In Person NOT Recorded When a reader picks a book off a shelf, they flip the pages right to your first sentence. It’s the hook of the book; it seduces your readers into the world you’ve created, and opens the doors into the depth of your characters. How many first sentences still longer in your
In Person NOT Recorded A book idea can spring up like an uncorked genie from the bottle. So let’s explore three questions you should be asking throughout the writing process to ensure you are creating meaningful characters and a deep story readers won’t want to put down.
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Are you looking for a fresh way to make money as a creative writer? Writing books for schools is an accessible (and fun!) way to become a freelance author and get your name in print. This workshop will help you decide if ‘work-for-hire’ writing is for you and wil
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Step into a world where genre divides–like those between fiction and non-fiction, or between literary and speculative fiction—fade and give way to numerous “micro genres.” Learn about the Four Act Structure and others like it that predate conflict-driven
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded The landscape of self-publishing has completely transformed since Laura Bradbury began writing and publishing her own books a decade ago. Many are lamenting the gravy train is now behind us, but Laura believes that self-publishing has in fact reached a new renaissanc
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded It can be tricky to show readers how your characters are changing inside over the duration of your story. Learn how to use setting as a window into your character’s growth and evolution as they navigate through the events unfolding around them. We’ll look
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Whether you have an agent or not, understanding your publishing contract is vital. In this session, literary agent Kaitlyn Katsoupis will go over red flags often found in contracts, as well as common clauses and how one might attempt to negotiate these. Time will be
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Point of View and Perspective are often treated like synonyms, but Perspective is the sum of multiple aspects of a character, delivered through their narration and actions, and the style in which it is told. Properly understood, a character’s worldview, experie
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Most authors start with misunderstandings about how publishing works. A huge industry has arisen to prey on writers who are unsure of the path. Author Sarah Nicolas aka literary agent Sarah Fisk will explain how publishing scams work and how writers can avoid them. A
In Person NOT Recorded Do you have a great start for a novel, but get lost or bored when you reach the middle? Do you feel that something is missing from your story? In this workshop, children’s author Saadia Faruqi will teach you how to chart a plot, make an outline, and create fully dimensio
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded So you have a novel. And you don’t want a book-long single structure, but you want it to have chapters so that it’s broken up to be easier to write, and to read. But what even is a chapter, really? What is the structure of one? Where does it begin, […]
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded No matter how good a story may be, how vivd the descriptions, how exciting the plot, if readers trip over clunky dialogue, they’ll fall out of the story and stop caring about characters who no longer seem quite real. Join Diana Gabaldon for insight into getting
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Whether you’re submitting to a publisher or an agent or whether you’re preparing to captivate the reader, opening pages are a critical part of getting readers to pick up and enjoy your story. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, brilliant beginnings re
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Now you’re finished. Or are you? Once you’ve finished that manuscript how do you make it better? What are the common mistakes novelists make and how to fix them before an agent or editor sees them. Learn Bob’s systematic approach to power editing your manuscrip
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Every novel must deal with a certain amount of routine business. Daily life can be deadly on the page but why in some novels is it rich with meaning? How does what’s ordinary become suffused with significance? Word magic partly explains it but not completely. This
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Whether you’re describing your own tiny corner of this planet, delving into the past, imagining the future, or building a fantasy world from scratch, you will have to go through a process of educating the reader until the foreign becomes familiar. In this workshop,
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded This class looks at what keeps people from writing. This is less about problems with the story and more about all the external things. It’ll cover environmental factors, mental health, and tricks for pushing past the things that are keeping you from writing.
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Agents, editors, and readers repeatedly declare that the single most important and elusive thing they look for in writing is voice. The other ubiquitously acknowledged fact is that mastering deep POV is the way to make your writing not only more immersive but also mo
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded Some writers are pantsers who fly by the seat of their pants after flinging their characters onto a blank page, while others are plotters who carefully outline their stories before they dive in. But what if you’re not either? What if your mind feeds you stray bits
In Person, Virtual, and Recorded When she started to learn about screenwriting, novelist Sonya Lalli immediately began to see the ways in which screenwriting tricks could make any kind of fiction stronger. Join her to dig into what writers of fiction can learn from TV and film to elevate their writi