? Do we need it at all? Why might drive a character to “choose” conflict? We’ll also discuss the links between conflict and character, and the places where conflicts in fiction might ultimately leave us.

Session 5

I Can Do It with a Broken Heart: When, Why, and Where Do We Write?
Taylor Swift takes inspiration from all kinds of sources—poetry, books, other musicians—and she seems to have written everywhere, from “a pen and an old napkin,” to the middle of the night, to a New York forest during the pandemic, to her days off from the Eras Tour. At the halfway point of our course, we’ll explore our own sources of inspiration and ways in which we might pursue more experimentation and originality in our fiction, and we’ll craft some routines to put into practice for our last few weeks together. 

Session 6

On the Outside Looking In: Voice and Perspective
We’ll discuss potential drivers and limitations of characters’ perspectives, seek out surprising potential uses of voice, and examine setting as character and as a driver of tone. We’ll also explore how we can prioritize various narrative dimensions in our stories and hold space for perspectives beyond our own. 

Session 7 

I Can Fix It (No Really I Can): Revision & Honest Conclusions
We’ll discuss how we know when we’ve reached the end of a story and how we might re-enter that work for revision. Drawing from exercises we’ve done in previous sessions, we’ll practice some creative revision strategies that have the potential to help us reimagine our work, push through areas of struggle and challenge, and unlock new dimensions in our stories. 

Session 8

Begin Again: Reassessing Our Relationships to Craft
In our final session, we’ll discuss how we might decide when, whether, and in what form to try to put our work into the world. I will also share some resources I use frequently for staying organized while submitting work. We will circle back to our overall relationships with writing and how we can prioritize joy, fun, and discovery while continuing to hone our craft.

TESTIMONIALS:

"I loved this class. The creative writing topics felt more approachable when looked at through the lens of Taylor Swift songs. I could honestly see expanding this to 7 (maybe even 8 weeks). There was a lot of awesome content!" -Lizz H.

"This was a great class! The thoughtful way Laura was able to weave in Taylor Swift's lyrics and storytelling with novel writing concepts is what I found most valuable." -Jade E.

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!

• Instructor: Laura Dzubay
• Class Starts Monday, October 27th, 2025
• Class will meet via Zoom on Mondays, 6PM EST - 8PM EST.