Six Week Class
Wednesdays, Oct. 29-Dec. 10, 2025 from 6:30-8:30pm EST
No class Wednesday, November 26
📍ONLINE delivered via ZOOM
Facilitated by Alli Marshall (I&A Certified)
Registration is through the Inward & Artward School of Creativity, a sister project to Story Parlor.
Venture into heart of your writing practice while engaging the Hero’s and Heroine’s Journeys as templates for personal narrative and story.
Hero’s Journeys are everywhere in our lives: Travel, adventure, illness, marriage and divorce, parenthood, big risks, love and loss. These all follow the path of Departure, Initiation, and Return outlined in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (aka the monomyth) model.
The monomyth is filled with archetypes, themes, and motifs found in ancient legends and modern films alike. They’re easy to recognize and identify with and, because they’re familiar, we can use them — and the stations of the Hero’s Journey — as a guide to create a new work.
The Heroine’s Journey, as described by Maureen Murdock in her book of the same name, offers us a metaphor and path of inquiry to explore the emotional journey that accompanies the more outward / physical Hero’s Journey.
Over the course of six weeks we’ll dive into the Hero’s Journey through the lens of personal narrative. Participants are invited to write in any genre they wish, and the workshop will include discussions, writing prompts, creative inspirations, and weekly assignments to be completed outside of the classroom.
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The Inward & Artward School of Creativity—a sister project to Story Parlor—launched in the fall of 2025 with the intention of expanding the workshops and classes offered to a broader, virtual community.
The school takes its name from a guiding philosophy: that one must go inward in order to go “artward.” Creativity, in this framework, begins with reflection, personal narrative, and an honest reckoning with the stories we carry—about ourselves, about others, and about the world. I&A helps participants explore those stories, untangle limiting beliefs, and cultivate sustainable practices that foster creative growth. The aim is not to teach a singular technique or discipline, but to provide tools and frameworks that allow individuals to discover their own pathways to expression.
Programming at I&A spans a range of offerings, from short-term workshops to extended creative facilitator trainings. These trainings are particularly impactful, equipping artists, educators, and community leaders with the skills to guide others in creative exploration. Through this work, the school cultivates a new generation of creative leaders committed to fostering inclusive, meaningful, and transformative arts experiences.
Together, Story Parlor and the I&A School of Creativity form a dynamic ecosystem of creativity aimed at dismantling the barriers and silencing that so often accompany early creative experiences, and to invite participants to reclaim creativity as an essential part of how they live. They affirm that creativity is not the province of a chosen few, but the birthright of all—a force capable of bridging divides, deepening empathy, and helping us see ourselves and one another more fully.
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A certified Inward & Artward Creative Facilitator, Alli Marshall aims to follow her curiosity and inspire connection to creativity in others.
Alli received her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College and has taught writing courses through the Great Smokies Writing Program, Flatiron Writers Room, and Revolve. She also periodically offers her immersive experience, “Speed Dating with Trees.”
Alli was named “Artist whose work pushed the boundaries of storytelling” for her multimedia project MER/made at the 2021 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. She received the named the 2018 UNC Asheville Ramsey Library Community Author Award; was selected for the 2019 Pentaculum writing and craft residency at Arrowmont; and won the 2016 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize for her short story “Catching Out,” among other honors.
Alli is the author of the novel How to Talk to Rockstars along with various self-published zines and flip books.