classes & workshops
Season 28: On Purpose
This season, we're building community on purpose — and that starts here.
Season 28's classes and workshops are an invitation to dig into your own stories with intention: to find what only you can tell, to develop the craft to tell it well, and to do it alongside a room full of people who showed up for exactly the same reason. Whether you're writing toward a performance, toward your own clarity, or toward something you can't quite name yet — there's a place for you in these rooms.
Single Day Intensive
2nd Story’s Single Day Intensive is our most popular workshop!
Led by 2nd Story Collective Members, you’ll work with a small group of story lovers and move from brainstorming and story ideation all the way through skill-building and writing.
Participants will leave the workshop with multiple story ideas, a few story starts, and a bunch of new friends.
This season we’re offering this workshop three times:
September 19, 2026, and then on January 30 and May 22, 2027
Sessions run 10 am to 4 pm, in person at our Albany Park Studio.
Cost for this workshop starts at just $30.
2nd Story Fundamentals:
Story Structures & Mapping
Do you ever get stuck figuring out what to include in your story?
Let 2nd Story help you prep and plan your next story. In this workshop, we’ll discuss strategies for getting stories started, share methods for mapping out your work, and help take your writing to the next level with some of our favorite story structures. If you feel like there must be more than “beginning, middle, and end,” this is the class for you!
Saturday, October 17, 2026 || 10 am to 1 pm || in person at our Albany Park Studio
Cost starts at $15.
2nd Story Craft Toolbox
4-Session Series || Virtual
Ready to strengthen your story skill set?
Join 2nd Story Artistic Director Amanda Delheimer and a cast of special guests for one or all four sessions to take a deep dive into the personal narrative storytelling toolbox:
February 1: “What’s the story that only I can tell?”
February 8: Understanding Scene
February 15: Time & the Narrator
February 22: You Are Your Own Editor
Sessions happen online Mondays in February 2027 from 6 - 8 pm Central Time.
Cost for each workshop starts at just $10; register for two or more sessions at the Standard or Real Cost rate, and receive 15% off all session fees.
2nd Story Fundamentals:
Comedy in Storytelling
Some stories make us laugh. Some stories make us cry. Some stories make us cry from laughing so hard.
Join some of 2nd Story’s funniest tellers to learn how to infuse your own writing with comedic elements. Led by 2nd Story Collective Members, discover how you too can bring tears of mirth to your audience’s eyes.
Saturday, February 27, 2027 || 10 am to 1 pm || in person at our Albany Park Studio
Cost starts at $15.
About Our Process
collaborative
inclusive
personal
We don't make stories in isolation, and we don't expect you to either.
Our creative process is built on group collaboration, feedback, and genuine exploration.
Collaboration isn't just a feel-good value. It's how the best stories get made.
Our classes draw on the full range of backgrounds and skill sets in the room.
We meet each student where they are, and we take seriously the expertise everyone brings.
Different experiences make different stories. That's the whole point.
We specialize in creative nonfiction and personal narrative — the stories that are closest to you.
Everyone comes to the room with their own reason for being there, and we create the space to dig deep and reach your own goals, whatever those are.