Online Workshops


Make Your Titles Do More of the Heavy Lifting (Sept 18)
$50.00

with Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

Thursday, September 18, 2-4:00 PM Eastern on Zoom 

Do you struggle with titling your work? Do you ever read titles that pull you in as a reader? Your titles can do that, too, but often they are missed opportunities—don’t let them be. In this class, we'll look at titles that work hard and offer zing and pizzazz, and then you’ll have the chance to create your own titles that entice readers and better serve your writing. We’ll use poetry titles as examples so we can cover more ground during this seminar, but everything you learn applies to prose—especially flash fiction, flash nonfiction, short stories, and personal essays. Facilitated by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood. Cost: $50. Registration is required. Note: This workshop will be recorded and shared with everyone who registers.

Prompt-Writing like Speed Dating: Prompt, Write, Next, Prompt, Write, Next (Oct 23)
$45.00

Thursday, October 23, 3-5:00 PM Eastern

If you’ve attended Let’s Write Together! with Shuly Xóchitl Cawood, you’ll recognize the format: she’ll share a piece of writing to inspire you, offer a prompt related to it, and you will have time to write. Except she’ll be offering a new piece and prompt every 6-15 minutes during this two-hour generative class. Think of it like speed dating—there’s another piece and prompt ready to inspire you just around the corner, with time for sharing at the end. Cost: $45. Registration is required. Note: This class will be recorded for those who register and cannot attend.


Let’s Write Together! with Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

Your Tuesday Lunchtime Workshop! (one hour, online, $10)

Noon to 1PM Eastern Time on ZOOM

Having a hard time finding inspiration and motivation to write? We’ll talk about a piece of writing, Shuly will give you a prompt, and then you will WRITE.

Read Shuly’s Bio

Workshops are on most Tuesdays from Noon to 1PM Eastern Time

“Shuly's ingenious prompts in her Tuesday workshops have led me into many important scenes in my novel and expanded my understanding of craft and creativity. This online community of writers is just wonderful.” —Erika Higgins Ross, winner of a 2023 Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writers Award

Let's Write Together! (Sept 23)
$10.00

"Tuesday is magic, I always get something out of it. I end up with a workable poem almost every time or the start or an idea for a flash." —P.G.

Let's Write Together! (Sept 30)
$10.00

“The uniqueness of Shuly’s selections has been as useful as the prompts themselves to expand my ideas of what craft and form can do. She has shaken out the starts of so many pieces, even when I thought I was in a writing rut. Not to mention she’s a wonderful person and talented writer and teacher. 10/10, highly recommend.” —E.M.


Enjoy this FREE workshop on October 7 in celebration of Press 53’s twentieth anniversary! Invite your writer-friends to join you.


Let's Write Together! (Oct 14)
$10.00

"I love the poems and the prompts. I always come out of the class with a draft I want to continue to develop." —L.V.

Let's Write Together! (Oct 21)
$10.00

"These workshops have been excellent, and they are exactly what I need in the middle of my busy work day." —J.B.

Let's Write Together! (Oct 28)
$10.00

About Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is the author of Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough (Press 53) and A Small Thing to Want: Stories (Press 53) and four other books: What the Fortune Teller Would Have Said: Flash Essays, winner of the 2022 Iron Horse Literary Review Prose Chapbook Competition; Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning (Mercer University Press), winner of the 2019 Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry; 52 Things I Wish I Could Have Told Myself When I Was 17 (Cimarron Books, 2018); and The Going and Goodbye: A Memoir (Platypus Press, 2017). Shuly earned her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and her writing has been published in The New York Times, Brevity, The Sun, and others. Shuly also leads writing workshops through Press 53’s High Road Fest Online, including the popular Let’s Write Together!, a one-hour lunchtime workshop at Noon Eastern on Tuesdays. Learn more at shulycawood.com