Past Events

UNSTUCK: 6 WEEKS TO REVIVE A PROJECT / Remote on Zoom / Apr-May 2025

You want to finish this book, this essay collection, this proposal, this screenplay… but you can’t seem to force yourself to open the document. The Midwives are here to help, as long as you’re ready to get intense. How? With six weeks of constructive confrontations designed to help you reconnect to your internal creative drive and understand how you work most effectively. Featuring Guest Writer Jami Attenberg!

IDEAS INTENSIVE / Remote on Zoom / Apr 2025

Where do you get your ideas? It’s a question writers hear all the time. But we should all be asking: How do you develop your ideas? We have a clear-cut, proven strategy for evolving your writing ideas so that they are more urgent, more actionable, more exciting. In this three-hour workshop, our focus is on getting to the heart of your project so you can write with a sense of purpose and follow through to the end.

UNFURL: 12 WEEKS TO YOUR FIRST DRAFT / Remote on Zoom / Jan-Apr 2025

A workshop designed for anyone who has a story to tell, but isn't sure the world wants to listen. Over the course of three months, we'll show you how to find the core of your idea and make it so resonant and relevant that you'll stop wondering whether anyone cares what you have to say. Because you'll know that your story matters. You’ll leave with a complete draft of a short story or personal essay. Everything you need to not just call yourself a writer, but to be a writer. This is the year. Featuring Guest Writers Ed Yong and Jacqueline Woodson!

PEN TO POWER: A CO-WRITING FUNDRAISER / Remote on Zoom / Jan 2025

Instead of crying alone on Inauguration Day, spend some time in (online) community with a group of fellow writers and turn your rage into words on the page! 100% of proceeds will be donated to the National Network of Abortion Funds. Think of it as a walkathon for bookish types who hate fascism.

BIG IDEA WEEKEND / In person in Los Angeles, CA / Oct 2023

An intimate, two-day retreat focused on the concept at the heart of your project. We have a clear-cut, proven strategy for evolving your writing ideas so that they are more urgent, more actionable, more exciting. Day 1 was all about generating and developing writing projects, with a portfolio of actionable techniques (and clear examples!). Day 2 concentrated on the Why and the How — essential for any good project.

UNSTUCK RETREAT / In person in Taos, NM / May 2023

A reset. A springboard. A week on a gorgeous, century-old adobe ranch surrounded by fruit trees under the Taos Mountains. We gathered 34 writers to share our vetted strategies and surprising techniques for strengthening their writing ideas. They got the behind-the-scenes dirt on our own processes and pitfalls. And they clocked some serious word-counts on their individual projects.