“…it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. They are made realizable through our poems that give us the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.”
—Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”
Welcome to The Dream Side
We are friends and writers who want to enter the act of creation from the dream side. Our dream is a collaboration that allows us to teach, learn, and grow together. We want to share with you the ideas, strategies, and approaches that have deepened our own writing practices, while providing opportunities to foster artistic friendships of your own. More than a writing course, The Dream Side offers a new entry into your writing practice, and encourages living creative communities. We want to invite you into the wilderness of creation and share with you the resources that will allow you to play fearlessly there.
We offer retreats and courses, both in-person and online, that create a protected space for you to take risks and generate new work, revitalize, nurture, and deepen your creative life, and help you become the writer you dream of being.
You may be an experienced writer. You may have only begun to explore this side of yourself. You might be somewhere in between. See you on The Dream Side.
Beliefs and Principles
We believe that there are as many ways to create a meaningful piece of writing as there are writers themselves. We believe that craft exists to give shape to the wildness of our dreaming. We believe that the act of writing is the act of paying attention: it is not trivial, but joyously essential. We believe that we work best entangled in the world and embedded in community. We prioritize curiosity, openness, and kindness. We practice generosity toward ourselves and others. We believe exercising our imaginations is necessary for societal change. And we are guided by playfulness and pleasure. Dreaming is hard, fun work.
Our teaching philosophy is inspired by June Jordan's Poetry for the People, Ruth Asawa’s community art engagements, Liz Lerman's “Critical Response Process,” and our own experiences as working artists and perennial students. Our offerings are unique, exploratory events that aim to inspire connection to yourself, one another, and the wider world.
“Every day is a reenactment of the creation story. We emerge from dense unspeakable material, through the shimmering power of dreaming stuff.”
—Joy Harjo, “A Postcolonial Tale”
The Dream Side is...
Meng is drawn to fiction with surprising, elegant shapes and stylish, direct sentences. She is an omnivorous reader, with tastes ranging from the documentary novels of Annie Ernaux to the fantastical worlds of Octavia Butler, an ardent admirer of poetry and a follower of Ursula K Le Guin’s “clear, clean line.” Unfortunately for her writing, she loves writing about writing (metafictions, art criticism and ars poetica, translation theory, etc). However this is fortunate for her teaching; she is often thinking about why and how we write.
Rachel is interested in the imaginative impulse that brings to being what has never existed before: whether a home-cooked meal or piece of fiction. Imagination isn’t reserved for fiction: it shapes our realities, and ultimately our world. She believes it’s imperative to practice it—ideally together. She brings her experience in space- and community-building to The Dream Side. She’s fascinated by the often contradictory foundations of art: surrender and discipline, pleasure and devotion, the mystical and practical, solitude and community.
Susanna is drawn to the connections between forms: words in a sentence, people in a city, water and land. Relationships are sites teeming with history, tension, possibility, and shape—all of which she sees as essential and thrilling elements of a written work. She’s also interested in creativity as a shifting practice of engaging with the shifting world. In her teaching, she hopes to help students cultivate their attention to that unstable world, explore interconnectedness, and move toward mystery.
As a writer and a teacher, Shruti is interested in exploring the edge between dream and reality—the world of the unconscious brought into the conscious world of language. In her own work, that’s led her to thinking about non-linear forms of storytelling. She is currently years into exploring the possibilities of the spiral as a literary form. Shruti’s background in yoga and meditation has also sparked an interest in writing as both a physical and a spiritual practice, explored through workshops that draw from the lived experience of the body.
“Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes.”
—Ursula K Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
Current Offerings
September 19–20, 2026 (online)
Rewilding Craft: A Generative Writing Retreat
October 5–November 9, 2026 (online)
The Practice of Imagination: a six-week
workshop with Rachel Khong
January 2026–December 2026 [Applications Closed]
Yes, Molecule: A 12-Month Online Novel Generator
Past Offerings
March 29–April 3, 2026 in Oregon
Green Hours: A Five-Night Retreat
August 9–10, 2025 in San Francisco
Rewilding Craft: A Generative Writing Retreat
Interested in future offerings? Subscribe to our newsletter
The Practice of Imagination
with Rachel Khong
A six-week online workshop (Zoom)
Mondays, October 5 to November 9, 2026
4 to 6 p.m. PT / 7 to 9 p.m. ET
Imagination is at the heart of fiction—yet it’s often overlooked in serious discussions of writing. There’s something elusive about it, both abstract and a little kindergarten. What is imagination, exactly? What makes for a well-imagined story? And how can we nurture our own imaginations, in order to write the fiction that is the most specific and particular to us—fiction that is original and alive?
In this six-session generative course, we’ll engage in the practice of imagination. We’ll learn to cultivate and collaborate with our own imaginations. We’ll learn to write vivid fiction that invites readers to imagine alongside us. We’ll study the craft behind well-imagined fiction from concept to imagery to structure to characterization; we’ll read the work of writers who employ their imaginations masterfully and apply those lessons to our own work. We’ll explore where our ideas come from, and learn tools for imagining our way out of mental blocks. Through in-class writing exercises, you’ll experiment with stretching yourself imaginatively; you’ll cultivate tools to exercise your own imagination and sharpen your powers of description and observation. This course is both practical and hands on, at the craft level, and zoomed out and holistic: I hope you’ll leave this course writing with greater specificity and originality, and with new imaginative practices in place.
At a time when our world feels especially hostile to individual imagination, we’ll consider its role as a tool of resistance and reinvention. Imagination isn’t just playful—it’s powerful. It’s anti-authoritarian. Our intact imaginations are necessary to creating new worlds, both on and off the page.
This class is for fiction writers at any level. This class expects your live attendance and participation. Each week, expect reading assignments, with a focus on short stories (under 20 pages), as well as timed journaling and writing prompts (30 minutes per week). Students who read the assigned materials, complete the writing exercises, and attend class regularly will get the most out of this course. You’ll have additional optional opportunities to build community with your classmates, if desired.
We’ll study how writers have used imagination to better understand and metabolize current events, and do the same in our own work. Hopefully, we’ll surprise and delight ourselves in the process.
October 5: The whys and hows of imagination
October 12: Evoking imagination in the reader
October 19: Real toads in imaginary gardens
October 26: Our world but different (reality and the speculative)
November 2: Imagination and physical space
November 9: Imagination and our lives
By taking this course, you will:
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Develop a deeper understanding of what imagination is and how to tend to your own.
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Learn practical techniques to cultivate more creativity in your busy life, and push past self-imposed limits.
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Learn the foundations of well-imagined fiction: what makes characters, concepts, and images feel alive—and tools for writing evocative fiction of your own
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Learn methods to make your fiction more vivid and original, and to encourage the reader to imagine alongside you
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Study how other writers craft compelling, unique fiction, and learn to apply their techniques to your own work
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Explore the role of imagination as a tool for personal and societal reinvention.
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Generate new writing through guided exercises that will hopefully discourage overthinking, and invite imagination
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Leave with a stronger imaginative practice that enhances your fiction
The full price for this course is $500, due upon registration. Registration will close on September 30.
Partial scholarships are available for this course. The scholarship rate is two payments of $125 (one payable at registration, the other by September 30). Please apply for a scholarship at this link: https://forms.gle/jJKu75jLmx17vQi67.
About your instructor:
RACHEL KHONG is the author of the novels Real Americans, a New York Times bestseller, and Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction. Her story collection, My Dear You, was recently published by Knopf in April 2026. From 2011 to 2016, she was an editor of Lucky Peach, a quarterly magazine of food and culture. In 2018, Rachel founded The Ruby, a work and event space for writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. With The Dream Side, Rachel has taught a variety of courses for adult students. Since 2021, she has mentored emerging writers with the Periplus Mentorship Collective. She is the summer 2026 Picador Guest Professor of Literature at the University of Leipzig, in Germany.
RECORDING: This course is conducted on Zoom and will be recorded. Recordings may capture student’s video, audio, chat messages, and shared resources, and will be shared with enrolled students in this course. Recordings from this course may also be reused in future offerings of this class, and may be shared with asynchronous students enrolled in later cohorts.
Live participation—whether through video, voice, or chat—is deeply appreciated and helps create a vibrant, dynamic class environment. It also makes it possible for The Dream Side to offer more financially accessible versions of this course in the future.
Students who prefer not to appear on video may keep cameras off, adjust their Zoom display name, or request reasonable edits. Please feel free to contact the instructor to discuss options.
CANCELLATION POLICY: We understand life happens. We charge a cancellation fee of 10% of the total course fee if you cancel your enrollment before September 30. We cannot offer refunds if you cancel after September 30, or after the course has begun.