Instructor Tom Andes wrote the detective novel Wait There Till You Hear from Me (Crescent City Books, 2025). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2025, The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025, Best American Mystery Stories 2012, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, among many others. He lives in Albuquerque, where he is a musician and freelance editor. Southern Crescent Recording Co. re-released his acclaimed EPs on vinyl under the title The Ones That Brought You Home in 2025. 

This class is limited to 12 writers.

This course is for a writer who has at least a passing familiarity with the conventions of genre fiction and experience writing in shorter forms. Because we’ll be generating the workshopped material in the course, it is open to writers of all levels who are interested in either working in the noir genre or bringing a noir aesthetic to a different genre.

Noir fiction has been influential in literature and filmmaking for more than a century. But what is noir? Is it a sub-genre, a style, or a set of aesthetic assumptions? And how can it speak to readers now?

This generative workshop course is for writers interested in bringing the noir aesthetic into their writing in whatever capacity makes sense to them. Whether they are writing literary short stories, so-called rural noir, or classic detective fiction, writers will learn to break through what might seem formulaic, subverting clichés and reinvigorating the tropes that to a certain extent define the genre.

We’ll begin with a brief overview of the history of the genre, covering its early days in pulp magazines up through its reinvention as neo-noir in the seventies and eighties, as well as investigating the ways in which women and writers of color began to reinvigorate what had been a largely white, male genre until the 1990s.

Along the way, we’ll consider the noir aesthetic. What is noir, exactly? We might recognize certain conventions, such as the world-weary narrator, the hard-bitten, cynical PI, the femme fatale, or the downbeat ending. Similarly, in movies, we might recognize the stark, expressionistic use of lighting to create a mood.

The purpose of this course is to help us interrogate what makes this genre tick, so we can write noir for the 21st century. What patterns and tropes do we want to borrow or update? What do we want to discard? How can we write noir fiction that satisfies the conventions of the genre without feeling stuck in the past? How can we write noir that's fresh, relevant, alive?

For the first four weeks, we’ll be looking at published writing in the genre and doing generative exercises to help us develop a working definition of what the genre is. The readings will will focus on contemporary practitioners and how people are writing into this genre in the recent past or present time.

The second part of the course will be a traditional workshop. Each writer will have a chance to workshop one story. Though writers are welcome to bring material from outside the workshop, they are encouraged to expand one of their generative exercises into a new story.

Bear in mind that people often associate noir with transgressive fiction. It’s in the name: this stuff looks at the dark side. Nevertheless, transgression should not be confused with cheap provocation, and there will be no tolerance for work that trades in racism, sexism, homophobia, ablism, or in other dehumanizing stereotypes.

If exploring the dark side is part of the tradition, how can we do that in a way that doesn’t feel sleazy, exploitative, or that simply upholds traditional hierarchies? We’ll be looking at both contemporary and historical practitioners who have solved these problems by making work that is challenging and disruptive, transgressive in the best way.

Assigned reading may include: James M. Cain, “Pastorale,” Dorthy B. Hughes, “The Homecoming” James Sallis: “Ukelele and the World’s Pain” Vicki Hendricks, Miami Purity, First Chapter Megan Abbott: “Oxford Girl” James D. F. Hannah, “Twenty Centuries” Nikki Dolson, “Come Let Us Kiss and Part” Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me, First Chapter S.A. Cosby, “Star of Wonder” Ivy Pachoda, “Johnny Christmas”

What Are the Writing Goals for This Course?

Writers will produce one full-length short story on which they've received feedback, as well as two other generative exercises they can use to begin new stories.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week One: A brief history of the genre and the story as confession. We’ll talk about classic novels from The Postman Always Rings Twice to Down There (famously filmed as Shoot the Piano Player). We’ll talk about misdirection and withholding as narrative strategies and the story as confession. In-class reading includes “Ukelele and the World’s Pain” by James Sallis and the opening chapter of Miami Purity by Vicki Hendricks. Take home exercises: write a confession. Take home reading: “Pastorale,” James M. Cain and “The Homecoming” by Dorthy B. Huges

Week Two: The rebirth of the genre and the importance of subverting tropes and cliché. We’ll talk about the various times the genre has been reinvented, from the post-World War II boom to 1970s films like The Long Goodbye and Chinatown to writers like James Ellroy in the 1990s, continuing to identify tropes and conventions of the genre and talking about the ways writers subvert them. We’ll talk about how women writers like Sarah Paretsky and Laura Lippman helped to redefine both noir and the mystery genre in general in the 1990s and early 2000s. Writers will share selections from their take-home exercises. Take-home exercise: write a story that subverts of one or more tropes we’ve identified in the genre. Take home reading: “Oxford Girl” by Meagan Abbott, “Twenty Centuries” by James D. F. Hannah, and “Come Let Us Kiss and Part” by Nikki Dolson.

Week Three: The importance of place. It’s almost a cliché that noir fiction and mystery and crime fiction do setting uniquely well. This week, we’ll talk about setting as we’ve encountered in the readings it so far. What attitudes, in particular, do these stories have about change, and how do they purport to tap into a realness or a kind of authenticity in the way they evoke setting? We’ll also touch on the idea of appearances and reality, looking at a chapter from Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, in which a smalltown sheriff hides his psychosis under a bland, people-pleasing exterior. Take-home exercise: write the secret or true history of a place. (Alternatively, write about the ugly truth of something or someone that seems to have a beautiful or positive exterior.) Take home reading: S.A. Cosby, “Star of Wonder” and “Johnny Christmas,” Ivy Pachoda.

Week Four: Writers will share exercises. We’ll discuss the reading. Time permitting, we’ll look at selections from Daniel Woodrell, Attica Locke, and Ron Rash, discussing whether these readings are in fact noir and how they are informed by the genre, as well as considering what element of social critique is present in all the work we’ve read so far. We will discuss workshop etiquette. Writers begin distributing material for the workshop. Optional take-home exercise: write something cross-genre, however you understand that term.

Week Five: Workshop Round 1: First three writers receive guided, direct feedback on their work

Week Six: Workshop Round 2: Second three writers receive guided, direct feedback on their work

Week Seven: Workshop Round 3: Third three writers receive guided, direct feedback on their work

Week Eight: Workshop Round 4: Fourth three writers receive guided, direct feedback on their work.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

Writers can expect to walk away with a working theory of what noir as a genre is and what it has historically tried to do.

They should also have a sense of how it can (or cannot) speak to the present time.

They should walk away with a sharpened sense of how to spot cliches or tropes in their own work, as well as how to undermine those cliches and refresh those tropes.

They produce three generative exercises, any of which might be springboards into new work, i.e. the beginning of a new story.

And they will walk away with a complete draft of a story generated either in this workshop or on their own on which they have received feedback twice, once from the workshop and the instructor, and a second time from the instructor.

STUDENT TESTIMONIALS

“Tom is the kind of reader and teacher every writer should feel lucky to work with—sharp, incisive, intuitive, curious, and warm. Wildly well-read, he brings a keen critical mind and an expansive imagination to his teaching. It was in his classroom that I first workshopped the initial chapters of what would become my debut novel. He read my work with meticulousness and generosity, providing feedback that left me eager to return to the page.” — Antonia Angress, author of Sirens and Muses

“Tom is an outstanding instructor, coach, and editor. His ever-thoughtful feedback, editorial advice, and career guidance have been instrumental in my development as a writer over the years. Tom’s workshops are thoroughly engaging for writers at any stage in their career. He has an incredible breadth of literary knowledge, and his love for the written word is both genuine and contagious.” —Derrick Boden

“Tom does far more than edit, or even teach. He guides, mentors. After patiently sifting through my novel many times Tom continuously offered focused suggestions while pointing out strengths, all the while asking questions that allowed me to find my own answers. Think Morpheus saying, “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?” Then Tom even shared versions of his own query letters—hugely impactful and confidence building. If you’d like to know more about my experience with Tom, please ask him for my email and reach out.” — Anto Ljoljic

“Thomas Andes is a brilliant writer and teacher, kind, perceptive,humorous, industrious, compassionate, inspiring. All the great attributes of a master teacher. I recommend him to you. I’ve learned so much in his workshop.” — Rosary O’Neill

“Tom was instrumental in bringing my manuscript to its final stage. His notes helped me hone in on character motivations, fight choreography, and overall big-picture changes that helped to drive the story forward much better than the manuscript I presented for his consideration. From the developmental edit to the line edit to helping with my query letter and synopsis, he maintained an enthusiasm for my story that kept me excited about moving forward through additional rewrites. I highly recommend him for anyone seeking editorial services.” — Jon Hébert

“Tom is the kind of mentor who seeks first to understand what you’re tying to write, and then helps you get there. So many instructors impose their own rigid rules of writing, but not Tom. He’s an expert of the craft who can provide guidance across a range of genres and styles without missing a beat. Tom’s editing is always insightful and invigorating. His teaching makes writing feel fun and his encouragement is so genuinely tailored to your project that you forget all the writerly despair.” — Laurel Shimasaki

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: