Welcome to SPACE, our adult continuing education program which offers interactive monthly courses for personal enrichment! Learn more here.
Sparrow F. Alden
Signum Clubs Preceptor
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Signum MA Faculty
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Signum Tutorials Program
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SPACE Preceptor
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SPACE Team
Encourager of Stories
Sparrow encourages seedling stories to grow and flourish through the Creative Writing modules of SPACE. As a precepting professor in the Graduate School, she loves to facilitate students' exploration of the world's finest tales. She enjoys creating her own works as well, from high fantasy and paranormal novellas to the ongoing romantic comedy of life.
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Current and Upcoming Modules
August 2025
December 2025
February 2026
Academic Writing, Research & Scholarly Publishing Tutorials
[ST]
Support Preceptor
Creative Writing & Worldbuilding Tutorials
[ST]
(4 Sections)
Language Learning & Philology Tutorials
[ST]
Support Preceptor
March 2026
April 2026
Creative Writing:
Weekend Intensive
Intensive
May 2026
July 2026
Highlighted Modules
All Modules
A Snapshot with Poetry: Writing Haiku
Mixed Lecture/Discussion Low intensity
Unlock profound imagery and meaning in just a few words. This module explores the timeless art of haiku, blending theory with live practice. Each week, dive into the essence of the shortest form of poetry, from its core principles and spiritual roots with a special guest scholar, to its classic and…
Becoming A Writer Series
Mixed Lecture/Discussion Medium intensity
This two-module series introduces friends who are ready to try writing to some tools of the craft. Nearly a century ago, Dorothea Brande wrote Becoming a Writer — a guide to discovering writing that really hasn’t been outdone since! We use Brande’s guidance, journaling, writing experiments, and w…
Creative Writing: Oral Storytelling
Discussion-based Medium intensity
Storytelling might just be our oldest art, crossing time, cultures, and continents. Crafting a story suitable for telling demands a heightened awareness of audience, medium, and meaning. Telling a story requires fluidity in a register both intimate and stylized. We'll create, practice, and tell our…
Creative Writing: Weekend Intensive
Discussion-based High intensity
A Feast of Writing!
In one weekend, we're going to celebrate creativity by attempting a complete short story, novelette, or novella! Our format will include SPACE class sessions, WriterSpace focused writing time in excellent company, Bandersnatch Breakout room for talking about our cr…
Creative Writing: Weekend Retreat
Discussion-based High intensity
Write Our Hearts
Come for gentle writing. Introspection. Self expression in a circle of caring and community. Come gather virtually in the Cottage in the Woods with Sparrow: she literally wants us to prep food ahead and get away from the family and the dishes for forty eight hours to …
Creative Writing: Writing for Children
Discussion-based Medium intensity
What makes a good children’s story? We’re going to address chapter books, cultural stories, and learning tales all through a lens of moral, cultural, and spiritual human development. Trying our hands at these forms should lead us to a nice folder full of works-in-progress at the end of the month. T…
Creative Writing: Long Project Preparation
Mixed Lecture/Discussion High intensity
Well-prepared writers enjoy more completion success! We will build worlds, plan character arcs, and try to define the bones of our stories during a month of glorious sub-creation! When you declare your intentions to the group, that act of bravery alone adds momentum to your writing efforts after th…
Creative Writing: One Month Story
Mixed Lecture/Discussion High intensity
We will walk through a complete project from pre-writing through writing, revising, editing, (revising, revising, revising), proofreading, and talking about publication options. Are you interested in finally getting down that memoir of your childhood? making a storybook for your grands? turning tha…
Creative Writing: Slow Workshop
Discussion-based Medium intensity
This Collaborative Feedback-based peer workshop experience extends over two months, allowing the luxury of more time to read and comment on one another’s work. The cost is one token, the eight hours of class time are simply spread out.
We will meet to blend learning, discussion, and playi…
Creative Writing: Workshop
Discussion-based High intensity
We will meet to blend learning, discussion, and playing games with reading, appreciating, and commenting on one another’s work as it is submitted for peer review. Writers are encouraged—but never required—to submit new pieces in any state of draftiness or readiness up to 2,000 words each week for p…
Creative Writing: Writing the Hero
Discussion-based Medium intensity
We need good tales of good people making heroic choices. Whether we write memoir, pure fiction, or a what-if-it-had-ended-well personal speculations, this module is about creating the characters whom we can admire, trust, emulate, and become. Writing these short scenes during difficult times balanc…
Fairy Tales: An Adventure from the Writer's Perspective
Mixed Lecture/Discussion Medium intensity
Come explore Fairy Tales from the inside! In the first meeting each week Pilar Barrera will lift up a Fairy Tale technique, character archetype, or trope. We'll discuss the story at hand and how that story technique makes meaning. Then, students try their own hands at that technique! What do we …
Signum Classics: Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales for Creative Writers
Mixed Lecture/Discussion High intensity
Fairy Tales enchant us; they remind us to take a fresh view on daily life; and while many Andersen's tales are filled with sorrow, their beautiful and vivid imagery never ceases to amaze us. We will examine the works of Hans Christian Andersen from the perspective of creative writers, learning from…
The Andre Norton Nebula Award
Mixed Lecture/Discussion Medium intensity
Join Dr. Sara Brown and Sparrow Alden as they read their way through the winners and nominees of the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction. How do these books speak to their special audience? What do they reflect about changing society? How do they build or break down t…
Writers' Workshop: Storycrafting with the “Mutinous Crew” of Ursula K. Le Guin
Discussion-based Medium intensity
What are the tools of the writer’s craft, and how can we sharpen them? In this module, we will learn about the writer’s toolkit through guided writing exercises and group discussion. We will use exercises from Ursula K Le Guin’s book Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of…
Writing Your Memoir
Discussion-based Medium intensity
Your story is unique. Do you want to set it down on paper for yourself? For your family? No other person has accumulated your experiences; no other person has had your potential, learning, drive, disappointments, challenges, triumphs, and quiet joys. We'll explore a variety of media and forms for m…
Year of the Novel: Creative Writing Series Non-Sequential Series
Discussion-based High intensity
Are you ready for an adventure in writing? The Year of the Novel provides support, in depth practice of the writing craft, and encouraging feedback for your story (even if it's not a novel). One cluster of modules is for Seedling Stories, just in their beginning stages; one is for Sapling Stories…
- Creative Writing: Character & Voice (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Plot & Structure (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Setting & Worldbuilding (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Workshop (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Anatomy of a Scene (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Emotional Stakes (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Discovering Novel Revision (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Workshop (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: The Different Body Problem (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Late-Stage Revisions (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Tree Workshop (Year of the Novel)
- Creative Writing: Author Career Thinking and Publishing Paths (Year of the Novel)