Setting out is the hardest part of any walk, and this first step in Creative Nonfiction for Beginners makes it easier by handing you the map: the Eight Pillars that hold up every piece of great narrative nonfiction ever written.

• Step 1 of 7· The Footpath Autumn 2026· £50
• Monday 14 September · 4–6 PM London · 11 AM New York · 8 AM San Francisco · 5 PM Paris · 8:30 PM Delhi · 1 AM Sydney (next day) · 3 AM Auckland (next day)
• Live online, a recording goes to everyone

What is creative and narrative nonfiction?

In Creative Nonfiction for Beginners, you will learn that creative nonfiction is telling true stories: writing that reports the world accurately and renders it artfully, and refuses to accept that those two ambitions compete. It goes by other names — narrative nonfiction, literary nonfiction, the fourth genre — and it holds memoir, nature writing, travel writing, biography, the personal essay and cultural criticism inside the same house.

It works on a double contract. The first is with the facts: everything you assert happened, happened. The second is with the reader: you will not waste their evening. Accuracy without artistry is a report, and nobody came for a report. This class is where you learn to hold both at once.

The Eight Pillars of Narrative Nonfiction

Presence. Arc. Character. Dialogue. Voice. Language. Setting. Resonance. These are the eight elements that carry weight in true storytelling, and they are the framework the whole of The Narrative Life is built on. Every piece of nonfiction that has ever moved you was standing on them, whether or not its author could have named them. You will learn to name them.

We will take each pillar in turn — what it is, what it looks like on the page, and the single question to ask of your own writing to find out whether it is there. By the end of two hours in Creative Nonfiction for Beginners, you will have a vocabulary for something you have until now only been able to feel.

Who Creative Nonfiction for Beginners is Really For

Complete newbies. Complete beginners. Complete enthusiasts for learning. That is exactly who Creative Nonfiction for Beginners is built for. If you have never published a word, you are in the right room. If you have harboured a book idea, this will help you understand from an expert its different components. If you have written three books and cannot work out why the fourth is not moving, you are also in the right room — the diagnosis is the same, and it is usually one of eight things.

What you will leave with

• A working definition of narrative nonfiction, and where your own writing sits inside it
• The Eight Pillars, with a diagnostic question for each
• A method for reading your own drafts for what is carrying weight and what is only leaning
• A clear sense of which of the seven steps to take next

Read before: “Death of a Pig” by E.B. White (provided)

Bring: Three works of nonfiction you love from your own shelves, and one paragraph of your own writing — from any year, published or not.

Questions about Creative Nonfiction for Beginners

• Do I need any writing experience? No. This is the introductory class of the week and assumes none.
• Is this suitable if I have never taken a writing course? Yes — it is designed as a first course.
• What is the difference between narrative nonfiction and creative nonfiction? They are two names for the same form; this class uses them interchangeably.
• Do I have to attend live? No. A recording is sent to everyone who registers.
• Should I take the classes in order? Ideally, but every class stands alone and can be taken singly.

Somewhere in your life there is a true story you have not been able to tell. Not for want of material — you have the material, and you have carried it long enough to know it matters. What has been missing is the shape.

About The Footpath

Kathryn discovered the joys of footpaths when she moved to England in 2007, and they have served as significant parts of living a narrative life.

The Footpath series of masterclasses takes its name from the way a path is actually made. Nobody surveys it or lays it down; it appears because one person walks a route, and then another, until the ground itself remembers the way through. Learning to write works the same way. These seven masterclasses are seven steps along that path — each one complete in itself, each one two hours of live teaching you can take on its own, and each one facing the same direction. Walk a single step if that is what you need. Walk three. Walk all seven and you will have crossed the whole ground, from the empty desk on Monday morning to the revised page on Sunday night.

About Kathryn

Kathryn Aalto is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and passionate teacher of narrative nonfiction. Her books include The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood and Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World.

From her studio in Devon, England, she leads The Narrative Life, an international school of narrative nonfiction whose students write from six continents. She teaches live online creative or narrative nonfiction courses in memoir, nature writing, travel writing and literary nonfiction — many of her students arriving as complete beginners, with nothing but a true story they needed to tell. Her students have gone on to win national travel writing prizes and sign contracts with major publishers.

Her teaching is built on her Eight Pillars of Narrative Nonfiction — presence, arc, character, dialogue, voice, language, setting and resonance — a framework for turning real life into resonant story. She holds master’s degrees in garden history and creative nonfiction, has taught critical thinking at university level, and believes the writing life is not a talent bestowed on a few but a path anyone can walk with excellent teaching.

Explore all of Kathryn’s online creative nonfiction writing courses, masterclasses and mentoring: Online Creative Nonfiction Writing Courses | Kathryn Aalto.