The Life Stories Workshop:
The Queer Edition

A memoir-writing workshop for LGBTQIA+ folks with stories in their hearts

Is your life full of stories waiting to be told?

What if there was an LGBTQIA+ space specifically created to write the full spectrum of queer memoir? Beautiful coming out tales, heartbreak, family, loss, celebration, transitioning — all the things.

Maybe you are just tiptoeing into your own queer journey, or maybe you’ve lived decades out and proud. Maybe you consider yourself a writer, or maybe that identity feels a million miles away. You are welcome here.

We’ll use short writing exercises, supportive feedback, and lots of sharing to shake away our blocks, find our writing voices, and move some of our stories onto the page.

Here’s how it works:

This class follows Firefly’s “Life Stories Workshop” format, but unlike the other sessions, this time only people who identify as LGBTQIA+ are invited to join. We’ll work from two main tools: memoir writing workbooks (PDFs) and group sessions.

Workbooks are 25-ish page booklets with a theme to write about, a bunch of ideas about how to start, and a writing tip that you can take or leave. They aim to be generative and open invitations to express our memories in new ways.

Group sessions will start with a little warmup write to get us moving, and then they’ll focus on hearing and talking about the pieces written.

These groups are kept small to ensure your work gets the time and space it needs. You can expect to leave each session with warm and supportive feedback and conversation to fuel your next steps.

We have an open version of this workshop for people of any sexuality, but this one is reserved for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, asexual, gender non-binary, or any other shade of the queer rainbow.

- Identify as LGBTQIA+.
- Want to write about their lives but aren’t sure where to begin.
- Want to integrate creative expression more deeply into their lives. (Most of your writing for this class happens between sessions.)
- Love the idea of a set of creative dates with themselves and a small group of others.
- Are motivated by the idea of sharing their writing in supportive settings.
- Feel aligned with our fundamental beliefs.
- One finished story per class, with more pieces started.
- Writing tools and practices to carry you forward.
- Writing tricks and warmups you can use anytime.
- Countless ideas about where your writing might go next.
- A clear sense of the story you want to write and the voice you want to write it in.
- Writing peers whose work you are invested in.
- Creative momentum.
- Critique or competition. We’re all about the love.
- Strict rules or guidelines on what memoir writing is or should look like.
- Pressure to write things you don’t want to write. We go where the joy is.

Details for Fall 2026:

On Zoom with Nina (she/her)

7 Tuesday evenings, every other week
7–9:30pm ET
September 15–December 8

Cost:

The Total Workshop Fee is $575 plus applicable taxes. If you prefer, you can pay in 4 monthly installments of $143.75. There is no extra fee for this service.

Kindly note that since this workshop is for a small group, deposits are non-refundable. One week before the workshop starts, the full fee is non-refundable. See our financial policies here.

If money is a barrier, check out our financial aid program, which we open up four times a year.

If you don’t have a credit card, let us know and we’ll gladly find a way to make it work.