“This masterclass is light-your-work-on-fire inspiring.” — J. Langdon

As writers, it’s easy to feel powerless in the face of injustice—but as storytellers, we actually have a great deal of power. In this free masterclass, I’ll show you how to harness that power, and put it to work in your fiction--WITHOUT coming across as preachy or didactic.

In this hour-long masterclass you will learn:

  • How you can take a stand in your creative work on the issues that matter most to you
  • The key to generating strong emotions in your reader that will connect with your key themes
  • Core craft techniques for telling a memorable, moving story
  • And more!

“I totally loved your masterclass! I found it both inspirational and informative.” –B. Womack

"I enjoyed the video very much—thanks so much for sharing it!"— M. Daversa

“Susan is an excellent teacher and mentor. I'm grateful for all that she offers."—A. Williams

Featuring interviews with

Aya de León is the author of the Justice Hustlers series, which includes Side Chick Nation, winner of an International Latino Book Award. In 2020, Kensington published her first standalone novel, A Spy in the Struggle, about FBI infiltration of an African American eco-racial justice organization. Also in 2020, Aya published her first children’s chapter book, Equality Girls and the Purple Reflecto-Ray, about a girl who uses her superpowers to confront the president’s sexism. She directs the Poetry for the People program in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley, teaching poetry and spoken word. In 2021, she was a visiting professor in the graduate creative writing program at the University of San Francisco.

Reema Zaman is an award-winning writer, speaker, actress, screenwriter, and author of the critically acclaimed memoir, I Am Yours, and the forthcoming dystopian novel, Paramita. I Am Yours has been adopted into the curriculum of several high schools through an Innovation Grant from the Oregon Department of Education, and is being adapted into a movie. The New York Times states that "Zaman writes beautifully of the pain and frustration of being a woman in a man's world, an immigrant in a world suspicious of outsiders." Reema’s work has appeared in Vogue, Ms. Magazine, The Guardian, Salon, and other leading outlets. She was the 2018 Oregon Literary Arts’ Writer of Color Fellow and is currently partnering with the International Rescue Committee and Girls Inc. to serve crucial causes and empower the next generation of leaders.

Jennie Nash is the author of ten books in three genres, including Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel From the Inside Out and The Writer's Guide to Agony and Defeat: The 43 Worst Moments in the Writing Life and How to Get Over Them. As a book coach, she has coached a wide range of writers through to publication, including KJ Dell’Antonia, author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Chicken Sisters, and Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story and Story Genius. Jennie is the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company that trains and certifies book coaches.

Lidia Yuknavitch is the national bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, and a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk, was published by TED Books. Her latest collection of fiction, Verge, was published by Riverhead Books in 2020. She founded the Corporeal Writing Center in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon.

"Resistance and change often begin in art, and often in our art, the art of words."

-- Ursula K. Le Guin