ONLINE The Writer's Voice: Make Your Fiction Stand Out
One-Day Workshop | Monday, February 2, 2026
9am-11am PT | 10am-12pm MT | 11am-1pm CT | 12pm-2pm ET | 1pm-3pm AT
Instructor: Lissa M. Cowan
MEMBER PRICE: $40.00
NON-MEMBER PRICE: $60.00
Every writer has a unique voice. Learning to shape and strengthen it on the page is part of great storytelling. In this short workshop, we’ll explore what “voice” means in fiction and how it differs from style, tone, and point of view.
Through brief readings, generative exercises, and group discussion, participants will learn to recognize aspects of their own voice. They’ll learn to experiment with different approaches to draw out that voice and discover how to work with it in their writing. Writers of all levels are welcome.
By the end of this workshop, participants will:
• Understand the connection between voice, style, tone, and point of view in fiction.
• Have practical strategies for recognizing and strengthening their own writer’s voice.
• Have learned exercises that encourage risk-taking and originality.
• Leave with practical tools to make their fiction stand out.
This class takes place online using Zoom.
Lissa M. Cowan is the author of Milk Fever, a historical fiction novel (Demeter Press, Toronto), and co-translator from French of a book of poetic prose called Words That Walk in the Night (Véhicule Press, Montreal). Publishers Weekly said of Milk Fever: “Cowan's debut novel invokes powerful metaphors about devouring ideas, reading people, and cherishing books as if they were human....” Kathy Page, British-Canadian writer and author of the Giller-nominated Paradise & Elsewhere, called it “a sensuous and subversive novel, set at a time when printed books were beginning to change the world.” Lissa has also written a children’s book, Adoptive Families Are Families for Keeps (Groundwork Press, Vancouver), illustrated by Stephanie Hill.
She holds an MA in English Studies from the Université de Montréal and a post graduate diploma in Writing and Editing from the University of Victoria. This laid the groundwork for her career in publishing, communications, journalism, writing, and editing. Lissa’s publishing experience at a Vancouver publishing house, where she worked with writers from concept to completed manuscript, led her to develop three novel-writing courses for the University of Calgary’s Creative Writing Certificate Program. She went on to teach hundreds of students and serve as a mentor at that university. In 2025, drawing on years of experience as a writer and writing coach, Lissa created The Unbearable Lightness of Novel Writing, an online course that guides people through the process of transforming a story idea into the foundation for a compelling novel. Read more about Lissa here.
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We are a community that thrives on support and encouragement. Based on the philosophy of "no writer left behind", the J. Michael Fay Subsidy Program is available to anyone who finds themselves in financial need but really wants or needs to participate in one our programs are classes. Click link above for more details and to apply.
