The Work Room
Online Workshops, Craft Seminars, + Manuscript Consultations
A program of The Shipman Agency
The Work Room was created in response to the pandemic. It has been so successful it is now a permanent feature of The Shipman Agency’s offerings. Here you will find opportunities to deepen your craft or get your manuscript in shape while studying with some of the world’s leading authors, many of whom offer classes exclusively through The Work Room. Students receive a graduate-level experience that will challenge their assumptions and broaden the scope of what their work can do.
All classes and consultations are virtual and held live over Zoom. Information on how to access classes will be sent two days before the start date. In the case of absences or time differences, all our classes are recorded. Got a question? Find our FAQ page below. For any other Work Room-related inquires, please contact our program manager Kate Mabus, kate@theshipmanagency.com.
Faculty: Eula Biss, Alexander Chee, Kavita Das, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Matthew Gavin Frank, Ru Freeman, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Jenny Johnson, Dorothea Lasky, Greg Mania, Isle McElroy, David McLoghlin, Maaza Mengiste, John Cameron Mitchell, Saretta Morgan, Daniel Jose Older, Jess Row, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Amanda Stern, Katherine Vaz, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Michael Zapata.
Manuscript Consultations: Samiya Bashir, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Sumita Chakraborty, Jos Charles, Elaine Hsieh Chou, Anna Clark, Kavita Das, Michael Dickman, Ru Freeman, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Dorothea Lasky, Rickey Laurentiis, Greg Mania, Sarah Manguso, AX Mina, Jamie Quatro, Khadijah Queen, Kristin Radtke, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Ayşegül Savaş, Elissa Schappell, Sonia Shah, Danniel Schoonebeek, David Shields, Rob Spillman, Meredith Talusan, David L. Ulin, Sunil Yapa
Books by Work Room faculty, and new and forthcoming books from our clients, are available on our affiliate page at Bookshop.org.
ALL GENRES
1 Session: Sunday, July 27
12:00-3:00pm ET
Isle McElroy
Isle McElroy is the author of the novels People Collide and The Atmospherians. They wrote the Best Sex I've Ever Read Column for Vulture and taught a class on Desire and Sex Writing at the Sarah Lawrence MFA program. They regularly write about sex and relationships for magazines like The Cut, Elle, and The Atlantic.
Every couple months, someone online asks a predictable question: What is the point of including sex scenes in books and TV and movies? Normally, these questions are asked in bad faith. They're meant to elicit engagement. But beneath the clickbait is a serious question for art: Why is it sometimes necessary to include sex in a narrative? The truth is, many books would be improved if stripped of their poorly-written sex scenes. However, when a sex scene succeeds, it can serve as one of the most profound and memorable passages in a book. The best sex scenes don't merely capture the physicality of the moment, they reveal characters' unspoken longings, they make readers laugh, and, on the best occasions, they're as engaging as the act itself.
In this class, we will study work from writers like Garth Greenwell, Raven Leilani, Anne Carson, Susan Choi, K. Patrick, and others to deepen our understanding of how sex scenes work to develop character, heighten tension, and advance plot in fiction. Students will also complete short craft exercises.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn how to write a sex scene in your own work
Gain a deeper understanding of what makes a sex scene succeed
See the impact of sex scenes on character and plot.
This course has 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, July 20.
3 Sessions: Mondays, July 28 - August 11
6:30-9:00pm ET
plus optional weekly office hours
Saretta Morgan
Saretta Morgan is the author of multiple chapbooks and the poetry collection, Alt-Nature (Coffee House Press, 2024), which received a Southwest Book Award, and was named a finalist for the Publishing Triangle's Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Working across disciplines, she produces texts and interactive text-based experiences that prompt explorations of physical and social connection, drawing attention to how languages emerge through the practice of everyday life. Her work has been supported by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Beacon, Tucson MoCA, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, Phoenix Art Museum, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Jerome Foundation, Black Mountain Institute, and the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University, among others. She currently lives in Atlanta, where she trains in Capoeira and wild bird rehabilitation.
These three weeks are an invitation to slow down and listen for the critical knowledge that arrives through your body, even when your capacity to remain present feels thoroughly diminished. Whether you’re looking for a structure to help you through your summer reading list, or support in preparing for the academic year ahead, this generative and reflection-based course offers an intimate and exploratory space to practice receiving and building language when the world around you is crowding in.
Taking inspiration from the (intentionally) somatic practices of multi-colonized and diasporic writers; from critical disability studies; and from the physical material that structures your lived experience, you’ll develop rigorous, individualized reading strategies that are grounded in playfulness and self-discovery.
Workshop Highlights:
Redefine what it means for you to “sustain attention” through creative annotation exercises, guided meditations/visualizations, and procedural prompts.
Reconnect to your creative power by identifying where (in your body, in time/space) reading happens for you, and what support you might offer yourself when language (your own and that of others) feels inaccessible.
Recharge through weekly drop-in office hours designed to help you work through creative issues.
This course has 3 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, July 20.
4 Sessions: Saturdays, August 2, 9, 16, 23
9:00-11:0am ET
Ru Freeman
Ru Freeman is an award-winning writer, poet, and activist who teaches has taught internationally for over 15 years, and whose creative and political work has appeared internationally, including in the UK Guardian,The Boston Globe, and the New York Times. Describing her work, Colum McCann writes, “Ru Freeman captures the moment when the thorn enters the skin, and then she leads us forward towards healing. One of the best and most necessary voices of our times.” She is the author of the essay collection Bon Courage: Essays on Inheritance, Citizenship & A Creative Life, the short story collection, Sleeping Alone, and the novels A Disobedient Girl, and On Sal Mal Lane, a NYT Editor’s Choice Book. Her novels have been translated into multiple languages including Italian, French, Turkish, Dutch, and Chinese. She is editor of the anthology, Extraordinary Rendition: (American) Writers on Palestine, and Indivisible: Global Leaders on Shared Security. Her poetry appears in Poetry, Poetry Northwest and American Poetry Review, among others. She holds an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University, an MA in labor studies, researching female migrant labor in the countries of Kuwait, the U.A.E, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is a contributing editorial board member of the Asian American Literary Review, and a fellow of the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, theVirginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Lannan Foundation.
In the preface to her novel, LOVE, Toni Morrison writes, “People tell me that I am always writing about love. I nod, yes, but it isn’t true—not exactly. In fact, I’m always writing about betrayal. Love is the weather. Betrayal is the lightning that cleaves and reveals it.” Is all fiction, at some level, about love and betrayal? How is love—in all its nuance and complexity—elevated beyond the ordinary in literature, and how do we translate passion itself into prose? We will read selections from a range of writers, and examine the trammeled relationships that are shaped by love; love between parents and children, friends, siblings, lovers, and the divine, as well as love of country and place. Along the way, you will write and have the opportunity to share your work in class.
Each 2 hour class will be formatted the same way:
Open Q&A (15 minutes)
Discussion of readings (30 minutes)
Writing to prompts (15 minutes)
Open read of your work & responses (60 minutes)
At the end of this series of classes, students will:
Have a portfolio of writing to continue to work on
Discover the best shape for their own writing on the subject of love
Receive critical feedback on their own work
This course has 2 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Thursday, July 24.
1 Session: Sunday, August 3
12:00-3:00pm ET
Isle McElroy
Isle McElroy is the author of the novels People Collide and The Atmospherians. Their criticism and essays regularly appear in Vulture, The Atlantic, Esquire, and elsewhere. They are the 2025-26 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute and they currently teach in the MFA Program at Sarah Lawrence College.
“Misery is a potent aid in obliterating memory, and shame in distorting it,” Deborah Eisenberg writes in her introduction to Gregor von Rezzori’s Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, a disconcerting collection of stories centered on the moral and political compromises of everyday people that laid the foundation for the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Eisenberg’s statement reveals how willingly a person might aid in atrocity, both in the moment and in hindsight. In her short fiction, she exposes the countless ways that Americans have shielded themselves from confronting abuses performed in the name of their country. Eisenberg’s ongoing critique of everyday complicity in American life feels especially potent now. Her literary gaze, ruthless in its honesty, offers a vision of how a writer might engage with our current political climate–and the preceding decades that created this climate. In this course, we will explore the work of writers like Eisenberg, Helen DeWitt, John Keene, and others to look at strategies for both exposing and undermining complicity in works of fiction. Writers will have an opportunity to complete a short exercise in class.
Workshop Highlights:
To gain a deeper understanding of honesty in fiction and nonfiction.
To explore how writers use genre to convey literary and political truths.
To learn strategies for writing more honestly in one's own work.
This course has 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, July 27.
2 Sessions: Saturday + Sunday, August 9 + 10
3:00-4:30pm ET
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell wrote/directed/starred in the rock musical and film Hedwig and the Angry Inch for which he won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, a Special Tony for his performance, an Obie Award, the Best Director award at the 2001 Sundance Festival and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, along with 25 other awards. He wrote/directed the improv-based film Shortbus (2006); directed the film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole (2010) which garnered a Best Actress Oscar nom for Nicole Kidman; and co-wrote and directed the YA punk romance How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017) starring Kidman and Elle Fanning. He executive-produced (with Gus Van Sant) Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (2004) which was the most decorated documentary of 2004.
John spills his guts on what he's learned as a multi-hyphenate polymathematical writer (drama, screen and prose), director, performer, songwriter, podcaster, memoirist, producer and DJ in his 42 years of storytelling. He will discuss different forms of approaching narrative writing (autobiographical, adaptations of pre-existing texts, stories based on real-life figures, improv-based development as well as stimulate cross-format creation. Eg, could your novel begin as an audio-based format (like a fictional podcast), could dialogue in a novel or play be improved through improvisation with actors? He'll also get into the challenges of telling a story in a culture that asks, "Is that your story to tell?" When does well-intentioned identity politics come into conflict with an author's informed imagination of characters and settings that they have less personal experience with. He will also encourage input and discussion with participants in the masterclasses.
John’s recent Op-Ed in The New York Times captures the spirit of this class.
This course has 1 full and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Thursday, July 31.
1 Session: Wednesday, August 27
7:00-9:00pm ET
Michael Zapata
This master class is taught by award winning novelist and editor Michael Zapata, author of The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, among others, and founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine. He is the recent recipient of the Meier Foundation Artist Achievement Award. In Axios, Michael Zapata’s work was called an important “part of the growing Latino-futurism movement.”
The traditional workshop has always felt particularly overbearing and even colonial to me in its corrective, hierarchal, and prescriptive formats. Instead, I’ve always believed that a workshop is an artistic space for writers who are in the process of making.
This is a class for both instructors and writers who are looking for a new way to engage the writing workshop. We'll review and practice the Socratic Method and Feminist process, both of which center the writer and allow for equity, inquiry, and discovery. The Socratic Method in workshop uses lines of inquiry to address the complexities, mysteries, and realities of our work rather than eliciting prescriptions or assertions. The Feminist Process first emerged as a set of practices in organizing and women-only groups in the 1970s where people began to identify the roles personal power dynamics played in dialogue and decision making. Over time, others unified these practices into their work in antiracism and decolonization movements. This course will help you move towards a more rewarding and equitable writing workshop to bring out into the world.
Workshop Highlights:
A deeper understanding of new ways to approach the writing workshop.
Learn how to both participate and run writing workshops that treat the workshop itself as an artistic space.
This master class includes a Q&A
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Monday, August 18.
Fiction
2 Sessions: Wednesdays, June 11 + 18
7:00-9:00pm ET
Jess Row
Jess Row is an award-winning novelist and nonfiction writer who's published three collections of short stories: The Train to Lo Wu, Nobody Ever Gets Lost, and Storyknife (forthcoming from Ecco in 2026). His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Granta, Ploughshares, n+1, Conjunctions, Tin House, and three times in the Best American Short Stories. His other books include the novels Your Face in Mine and The New Earth, and the essay collection White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination.
How do you fit a complete story, a human drama, a beginning-middle-and-end, into a text that might be 2000 or 5000 words long? What makes a great short story feel so much longer, fuller, and richer than its length would imply? In this class I'll introduce a simple technique I've been teaching students for 25 years: a way to find the right point of entry into your story and exit out of it. I think it's the key to understanding how stories create meaningful drama in tiny spaces, or as Grace Paley put it, "enormous changes at the last minute."
In the first class we'll start off by reading some very short stories (no advance reading necessary) and talk about the principle of fulcrum and how to find it. Then we'll do some preliminary exercises and I'll give you a homework assignment. In the second class we'll listen to one another's stories and I'll give tips on how to build your story-writing skills with more reading and writing.
Workshop Highlights:
For beginners: this is your introduction to the technique that makes a short story happen.
For practicing writers: the fulcrum is a skill you can adapt to any kind of short story, conventional, genre, or wildly avant-garde.
For anyone who loves short stories: appreciating the fulcrum will give you new insight into how great story writers do what they do.
This class has 2 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Wednesday, June 4.
2 Sessions: Sundays, June 15 + 22
1:00-3:00pm ET
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
Called a “twisted, twisty genius” by Vulture and “ferociously intelligent” by The New York Times, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi is a PEN Faulkner and Radcliffe award winning author of three novels. This two-part class is open to writers with any level of experience.
Confronting taboo is a fundamental aspect of powerful storytelling and an invitation to write our bravest, most honest work; but doing so requires us to engage those parts of ourselves and our characters that make us uneasy, restless, and fearful. In this two-part craft seminar, you will be guided through readings, exercises, and small group discussions designed to help you navigate the discomfort that taboo elicits when you are sitting before the page. The goal of the seminar is to expand the limits of your thinking and your craft and to develop the courage to ask: Who am I? And, What do I truly want to say? PDFs of readings will be provided in advance.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn to identify emotional obstacles that are blocking the work
Learn strategies for working with fear
Develop characters with complex psyches
Develop strategies for engaging with place, space, and landscape to deepen character interiority
1 Session: Wednesday, June 25
6:00-8:00pm ET
Michael Zapata
This master class is taught by award winning novelist and editor Michael Zapata, author of The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, among others, and founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine. He is the recent recipient of the Meier Foundation Artist Achievement Award. In Axios, Michael Zapata’s work was called an important “part of the growing Latino-futurism movement.”
As the musician, actor, painter, and all-around artistic vagabond John Lurie once said about making art: “See what it gives you.” In this class, we’ll go through and discuss the process of revision for publication. We’ll cover and discuss wholeness, cohesiveness, exactitude, clarity, excavating material, and, perhaps most importantly, staying true to your artistic visions and the possibilities they may still contain. Additionally, we’ll consider and discuss what various editors have to say about the endlessly exciting, if occasionally sticky, matter of putting your work out into the world. The class will also include a Q&A.
Workshop Highlights:
A deeper understanding of revision and publication with your artistic vision in mind
Learn to revise both conceptually and materially
This master class includes a Q&A
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, June 13.
2 Sessions: Saturday + Sunday, June 28 + 29
12:00-2:00pm ET
Maaza Mengiste
Maaza Mengiste is the author of two books of historical fiction. The Shadow King (2019) was finalist for the 2020 Booker Prize, and Beneath the Lion's Gaze (2010) was named one of the top ten contemporary African books by the Guardian. She has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fulbright Scholars Program, as well as a Creative Capital Award, and an Edgar Award for Best Short Story, among others.
This is a class for those who might have a manuscript and are struggling with the balance of history and fiction. This is also a class for those who are just beginning. Come with a project in mind and be ready to write in class based on prompts.
Saint Augustine says that the dead are invisible but they are not absent. In this historical fiction seminar, we will imagine these restless dead who make a claim on our present lives. Guided by personal and collective memories, as well as myths, archival research, and family lore, this class will begin to name the shape of the absence that the dead leave behind. We will learn how to use research - in archives, in memory, and in family stories - to develop a story. In the hours we have together, I will help you learn how to look at that invisible terrain of the past and see it teeming with life. And how to write it. We will discuss how to balance fact with fiction, and learn the most efficient and effective ways to research. This will be a course helping you move towards a written scene as a way to gain the skills to develop your historical fiction project.
Workshop Highlights:
Understanding how fictional representations of history can provide insight about the present
How to research when the world seems filled with information
Learning to balance between research and writing
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, June 20.
2 Sessions: Saturday + Sunday, July 19 + 20
2:00-3:30pm ET
Katherine Vaz
Vaz is the only Portuguese American with work recorded by the Library of Congress (Hispanic Division) when her novel Saudade appeared. She represented the U.S. on the Presidential Delegation for the World's Fair/Expo98 in Lisbon. Her work centers on the Luso experience in the U.S., and her latest novel, Above the Salt, about Madeiran refugees in Illinois, was a People Magazine Book of the Week, a Top 15 from Good Morning, America, and Goodreads Top Pick. Her novel Mariana, in script development for Harrison Productions, sold in six languages and was a Top Thirty International Book of 1998; her collection Fado and Other Stories won the Drue Heinz LIterature Prize, and Our Lady of the Artichokes won the Prairie Schooner Award. She was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Portuguese Americans of All Time and has taught at Harvard, the University of California at Davis, Baruch College, and other places.
Curious about Portugal’s exploding popularity? Planning your first trip? Join me for a celebration of some of the most exciting Portuguese authors, starting with close readings of FERNANDO PESSOA, one of the world’s greatest modernist poets. We’ll continue the trail with ANTONIO TABUCCHI’s Requiem, a novella that depicts a narrator pursuing a Pessoa-like figure through fascist Lisbon…a fun, offbeat city walk that writers can replicate.
We’ll share how this small nation created immortal, global literature in defiance of authoritarianism with a few pages from Nobel laureate JOSÉ SARAMAGO, ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES, LÍDIA JORGE, and MARIA TERESA HORTA, who narrowly escaped prison and will inspire you with how one voice defied censorship.
We’ll conclude with vibrant new voices on the scene that move away from the past and look at poverty, displacement, and other modern issues: GONÇALO TAVARES, SUSANA MOREIRA MARQUES, JOEL NETO, and JOÃO DE MELO. We’ll enjoy fado music and play a Pessoa Heteronym Game. Read nothing, a little, a lot, or all of it; we’ll combine lecture and discussion. Those who know nothing about Portugal are especially welcome! Buy Requiem on your own, (or just listen to my description of it in class), and there’ll be a packet of excerpts. BONUS HANDOUT: A Writer’s Special Guide to Lisbon (including a pinpointing of Saramago’s favorite table at his favorite restaurant and details about a Pessoa Escape the Room game).
Workshop Highlights:
Part-lecture, part-discussion; just drop in if you're curious, or read everything!
Feeling defeated as an artist by the state of the world? I guarantee these authors will exhilarate you.
Go to Lisbon with a special writer's-eye-view of the city. Perfect if you know NOTHING about these authors and have never heard of Pessoa. If you've heard of him or the others, you'll get to expand your appreciation.
2 Sessions: Wednesdays, July 23 + 30
6:00-8:00pm ET
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, instructor at Randolph College Low-Res MFA program, author of three New York Times Editor's Choice books. This class is for beginning and intermediate writers.
Summer Novel Seminar. Are you trying to write a book? Looking for professional advice on how to improve your craft? Need a better understanding of how publishing works? In these two classes, we'll be covering all aspects of novel writing including finding a compelling topic, choosing the right protagonist, refining setting, focusing your research, revising and completing the project, finding an agent, and picking the best publisher for your book.
The classes will be primarily lecture, but will include question and answer sessions as well as light generative work. Each session will be approximately 90 minutes.
Workshop Highlights:
Attendees will learn how to write a novel.
Attendees will learn how to refine their concept.
Attendees will learn how to find an agent/editor.
1 Session: Saturday, July 26
2:00-4:00pm ET
Daniel José Older
Daniel José Older, a lead story architect for Star Wars: The High Republic, is the New York Times best-selling author of many comics and twenty books, including the Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which was named one of the best fantasy books of all time by TIME magazine and one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for numerous others. Daniel has taught at VONA, VCFA, Antioch, Grub Street, and many other sites.
The common understanding of worldbuilding positions it mainly as a skill for sci-fi/fantasy writers. The truth is that every story — whether a picture book, memoir, history, or contemporary novel — demands that we put as much care, craft, and analysis into the creation of its world as we do for its characters. We ignore worldbuilding at the cost of great storytelling.
In this course, we will begin with a working definition that takes us beyond the simplicity of "setting." We'll place the always political act of contextualization into a deeper dialogue with the other elements of story. We'll build dynamic, living worlds and learn how to weave them through the larger narrative. Here, we understand place to be a crossroads, always. The ever-shifting dynamics of time, power, and spirit meld with the movements of people at these intersections, and that's what breathes life into them.
This class is for everyone, all experience levels welcome.
Workshop Highlights:
the foundational nuts and bolts of worldbuilding, and why it's for everyone.
going deeper: a place is meaningless without a power analysis.
how to put settings in conversation with other narrative fundamentals and the secret heart of your story.
This course has 1 full scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Wednesday, July 16.
2 Sessions: Thursdays, August 14 + 21
7:00-8:30pm ET
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Nicole Dennis-Benn is an award-winning novelist whose books place working-class Jamaicans, especially women and queer folk, at the center of the universal human experience. Her debut novel, HERE COMES THE SUN, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016 and was recently listed as a New York Times Most Notable Book of the decade. PATSY, her second novel, was a Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick and a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and was named best book of the year by TIME, Oprah, People, NPR, among others. Nicole was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Pen/Faulkner Award in Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award Fiction Prize. Her highly anticipated third novel, acquired by Random House, is forthcoming.
How much research do we need to get it right? How do we discern how much factual details to incorporate into a story without weighing it down? When do we give ourselves creative license? This course is for anyone who has those questions.
We'll discuss selected works and supplemental readings to aid our discussions on technique/craft in relation to shaping your story. Excerpts of other books and stories will be listed as we go along to better aid your individual storytelling process.
Workshop Highlights:
How much research do we need to get it right?
How do we discern how much factual details to incorporate into a story without weighing it down?
When do we give ourselves creative license?
NonFiction
1 Session: Saturday, June 21
1:00-2:30pm ET
Matthew Gavin Frank
Matthew Gavin Frank is the author, most recently, of the nonfiction book, SUBMERSED: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines, which has been described as "An exquisite, lyrical foray into the world of deep-sea divers, the obsession and madness that oceans inspire in us, and the story of submarine inventor Peter Madsen’s murder of journalist Kim Wall—a captivating blend of literary prose, science writing, and true crime." Frank is also the author of the nonfiction books Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast, Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo, as well as the poetry books The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop. His work has appeared in Harper's, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Guernica, The New Republic, Iowa Review, Salon, Conjunctions, The Believer, and the Best Travel Writing and Best Food Writing anthologies. He’s a professor of creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Northern Michigan University, where he is also the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of the literary magazine, Passages North.
“In my forthcoming book, Submersed, I did not plan to write about a real-life murder. I wanted to engage the eccentric micro-community of DIY submersible enthusiasts, and to scratch at their obsessions and their actions for some kind of larger—if elusive or illusory—meaning; some kind of sly microcosmic comment on the human condition and on human longing. But, in my research, I kept bumping up against violence, misogyny, and murder. I couldn’t help but confront and interrogate the inflection points at which a sense of wonder sours into something more malign. When and why and how does the compulsion to sink to depth uncannily begin to dovetail with darker, more threatening traits? What is it with my own malign and fraught compulsion to sink to these depths, the ethics of inquiring into and interacting with—in book form and other art forms—real-life atrocity? This lecture will engage with my experience in navigating such questions while crafting Submersed, as well as with the voices of various writers and critics on the fraught nature of the “true crime” sub-genre of creative nonfiction. Q&A to follow.”
Workshop Highlights:
A frank discussion of the interaction between research and speculation in creative nonfiction, and the "true crime" sub-genre.
A behind-the-scenes breakdown of the author's research process.
An opportunity to ask the author anything about the lecture's themes, and/or about the writing and publishing process.
8 Sessions: Tuesdays, July 1 - August 19
7:00-9:00pm ET
Greg Mania
This generator is taught by Greg Mania, author of the memoir, Born to Be Public, which has been named a best book of 2020 by NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Rail, Largehearted Boy, and was a 2020 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Humor. He is currently working on his debut novel.
So, you have an idea for a book. Maybe you even already wrote it! Either way, you are ready for the next step. Does the thought of writing a book proposal for your nonfiction project make you want to light no fewer than 14 lavender-scented candles and lie in the dark for three days straight? You’re not alone! But after having written three book proposals, I promise you it’s not as daunting as it seems.
In order to demystify this seemingly overwhelming task, I’m thrilled to offer the Book Proposal Generator. Beginning with an overview of the anatomy of the book proposal by looking at several different examples, this generator will be broken up into eight weekly sessions. Each week, we will be discussing and going over one element of the book proposal in detail. At the end of each session, students will be assigned to complete a draft of the section discussed, which is to be handed in the following Friday, no later than 8 p.m. Students will receive peer and instructor feedback in class the following day, after which the next section of the book proposal will discussed and assigned to complete for the following week. By the final session, each student will have a complete book proposal, and will be ready to take the next step on the path to publication.
Workshop Highlights:
Students will receive several different examples of proposals that have successfully sold to use as reference when working on their own.
Students will receive extensive individual feedback on their own proposals from course instructor that will be emailed to them each week.
Each student will leave this course with a complete book proposal, ready to take the next step on the path to publication.
This workshop has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Tuesday, June 24.
8 Sessions: Saturdays, July 5 - August 23
12:00-2:00pm ET
Greg Mania
This generator is taught by Greg Mania, author of the memoir, Born to Be Public, which has been named a best book of 2020 by NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Rail, Largehearted Boy, and was a 2020 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Humor. He is currently working on his debut novel.
So, you have an idea for a book. Maybe you even already wrote it! Either way, you are ready for the next step. Does the thought of writing a book proposal for your nonfiction project make you want to light no fewer than 14 lavender-scented candles and lie in the dark for three days straight? You’re not alone! But after having written three book proposals, I promise you it’s not as daunting as it seems.
In order to demystify this seemingly overwhelming task, I’m thrilled to offer the Book Proposal Generator. Beginning with an overview of the anatomy of the book proposal by looking at several different examples, this generator will be broken up into eight weekly sessions. Each week, we will be discussing and going over one element of the book proposal in detail. At the end of each session, students will be assigned to complete a draft of the section discussed, which is to be handed in the following Friday, no later than 8 p.m. Students will receive peer and instructor feedback in class the following day, after which the next section of the book proposal will discussed and assigned to complete for the following week. By the final session, each student will have a complete book proposal, and will be ready to take the next step on the path to publication.
Workshop Highlights:
Students will receive several different examples of proposals that have successfully sold to use as reference when working on their own.
Students will receive extensive individual feedback on their own proposals from course instructor that will be emailed to them each week.
Each student will leave this course with a complete book proposal, ready to take the next step on the path to publication.
This workshop has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Thursday, June 28.
2 Sessions: Saturday, July 12 + 19
11:00am-1:00pm ET
David McLoghlin
David McLoghlin is a prize-winning poet, and a writer of memoir and personal essay. His third book, Crash Centre (2024) was recently shortlisted for Ireland's Pigott Prize, and has been hailed by senior Irish poet Thomas McCarthy as “a work unquestionably triumphant with poetic victories.” He was awarded a Literature Bursary (grant) for memoir by Ireland’s Arts Council, has an immersive essay forthcoming in Golfer’s Journal, and a personal essay has recently been published on Poetry Foundation’s website. His poems have been broadcast on WNYC’s Radioloab and anthologized on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably in Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing (Beacon Press, 2020).
We live in time, and our thoughts constantly move between the past and the present. Using different timelines, or at least referencing them, is one of the best ways to add authenticity and believability to our stories. In this course, we will learn how to establish a narrative anchor (what Sven Birkerts in The Art of Time in Memoir (Grey Wolf Press, 2007) calls “a vantage point”). In other words, this is a place from which the past in the story can be surveyed. Where this vantage point belongs in the timeline can be specified via scenes from the narrator’s “present life” or more organically as a wistful, wise, or angry tone within the narrative voice—one that is defined by the wise perspective gained by reflecting on past events.
This practical masterclass is structured around reading short extracts from memoir and personal essay; it includes practical tips for how to navigate time in our writing; and in-class prompts and writing exercises to practice and reflect on what we’re learning. Students can expect to come away with a greater understanding of important craft elements in creative nonfiction. This class is for all levels. While attendees may be at the beginning or end of a project, all that is required is an interest in writing memoir or personal essay.
You’ll learn:
to work with time by moving between present and past convincingly without confusing the reader, possibly employing more than one timeline, or at least establishing a greater awareness of your “narrative present.” (By narrative present I mean the life of the adult self who is telling the story.)
how to use tenses (past, present, and conditional) to suit a variety of narrative moments. Do we tell our story wholly in the present tense, gaining in immediacy what we lose in reflectiveness? Or do we balance the use of present tense (peak moments of beauty, love, crisis, or trauma) with the use of the past tense to bring in the reflective voice of the adult narrator, the adult “you?”
how to explore implementing different timelines, whether chronological with flashbacks, braided or semi-braided narratives.
This class has 1 full scholarship and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Thursday, July 3.
2 Sessions: Sundays, July 13 + 27
1:00-3:30pm ET
Alexander Chee
Alexander Chee is the author of the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, named most recently as one of the best nonfiction books of the century (so far) by Kirkus Reviews. He is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in nonfiction and guest edited Best American Essays 2022. He teaches creative writing at Dartmouth College.
When I sat down to put together my first essay collection, I made a study of collections I admired and spoke to some writers who had written essay collections too. Some hadn’t thought about the organization much. Some had. Some hasn’t revised their essays—and some had. I had a vague idea of how a short story collection came together but that didn’t quite map onto this form—it mattered that I would be a speaker in these essays, and a character, too. But I didn’t want this to be a memoir, either. But some of those I read did. This class collects my thinking about this newly popular literary form as it expands. I will look at more collections, now that I am at work on my second essay collection, and offer a survey of the form by way of a mix of classics and newer works, discussing collections by Vladimir Nabakov, Barry Lopez, Cathy Park Hong, David Wojnarowicz, Elif Batuman, Jenn Shapland, Lucy Ives, among others.
This is a lecture class in two parts with suggested but not required readings and 6 writing prompts, 3 per class, that I have used to write essays for my next collection. There is no workshop component. Students will be sent a suggested reading list after registration. Reading the collections under discussion is recommended but not required.
Students will learn how to take an essay they admire and turn it into a writing prompt; and then do the same to an essay collection they admire. We will discuss the differences in approach between the essay collection written all at once, as a discrete aesthetic project; the essay collection drawn from your history of publication; the memoir in essays. And we will cover approaches to revising them, and looking for essay ideas you abandoned but could still finish among old drafts, old blogs and pitches that were never accepted.
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Sunday, July 6.
2 Sessions: Monday + Tuesday, July 14 + 15
6:00-8:30pm ET
Amanda Stern
Amanda Stern is the author of 13 books and a dedicated mental health advocate, serving on the advisory board of Bring Change to Mind, the organization founded by actor Glenn Close. She has taught her workshop Saying the Unsayable at NYU, Aquinas College, and in private settings. In addition to her career as a professional writer, Stern draws on personal experience with panic disorder and a lifelong effort to recover from a debilitating childhood psychiatric diagnosis. Over the past 25 years, she has studied the somatic expression of emotion, and for the past decade, she has taught writers how to access the unconscious, translate visceral experience into language, and evoke deep emotional resonance in their readers.
Feelings are hard to describe—much less to write well. Many writers rely on physical detail and subtext to convey emotion: to signal loss, for example, a bereft father might catch sight of a man swinging his young daughter around on the beach. We feel the gulf between what one man has lost and what the other still has. The more specific the details, the deeper the emotional resonance. Often in literature, what’s visible hints at what’s absent.
But sometimes, subtext isn’t enough. What if your aim is to articulate what can’t easily be said? How do you write the inner experience of that gulf—how it lives in the body, how it pulses in the throat?
In this class, I’ll teach you methods for identifying and expressing the full range of human emotion. You’ll learn how to drop into your body, explore your own somatic cues, and translate them into language that readers can feel. You’ll also learn how to create emotional atmosphere—not just in your characters, but in the space around them. By the end of this workshop, you’ll walk away with tools to elevate not only your writing, but your ability to communicate the complex, internal world we all share.
Workshop Highlights:
Embodied Emotional Access: Learn how to identify and access emotions through the body, using somatic awareness to uncover authentic emotional content.
Language for the Inexpressible: Gain practical tools for translating nuanced, internal experiences into language that resonates deeply with readers.
Atmospheric Emotion: Develop techniques for infusing emotion into setting, tone, and subtext—creating immersive, emotionally charged scenes without overwriting.
This course has 2 full and 4 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, July 6.
2 Sessions: Saturday, August 2 + 9
1:00-2:00pm ET
Matthew Gavin Frank
Matthew Gavin Frank is the author of the nonfiction books, Submersed, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast, Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo, as well as the poetry books The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Guernica, The New Republic, Iowa Review, Salon, Conjunctions, The Believer, and the Best Travel Writing and Best Food Writing anthologies. He’s a professor of creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Northern Michigan University, where he is also the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of the literary magazine, Passages North.
In his piece, “Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science,” poet and essayist Alberto Rios writes, “When something explodes, / Turn exactly opposite from it and see what there is to see.” As essayists, how might we, too, “turn away from the explosion” in order to more fully focus on the associative subject matter lurking in the “opposite” direction? By “turning away” from the subject matter with which we most urgently want to engage, are we able to capture our subject’s emotive power even more poignantly? Join Matthew Gavin Frank for a conversation on the power of association as an entry point into the essay. As part of interrogating the parameters of our own stories, and storytelling tools, we will also discuss the often malleable and elusive parameters of “creative nonfiction” itself. The first session will include a lecture and delivery of a writing prompt. The second session will feature the participants' responses to the writing prompt in a celebratory "full-class reading."
Workshop Highlights:
Discuss and engage the malleable parameters of "creative nonfiction."
Practice embedding our personal narratives within a larger researched context.
Generate and share new work based on a writing prompt.
2 Sessions: Sundays, August 10 + 17
1:00-2:30pm ET
Jennifer Michael Hecht
This course is taught by bestselling and award-winning nonfiction author and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht. Hecht has published eight books including Doubt: A History with HarperCollins; Stay, with Yale; and The Wonder Paradox with FSG and she holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. She has also published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The American Poetry Review, and Tin House.
Nonfiction has its own rules, traditions, and shortcuts—for both writing and publication. We’ll talk about practical issues, like when to send a proposal and when to send a full draft, and literary issues, like how poetic to be, and how to be poetic. Drawing on experience in all aspects of nonfiction writing from memoir, to popular history, to essays, and academic work, the course will cover some secrets of writing true stories and getting them published. In both sessions the class will be open to questions of all kinds. In the interval between the two sessions, students will have the opportunity to have a bit of their work read by the instructor and to receive a brief response.
Workshop Highlights:
A deeper understanding of the poetics of nonfiction writing.
Some specific how-tos for publishing memoir, essays, and popular nonfiction.
An opportunity to have work read and responded to by the instructor.
This class has 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, August 3.
1 Session: Sunday, August 17
12:00-2:30pm ET
Alexander Chee
Alexander Chee is the award-winning best-selling author of the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, all lauded in reviews for the attention to descriptive writing and place.
As a younger reader, I loved novels like Frank Herbert's Dune, where a powerful sect of witches obtain power in part through their attention to detail, or in Sherlock Holmes, where Holmes' own careful eye seems to make every ordinary room or landscape into a trail only he can read. Or Batman, who used much the same approach in solving crimes. I think of it as training myself on the power and pleasure of description. As a writer, I have come to understand descriptive writing as being about more than summoning the magical power or the answer to a crime, and more than just the right metaphor at the right time. When done right you open sensory doors to other worlds. You carry the reader in your pocket or that of your character's as you run for the door, your life, the train. At every level of the story, across their five senses, you potentially can play the instrument the reader is.
And then we turn our attention to setting. Setting in writing is the people, as much as the place and the time. Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction you will need to consider history, the laws of a place, the styles, the traditions, the weather, and how you are structuring the reader's relationship to time in this world. Your world for the duration of the story. Through writing samples and writing prompts, and revision prompts as well, we will establish some frameworks to understand why you are describing what you are describing and how to approach it from your own specific set of aesthetics and politics also--and how to address the politics of description. We will look at passages from works by Iris Murdoch, Anne Carson, Louise Erdrich, Penelope Fitzgerald, Martin Amis, Ocean Vuong, Toni Morrison, Jayne Anne Phillips and Kelly Link, among others.
This class will teach students to expand their sense of what description is and why it is done. We will cover methods for identifying what you habitually leave out or leave undone and how to solve for that by approaching what might be behind such omissions. How does the writer describe their own concerns unconsciously in what they describe and once they see this, how can they then expand those concerns or turn them toward other topics?
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Thursday, August 7.
1 Session: Sunday, August 24
3:00-5:30pm ET
Eula Biss
Eula Biss has been revising for the entire 21st century! She is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had and On Immunity: An Inoculation, a New York Times bestseller.
Revision is where the work of writing really happens, and revision demands not only skill, but stamina, strategy, and an understanding of process. This intensive is designed for writers with a draft already in progress and will include in-class revision exercises to help you build momentum. In addition to forwarding your work together, we’ll discuss some common challenges and explore strategies for overcoming obstacles. Ample time will be reserved for your questions and you’ll leave with a plan for ongoing revision. If you feel stuck or frustrated, this class is for you!
Writers should bring a short draft (500-2,000 words) or an excerpt from a longer draft to class. You won’t be asked to share this work with others, and it can be rough, incomplete, disastrously flawed, etc.
Workshop Highlights:
In-class revision exercises
Revision strategies for ongoing work
Your questions answered
This class has 5 full and 5 partial scholarships available. To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Sunday, August 17.
Note: All class sessions will be recorded and this course can be taken asynchronously.
Poetry
6 Sessions: Wednesdays, July 9 - August 13
5:00-7:00pm ET
Dorothea Lasky
Dorothea Lasky is the author of many books of poetry and prose, including The Shining and the forthcoming Mother. She has taught poetry workshops and arts-related classes for over 25 years.
This is a workshop class, aimed at helping you become the poet you want to be. By the end of the class, you will complete a manuscript of poems of 10 poems that you feel excited about. We will write poems, read poems, discuss poetry and most importantly, give each other feedback on our work. The goal of the class is to evolve into your best poet self.
Class activities include: writing poems from prompts, workshopping poems, and discussing poems brought in by the instructor and class members.
Workshop Highlights:
Get feedback on your work
Read and discuss poetry
Write new poems from class prompts
This class has 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Monday, June 30.
2 Sessions: Wednesdays, August 6 + 13
7:00-9:00pm ET
Jenny Johnson
Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, BOMB Magazine, and The New York Times. Her honors include a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship, and a NEA Fellowship. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University, and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop.
Writing poems (or lyrical prose) that is sound-driven can allow us a way into writing about that which feels hard to say or express. In this class, we will consider how sound effects meaning in poems by Ross Gay, Jennifer Chang, John Keene, Maggie Millner, and others, attending to what Robert Pinsky calls a poem’s “audible web.” We will consider the effects of specific vowels and consonants on a poem's soundscape, as well as strategies for using rhyme as an embodied element in your poems. You will also have a chance to experiment with sound in a few writing exercises, letting sound be your guide as you explore a subject matter that you’re struggling to tackle. We'll be taking cues from poets, but writers of all genres are welcome.
Workshop Highlights:
Observe the effects of sound and rhyme in model poems
Explore a difficult subject allowing sound to govern
Experiment with rhyme as an embodied element
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Sunday, July 27.
Manuscript Consultations & Private Mentorships
Please note: If you’re interested in a manuscript consultation, please be sure to click through for complete pricing information. The price you see has variants. Not all prices for consultations are flat rates; some are registration fees that will go toward a final fee based upon work done. Please read individual writers’ descriptions for how they charge for their services.
With over a decade of experience as a poet, educator, book and magazine editor, and manuscript coach, I have guided writers from early drafts through extensive revisions and into publication. As faculty at Columbia University, Reed College, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and numerous literary and arts residencies, I have led workshops and coached students through poetry and prose projects, and helped writers develop their voice and craft across a variety of genres.
I have spent 25 years as a book, magazine, and anthology editor, working with authors on poetry manuscripts, nonfiction manuscripts (creative as well as informative), short form pieces such as articles, stories, and essays, and more. I combine creative coaching with editorial rigor, helping writers transform their poetic voice while paying attention to both the line and larger structure.
As the author of Field Theories (2017), Gospel (2009), and the forthcoming I Hope This Helps (2025), I bring a deep understanding of creative process, structure, and revision, complemented by my experience editing and shaping full-length manuscripts.
This consultation includes:
Initial Intake: A one-hour session to discuss your manuscript’s themes, goals, and challenges. We’ll explore your vision, identify key areas for growth, and discuss the direction you want your work to take.
Detailed manuscript feedback and editing: I will provide a close, comprehensive reading of your manuscript with holistic feedback. For poetry, this includes line edits, radical revision suggestions, and organizational recommendations for manuscripts of 40–90 pages. For prose (up to 100k words), this includes structural feedback, character development insights, plot coherence, and stylistic recommendations. My approach focuses on both the fine details and the broader arc, helping you refine your work at every level.
Follow-up consultation: A second meeting to discuss my editorial feedback and revisions. We will also cover publication strategies, potential next steps for your work, and methods for generating new creative material moving forward.
POETRY
Full-length Manuscript
40–90 pages: $1,000
Chapbook Special!
15-30 pages: $350
A Poem!
1-5 pages: $75
PROSE
Book Manuscript (< 100,000 words): $2,500
Creative Nonfiction and Nonfiction
Short Form Manuscript (Essays, Stories, Articles): starting at $250 (hourly rate)
I look forward to helping you craft your best work and explore new creative possibilities!
COACHING
I love working with authors to bring their books to life from wherever they are to where they need to go!
I am available to work with you at any stage of your writing process — from idea to proposal and submission — and engage a variety of methods to help you get your work done and put your best foot forward on the page.
I have limited availability from season to season to take on just a few individual coaching clients. What you gain in me is a thought partner, a writing partner, and a sounding board.
What we’ll do together:
Brainstorm: Helping you to dream up and actualize ideas for your book.
Drafting: Helping you to develop your first draft and then further develop that draft into a finished manuscript.
Encouragement: Providing support and accountability to help you overcome obstacles and achieve your goals.
Proposals: Working with you, once your manuscript is ready, to develop a comprehensive book proposal.
Pricing: Begins at $750 per week (ideal project commitment is 12 weeks)
“I chose to work with Lillian-Yvonne on my second manuscript because they're a true innovator in the field of poetics, leveraging technology and other modes of inquiry to push the limits of language, to push the poem itself beyond what we might conventionally think it can say or do. Lillian-Yvonne’s critiques are always astute, and challenging, and simultaneously uplifting, somehow, while always respecting what the poem itself is trying to accomplish. Ultimately Lillian-Yvonne helped me shape my manuscript into something more than I myself imagined it could be. And that’s a gift.” - Jubi Arriola-Headley
$250/hr
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram will provide a holistic reading of the manuscript and comment on the overall book concept, ideas, and major themes. This option also includes comments on poem ordering and arrangement, with extensive line edits and comments on individual poems. Manuscript length 48-64 pages. Additional fee to be negotiated for manuscripts between 64-80 pages.
I teach in English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, where I’m in the core MFA faculty. I’ve previously taught at Emory University, the University of Michigan, and North Carolina State University, and I’ve also been in the core MFA faculty at the latter two. Many manuscripts on which I have consulted have become award-winning collections with leading presses. Working one-on-one with writers is one of my favorite responsibilities. I have a particular love for questions regarding sequencing and for offering generative feedback, although I enjoy every aspect of manuscript critique, including offering practical recommendations and tips for publication and promotion (if desired).
My experience as a poet lends itself to helping writers re-envision what they have created; my experience as a scholar of poetry lends itself to offering nuanced readings of the text as it is as well as identifying areas it may wish to further explore. I also have a substantial editorial background: I’ve been poetry editor of AGNI (where my time on the editorial staff totaled thirteen years), art editor of At Length, a guest editor for the Academy’s Poem-a-Day, served on the Alice James Books Editorial Board, and served as a reader or contest judge for several book prizes, among other commitments.
I am the author of Arrow (Alice James Books (U.S.)/Carcanet Press (U.K.), 2020), which received coverage in the New York Times, NPR, the Guardian, and other venues, and received the GLCA New Writers Award, the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize (U.K.), and other honors. Poems from my second in-progress collection, The B-Sides of the Golden Record, have been published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Kenyon Review, The Offing, Massachusetts Review, Poetry, Split This Rock’s The Quarry, LARB Quarterly, and elsewhere. I’m also currently writing a scholarly book titled Grave Dangers: Poetics and the Ethics of Death in the Anthropocene, which is under advance contract with the University of Minnesota Press, and my peer-reviewed critical articles have appeared in Cultural Critique, Modernism/modernity, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and elsewhere. I’ve received fellowships from the Poetry Foundation and Kundiman, and I’ve been shortlisted for the U.K.’s Forward Prize.
Figuring out what makes books tick is one of my favorite things to do, and I look forward to working with you.
Manuscript review: This manuscript consultation includes 60 minutes of Zoom time to be used however you and I decide would be most beneficial to you (recommended: a 30-minute initial conversation about your book, your goals for it, and your sense of where it stands and what it needs, followed by a 30-minute post-read conversation). Next, I will provide a holistic reading of the manuscript and comment on the overall book concept, ideas, and major themes, including on sequencing and arrangement. You can also select up to 15 pages on which to receive extensive line edits, questions, and analyses. You will also receive resources to aid in revision of individual poems as well as the full collection. We’ll discuss a timeframe for our work together in our first meeting (or over email, if you elect not to use any Zoom time on an initial meeting). Manuscript length up to 80 pages. Additional fee to be negotiated for longer manuscripts. $400
Manuscript review + revision: At this level, I will also read the revised manuscript with the same level of response. You’ll also receive up to 60 additional minutes of Zoom time, with the schedule determined collaboratively (e.g. 30 minutes after first-read feedback and a 30-minute post-second read conversation, or the full 60 after the second read). The goal of the additional Zoom minutes is so that we can discuss my feedback, any additional questions you may have, and other associated topics that may be on your mind, such as publication. We’ll discuss a timeframe for our work together in our first meeting. $700
I am a poet with three published poetry collections and have been working one-on-one with writers for over five years, including consulting as faculty on collections from students at Randolph College, the Jack Kerouac Disembodied School of Poetics, UC Riverside, and NYU. My accolades include a Pulitzer nomination, the 2017 National Poetry Series, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship through the Poetry Foundation, and more. I have an MFA from the University of Arizona as well as an MA in English Literature from UC Irvine and currently teach poetry as part of Randolph College’s Low-Residency MFA program
I believe in providing in-depth generative feedback. In our manuscript consultation, I will work to give a sense of how I’m reading the manuscript, what excites me, but above all what I believe could be emphasized, expanded, focused in on, and written through. This will include a combination of suggested edits, expansions, generative prompts, reordering, and/or reading recommendations.
This will typically take the form of an email exchange followed by a close-reading. Depending on manuscript length, reading will take between two to four hours. I will write and provide detailed notes throughout this process. In addition to the notes, we’ll meet virtually for a discussion of the work, preferably two hours. As I charge by the hour, however, this process is quite flexible, and I am willing to work with what works best for you.
I model my manuscript consultation approach after radical empathy and radical listening. This manuscript consultation aims to be supportive, inclusive and collaborative, with an eye towards helping your novel become the best possible version of itself through a detailed and deep understanding of the craft of fiction. What’s included:
A one hour introductory phone call to understand what your needs are, what you are struggling with and what you hope to achieve.
An extensive editorial letter beginning with the manuscript’s summary and strengths, followed by dedicated sections on: worldbuilding, characterization, character relationships, story arc/narrative structure, pacing/timeline, emotional effect, language and dialogue, in addition to anything specific to your manuscript that a) you want to address or b) that comes to my attention while reading.* The editorial letter will conclude with suggestions and ideas for how the overall manuscript might be improved.
*Examples: setting, interiorization, stakes, internal vs. external journey, braiding multiple storylines, logical inconsistencies/plausibility, narrative POV, narrative subversion (“twists”), reader investment, tone and atmosphere, scaffolding, beginnings and endings, compression and expansion, thematic question(s), authorial vs. character knowledge, missed opportunities, sensitivity remarks and more.
A one hour follow-up phone call after you have processed the editorial letter, have any questions and/or would like to discuss your revision plan. During this call, I can also answer any questions about the querying and publishing process.
Note: Line edits are not included.
All genres of fiction are welcome, including speculative fiction.
Please submit the first 20 pages of your novel to see if we are a good fit.
Max word count: 100,000 words.
Flat Fee $2,500
True stories, well told, matter! I will give line-by-line editing and a letter with detailed editorial notes on your nonfiction manuscripts. That includes book chapters, essays, artist statements, book proposals, articles, work samples, or any other form of nonfiction prose.
Price: $200 flat fee for the first 20 pages (12 pt. Times New Roman, double-spaced, minimum of 1-inch margins) and $4 for every page after that.
A la carte option: For a manuscript consultation that includes a letter with detailed editorial feedback, but no line-by-line edits, the flat fee is $150 for the first 20 pages (12 pt. Times New Roman, double-spaced, minimum of 1-inch margins) and $3 for every page after that.
Note: payment is for initial flat fee; additional page fees to be determined and invoiced separately.
“I am a poet turned first-time memoirist, and Kavita was the perfect reader for my manuscript. Her attention to narrative structure, flow and focus, and sensory detail helped sharpen my scenes and chapters. For an Asian American coming-of-age narrative set in the turbulent ‘60s, Kavita’s experience and craft recommendations on weaving together social issues with the personal were particularly valuable." - Jeffrey Thomas Leong, student
My manuscript consultation is based on an examination of how a work balances the craft of writing with the substance of conscience, the personal and the political. These guiding principles are ones that I've culled through my fifteen years working for social change and ten years writing about it, including in my recent book Craft and Conscience: How to Write About Social Change. As the creator of the Writing with Conscience class which I've offered through The Shipman Agency, I'm inspired by helping more writers to be writers of conscience.I offer two types of manuscript consultations:
1) Stand Alone Manuscripts - Essays, Articles, Op Eds, Stories. Sliding scale starting at $150 based on length/word count. This includes substantive summary feedback about what is working well and suggestions for improvement as well as line edits.
2) Book Manuscripts - Draft manuscripts for book length works. Sliding scale starting at $500 depending on the length of work. I will provide summary feedback on how the manuscript hangs together as a cohesive whole, respond to the narrative flow and narrative elements, whether the desired themes are coming through, and whether there is a balance between personal and political themes. This also includes a 20 minute post feedback consultation via phone/zoom to discuss any questions.
I have taught poetry workshops and advised poetry thesis manuscripts for the past decade at Princeton University, as well as in the MFA programs at NYU and Columbia, along with guest workshops in graduate and community programs around the country. I have seen manuscripts through from rough drafts, extensive revision, and into publication. I have published four of my own books of poems including Days & Days (Knopf, 2019) and the forthcoming Pacific Power & Light (Knopf, 2024). Many of my poems have appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere.
This consultation includes an initial hour-long meeting and conversation about what you imagine your book to be, where it comes from and where you would like it to go. What are your concerns about the work, and what are you most excited about. With these things in mind I will closely read the book and provide both holistic notes as well as suggesting line edits and possible developments and alternatives, including ordering of the manuscript and “writing into the corners” of the book. I will send you these edits and ideas and then we will meet a second time to discuss them, as well as publication possibilities, and strategies for creating new work in the future.
I look forward to working with you!
Short stories, Personal Essays, Memoir
You: Are not mainstream in your outlook. Your vision is wide, and you are moved to write a work that has deep resonance for your community, your environment, your country, your world. Your story could be intimate and personal or complex and global or all these things. Line-by-line editing and a letter with detailed editorial notes on your project. I have taught for decades in the US (across the country and at a range of institutions including Columbia University and CCNY) and abroad, and published collections of stories, essays, and novels. I have also published poetry and worked as a freelance journalist. I meet writers where they are, with regard for who they are as people, what has moved them to write, and with a view to helping them go further. I help writers to lean into the emotional truths that underlie their writing, to draw on their strengths, and to develop under-utilizedaspects of their repertoire.
Price levels:
1 Detailed editorial feedback letter including line edits. $200 for the first 20 pages (12 pt. Times, double-spaced, 1-inch margins) and $4 for every page after that.
2 Detailed editorial feedback letter but no line-edits. $150 for the first 20 pages (format as above), $3 each additional page.
3. Full manuscript consultation available by request. As a veteran in the literary world, I have an extensive network of contacts across the media and publishing industries. I routinely connect my students to industry professionals when I feel their projects are ready. Please provide a work sample of up to 15 pages for review to evaluate fit. The fee for a complete manuscript review and 2 feedback sessions (1 hour each) is $1,200 for projects up to 60k words and $1,500 for those up to 90k words.
All Genres
Maria is a New York Times-bestselling, Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning novelist, translator, poet, and dramatist whose work unearths hidden meanings, characters, and possibilities in stories we think we know. She's the author of eight books, most recently Beowulf: A New Translation (2020) and The Mere Wife (2018). In 2023, she delivered the Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Oxford, and released a reimagining of Virgil's Aeneid into a full-cast musical for Audible. Her version of the literary world is one in which all the genres merge, all the storytellers are equally thrilling, and there are definitely dragons. Her work on Beowulf was described in The New Yorker as "storming the dusty halls of the library, upending the crowded shelf of Beowulf translations to make room for something completely new."
Maria has most recently taught writing at Sarah Lawrence and Bennington, and she regularly teaches workshops at universities around the world. For the Shipman Agency Workroom, she's taught sessions on creating the fantastical, finding your voice, adapting the classics into contemporary work, and editing yourself, among many others.
Her consultations will help you find the tools to go deeper in your work, to finish and submit your newly revised novel, or even to totally reinvent yourself as a writer, diving into the project you've been too afraid to start. She's also happy to consult with writers who don't have manuscripts yet, as long as they have an idea and a work sample.
To begin, please submit a short description of your project, and of your consultation goals, which Maria will review to make sure it's a good fit. If approved, the next step is registering and paying the initial $300 for one hour of work. You'll submit the first 15 pages of your manuscript, as well as a synopsis of the overall project and a bio. Maria will provide written notes on the first 15 pages, along with an estimate for the full job.
If you don't have a manuscript yet, the consultation series will begin with the above - short description and consultation goals, review, initial payment - and then you'll begin with an hourlong Zoom session to make a plan of attack.
The consultations will include Zoom or phone sessions with questions, research suggestions, creative brainstorming, and live feedback. Together, you'll make a plan that suits your project. Maria's style is both empathetic and pragmatic - she'll help you achieve your writing goals, and offer a great deal of feedback and ideas along the way.
The payment is for one hour of work, plus preparation of an estimate for the full project. Additional hours will be invoiced and paid after registration.
Her rate is $300/hour, and her minimum is $1200.
Poetry
I’ve taught in the graduate writing programs at The New School and Columbia and have guided MFA poetry collections of a great variety of poetic schools and backgrounds. My eclectic taste for whatever is surprising, insightful, and urgent is evident, I hope, in the many brief reviews I’ve written for the Academy of American Poets, at poets.org. For $1,250 I can give a manuscript a close read with notes throughout, a written response of 1-2 pages, and two online meetings. For $1,500 I will read the revised manuscript as well, with the same level of response, both on the page and in a brief report, and in another online meeting.
Nonfiction
I have worked with authors on works of memoir, journalism, creative nonfiction, and academic manuscripts. For $1,250 I read the manuscript and write up a 1-2 page response, provide selected pages with detailed line edits, and have two online meetings to discuss. Depending on the readiness of the manuscript this may be mostly about overall structure and the development of your book’s best feature, or about line edits for style and power. I’ll also advise on steps toward publication. At the $1,500 rate my response is 4-5 pages and I return the whole manuscript with notes throughout.
Short Story collections, Novels
Full manuscript $1750
A manuscript consultation with me centers energy, joy, and deep intentionality. In engaging with your fiction, I prioritize radical listening and open communication, ensuring your creative vision and unique voice will not only guide our discussion, but also shape my engagement with your pages. I seek to meet every project with equal parts rigor and respect. Committed to encountering work through a decolonial lens, I am especially equipped to engage with projects that decenter the white, western gaze while challenging and subverting a colonial hegemony. I welcome projects that play with time, structure, point of view, and language in a way that expands our understanding of literature while championing historically disenfranchised voices. Empathy brews at the center of this work—work I hope we will do together.
Specifically, you can expect:
A one-hour initial conversation to discuss your vision, intentions, and goals for your project. What you wish to achieve, and how I can best support your aspirations.
A 4-6 page (single spaced) editorial letter addressing your project through the lens of your clarified vision. As I believe we writers learn as much from leaning into our strengths as we do from identifying where we might push our work even further, I will spend proportionate time considering both with a consistent focus on locating the heart of your work. Fictional craft elements I’ll consider include character development, structure, voice, tone, plot, time/pacing, point of view/perspective, and place, among others.
Detailed line edits and margin notes on the first 20 pages of the manuscript.
A one-hour follow-up conversation to address any questions you may have while charting a revision plan that feels approachable and in line with your goals.
Flat fee applies to projects up to 100K words. A $1 fee for every page over 100K applies.
My ask of you: Please send the first 20 pages of your manuscript to Work Room manager Kate Mabus, kate@theshipmanagency.com so I can determine if I will be the best reader for your work. Due to the personal nature of engaging honestly with one’s work-in-progress, I wish to honor your time, and ensure my approach will best align with your project and your needs.
As a mixed Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) writer, reader, and teacher, I am committed to championing voices that have been historically marginalized and disenfranchised. I have taught creative writing at the graduate level, provided manuscript consultations, and led workshops and craft seminars for the last five years. My goal is to bring this experience and enthusiastic investment in artmaking to your work-in-progress, helping you identify and hone your individual voice rather than assert my own.
Add-on / A la Carte:
A one-hour consultation on querying agents, including a thorough review of a query letter with line notes: $300
I will provide feedback about your poetry manuscript, including line edits, radical revision suggestions, and organizational recommendations. This feedback will come in the form of notes and conversation. The cost is $500 for a 2-hour consultation, including written notes, for manuscripts between 40 to 70 pages.
Rickey Laurentiis is offering tutorials and consultantships in the poem, the manuscript & the syllabus.
Rickey Laurentiis is a poet who was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, to study light. Their debut book, Boy with Thorn, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, and was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. As a curator and art writer, they have work with a number of institutions including The Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, John Hopkins Archaeological Museum, and the the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Their next book is Death of the First Idea, coming froom Knopf in 2025. Literary honors include fellowships from the Lannan Literary Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh. Friends call her Riis.
In private consultantships, I will work one-one-one in periods of an hour or more in three subjects: individual tutorials concerning packets of poems (no more than 15 pages of work) & full consultantships on the poetry manuscript (no more than 60 pages of work) and writing syllabi (including poetry, fiction and nonfiction courses). In my tutorials and consultantships, I aim to listen carefully; to hear what lives under the ask towards what’s best for the piece of writing at hand or the course being developed. I want the tutor or client to leave feeling restored to their assignment as writer, and with specific tactics to apply to their writing in its general improvement, and specific strategies to apply in the classroom.
Tutorials, 1 hour, $150
Consultantships 1.5hr or more, starting at $500
PLEASE NOTE: SARAH IS ON HIATUS UNTIL 2026
Fiction, Nonfiction
Sarah Manguso is the author of nine books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her books are frequently described as crossing, blurring, or reinventing genres.
She has taught creative writing for more than twenty years, both privately and at various institutions of higher learning, and she would welcome the opportunity to work with you on a manuscript of fiction or nonfiction.
To receive an estimate, please register and pay the initial $250 for one hour of work. Sarah will provide notes and line edits on the first few pages of your manuscript, along with an estimate for the full job.
Her rate is $250/hr, and her minimum fee is $1250.
Sarah’s fee includes detailed line edits and notes on all aspects of the work, which will be provided via Track Changes. Sarah will then be available for a discussion via phone or Zoom.
Please note that upfront payment is for one hour of work plus preparation of an estimate for the full project. Additional hours will be invoiced and paid after registration.
AX (Ana) Mina
As a nonfiction writer, you have great ideas. How do you get the word out and build a platform? I offer coaching as a tool to help you refine your ideas, communicate them effectively and find the right people to support your work.
You have great thoughts to share — how do you communicate them crisply and precisely for public consumption? Think of thought leadership as a layer that supercharges your communications efforts. Building from my experience developing communications strategy, we’ll develop a custom strategy for getting the word out there about your work and your best ideas.
Every writing client has different needs, and we’ll work on a toolkit that will help you take action on bringing your ikigai, or life’s purpose, into fruition through guided exercises on a tool called Quenza and ongoing coaching sessions. Here’s an example of some of the tools we can explore together:
Brainstorming and ideation sessions — start with your idea, no matter how rough, and let’s refine it through active feedback and idea generation
Working through creative blocks, using creative strategy and ideation, meditation, yoga, tarot and somatic wellness practices (I’m a certified trauma-informed yoga teacher with training in secular mindfulness)
Getting the word out: Public speaking skills, and telling the story of yourself and your work
Leadership and management skills, whether for those leading creative communities and mission-driven organizations or those running their own business.
Clarifying your core values and mission as a writer (i.e., your ikigai)
Coaching is a partnership, and I’m happy to take a first 30 minute call for free to determine two things: (1) how we vibe together as people and creative and (2) whether there’s a fit with what you’re looking for and where I can help. If we mutually agree to move forward, we’ll develop a coaching package that works for you — whether that’s finding your ikigai, developing your platform or something more custom. We can also do ad hoc, ongoing coaching to help you work through creative blocks.
Sessions are a sliding scale of $125-200 for up to 75 minutes (with a suggested rate of $150), and a 5 pack is available for $500 - 800 (20% discount).
The expectation that writers “rip off the Band-Aid” or “just do it” when the perspectives we’re called to express feel painful or triggering, is a form of normalized suffering that racial capitalism and patriarchal industries depend on. By overriding feelings of resistance and hesitation in favor of production, we lose critical information, and the capacity to form language unique to our individual journeys.
If you’re into pain, that’s great. But for everyone else: writing doesn’t need to feel tortuous. Persistent anxiety and physical manifestations of stress aren’t necessarily proof that you’re “doing the work.” Insight—about even the darkest of subjects—can take place in moments of connection, gratitude, curiosity, and pleasure. Sometimes the language you need requires going outside, working with your hands, developing personal rituals, re-learning rest, shifting (even temporarily) the orientation and shape of your life ... We can think through the specific auxiliary practices that make sense for your body, your budget, your values, and your work.
I’m passionate about working with writers who are ready to develop multimodal strategies in support of specific projects, concerns, or interests. This approach to generating and revising work involves a commitment to evaluating the ways you spend time and relate to others during all of the time that you aren’t writing. It isn’t for everyone. Ask yourself if you are open to:
developing practices of invitation that honor your physical and emotional boundaries, while intentionally creating space for them to expand;
learning to recognize, trust, and follow the languages/silences that are unique to you, even when they extend beyond recognizable signifiers and established frames;
reframing mastery as a commitment to curiosity and honesty about what the world looks like from exactly where you are;
preparing yourself in physical and material ways for the language that you need to arrive.
If so, let’s start with a 30-min call. You can share your goals and we’ll decide on a plan that feels meaningful to you. This consultation is available to individual writers as well as small, focused groups working in a similar vein. Due to the nature of the process, in most cases a minimum of two sessions will be required. A sliding scale is available for QTBIPOC writers and writers with disabilities.
The following is provided as a guide; actual prices will depend on the scope of your project.
Standard Fee:
Starting at $150 / 75 minutes for a single writer
Starting at $225 / 90 minutes for small groups
Sliding Scale:
Starts at $100 for a single writer and $175 for small groups
Graphic novels, memoirs, and book-length comics comprise one of the fastest growing book markets world wide, but commercial publishing houses don’t always offer rigorous editing the way they might with books of more traditional prose. I will offer detailed editorial notes on drafts of graphic novel, memoir, essay, and comics projects ranging from short, stand-alone pieces to book-length projects. As a comics editor, I examine the effectiveness of the text—the strength of the language, voice, details, and dialogue—as well as the image—pacing, framing, perspective, and technique. I also critique the relationship between the two, and offer suggestions as to how text and image can function together most effectively to communicate a story, argument, or idea.
$600 for a manuscript up to 20-pages;
$800 for a manuscript up to 50-pages;
$1200 for a manuscript up to 120 pages;
$2000 for a manuscript up to 250 pages
Please note: If your graphic manuscript is particularly prose-heavy, fee structure can be discussed separately.
Spring Consultation Offer (April 20-June 1)
Novel/YA Novel
I will provide editorial coaching, revision notes, and feedback in the form of an editorial letter and one virtual meeting (1 hour). $400
Poetry Manuscript
I will provide editorial coaching, revision, comprehensive notes, and individual line edits in the form of an editorial letter and one virtual meeting (1 hour). $300
N.B. At this time, Ayşegül is not available to begin new consultations until October.
This manuscript consultation is intended to find the essential strengths of your project—the places where the writing comes alive—and identify the aspects of your novel-in-progress that give you joy. From here, we will discuss ways to complete the book, bring out its inherent qualities, and to follow your own voice in the process.
After an initial one-hour conversation, where we discuss your vision and the areas you would like to tackle, I will read the manuscript and offer a detailed editorial letter, notes throughout the manuscript, and 5-10 pages of in-depth line edits. In my letter, I will focus on plot elements, character development, structure, and voice. We will meet again for an hour-long call to discuss my notes and come up with a revision plan that feels manageable and right for the book.
I will also offer guidance about querying agents, and the editorial process.
I have led novel writing workshops as well as individual consultations for the past five years and love to collaborate with writers to find the unique qualities of their projects and help them finish their books with enthusiasm (and patience!)
Writers work alone and in the dark. The process of crafting a piece of writing that generates meaning and emotion, a work capable of nothing less than dreaming the reader into a world entirely of the writer’s making, is a daunting task. For as vast and mysterious as the levers of the writer’s imagination may be, the only tools at the writer’s disposal are paltry. Something to write with and something to write on. The only other thing the writer requires is a reader. Someone to witness the work and offer feedback. Inevitably, regardless of the quality of that feedback, the writer is dissatisfied. The writer suspects and rightly so, that there are issues. There are always issues, and the writer, regardless of how skilled they may be, cannot see them. They know this, and it’s maddening. Sometimes the issues are related to craft. The structure isn’t helping the story tell itself. The pacing is out of whack. The point of view is fuzzy. Other times the problem isn’t on the page but in the writer themselves. They don’t what the story is or why they’re telling it. They can’t recognize what is most alive in their work. If you find yourself in such a place, I offer my help. For years I have been helping writers in just this way. Helping them to locate the beating heart in their stories and strategize solutions for revision that work in the direction of their strengths.
You have several options.
Option1.
You receive notes on the text: (queries, comments and suggested edits) an editorial letter and an hour-long conference via Zoom/FaceTime/telephone to discuss the work’s strengths and weaknesses, big picture issues and avenues to pursue in revision. $450
Option 2.
You receive an editorial letter, and an hour-long conference via Zoom/FaceTime/telephone to discuss the work’s strengths and weaknesses, big picture issues and avenues to pursue in revision. $350
Option 3.
Your manuscript is returned to you with margin notes and an editorial letter addressing matters of craft. $250.
Option 4.
An hour-long conference via Zoom/FaceTime/telephone to discuss the work’s strengths and weaknesses, big picture issues and avenues to pursue in revision. $250
My rates are based on twenty, double-spaced, twelve-point type pages, or $250 an hour for longer works.
Poetry
I’ll work closely with authors on every aspect of the editorial process, including line edits, ordering, and revision, as well as comprehensive notes and feedback via email and Zoom, if desired. Poetry manuscripts up to 75 pages are charged at a flat fee of $650, though I’m happy to consider sliding scale offers as needed, and especially during global pandemics. Poetry manuscripts above 75 pages are subject to a no-fee consultation to gauge the scope of the project and the general state of the manuscript, with a quote provided afterward.
Prose
I’ll work closely with novelists and nonfiction writers on every aspect of the editorial process, including line edits, through-lines, plot mechanics, dialogue, and revision, as well as comprehensive notes and feedback via email and Zoom, if desired. Prose manuscripts are charged at $0.20 per word, though I’m happy to consider sliding scale offers as needed, and especially during global pandemics. I’m also available to provide a no-fee consultation to gauge the scope of the project and the general state of the manuscript prior to beginning work.
Note: payment is for initial down payment fee; additional fees to be determined and invoiced separately.
Do you have ideas or writing you’d like to turn into a creative non-fiction book? Over the past twenty years, I’ve published five award-winning nonfiction books and two edited collections, have edited dozens of books as an editor/publisher and have served as a judge for the National Book Awards in Non-Fiction. I think in books! Meet with me on zoom for up to 2 hours to talk through your book concept. We can discuss how to develop your idea into a book-length project, how to organize and structure it, find research and reporting opportunities, and publishing strategies, upon request. $500
Need feedback to turn your book-in-progress into a polished manuscript ready for submission? Send me your pages. I’ll provide a 3-4 page written response on structure, organization, clarity, originality, and publishing strategies and meet with you on zoom to discuss. $2000
David Shields specializes in literary nonfiction/creative nonfiction, autobiography, memoir, personal essay, the curated diary, literary collage, literary collaboration, oral history, dialogic books, one-act plays, remix/repurposing/“appropriation,” “found documents”/fraudulent artifacts, documentary film, the essay film, screenwriting, the photo essay, the elegy, brevity, the prose-poem, the short-short, flash fiction, “autofiction,” and other kinds of boundary-jumping work.
He’d welcome the opportunity to consult with you on your work, whether it’s a sequence of brief essays, a long collage, a screenplay, a book-length work-in-progress, or anything in between.
$250/hour for a one-to-one consultation, which involves a writer sending a manuscript electronically. It will be marked up using Track Changes, and followed by a phone conversation about the notes.
For private consults, the fee is $250/hour, or a negotiated flat fee for a longer manuscript. Detailed edits, line edits, and big-picture structure will be provided.
Please note: upfront payment is for one hour; additional hours to be discussed and invoiced after registration.
$250/hour
Writers have less editorial time with their in-house editors than ever. Many agents are great with the deal but simply aren't editors. Where is a writer to turn?
For thirty years I've worked with literary writers in various capacities but my great love has been the deep dive into a manuscript with them. While I always keep an eye toward what a reader might think, I maintain deep respect for the integrity of work that is formally challenging, based in vernacular, or otherwise considered non-traditional. I will work with literary writers in both fiction and non-fiction.
We'd begin, ideally, with the review of a complete manuscript though writers "in process" are welcome to set up other arrangements. You'll receive notes with a focus on how the draft as a whole works rather than the nitty gritty of a line edit. We'll then set a schedule for the rewrite and can review in sections or as a whole. The second draft may be the place we agree to do a line edit. Ideally, the response to that draft allows us to look at ahead at publishing possibilities.
Having worked "inside" the industry, I will provide counsel on next steps when we're done i.e. referrals can be made to agents; we can work together on an excerpt for a magazine or journal. Ongoing coaching and career consultation can be provided whether you're an editorial client or not. Non-editorial clients must commit to a minimum number of hours to be determined.
Fees are $250 per hour for both editorial and career consultation services. Writers must commit to a minimum number of hours, to be determined. Accommodations made for monthly retainer clients.
Please note: upfront payment is for first hour; number of hours and final cost to be discussed after registration.
Short story and essay consultations. Micro- and macro-suggestions on the manuscript, followed by a one-hour phone consultation. Up to 25 pages, 7,000 word count maximum. Critique will be based on 20 years of editing writers for Tin House, including pieces that have been included in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, O’Henry Prize Stories, and have been included in collections that have garnered National Book Award nominations, MacArthur Genius Grants, the LA times Fiction Prize, among many other accolades. $300-$400 depending on length.
I accept students on an ongoing basis for private editorial and writing career consultations. As someone with a fiction MFA degree from Cornell and who has published memoir, personal essay, and criticism, and is currently working on a novel, I am uniquely qualified to address a range of prose writing concerns that are specific to the individual writer. I was also the founding executive editor of them., Condé Nast's LGBTQ+ platform, and have an extensive network of contacts across the media and publishing industries. I am always happy to connect former students to industry professionals when I feel that their projects are ready, and have successfully done so for a number of former students.
I only work with people who I feel I can substantially help, so please provide a work sample of up to 15 pages for review. The fee for a complete manuscript review and 2 hour-long editorial feedback sessions is $1,200 for projects up to 60k words and $1,500 for those up to 90k words.
I am deeply committed to giving people from historically marginalized groups more access to writing and publishing channels. If you are from a marginalized community and can't afford my fee, I would charge on a sliding scale of $800-$1,200 depending on the length of the project and the financial status of the student. If you'd like to take advantage of this option, please note this in the 'Other Information' section of your registration.
Please note: initial payment isn’t final fee; final fees will be discussed after registration. The balance will be invoiced separately.
Please note: The cost is $250/hour, or an agreed upon flat fee. initial fee is not final; final fee to be discussed after registration and balance will be invoiced separately.
I am offering top-to-bottom manuscript consultations, which include comprehensive notes and feedback, in the form of both individual line edits and big-picture notes on frame, structure, and areas for revision, as well as narrative development. Consultations will include a phone conversation about the notes, with suggestions on next steps. I am comfortable working in fiction or nonfiction, short or book-length, up to 300 pages.
Beginning after April 23.
Please note:
Manuscript Critique
This is a big-picture edit focused on story structure, character development, pacing, narrative choices, intention, and theme, as well as general comments on style and voice. After a close read of your manuscript I will write you a detailed editorial memo, focused on the above at a big-picture level and ending with specific advice. I will also include detailed marginal comments highlighting examples, and possible places to strengthen the manuscript. Rate is a flat fee of $0.05/word. A one-time follow up is also included. Phone, FaceTime, or email.
Comprehensive Edit
This is the nitty-gritty edit, focused on writing compelling scenes, great dialogue, unique and powerful prose. This includes a focused line edit, an editorial memo on the prose, drama, and dialogue, as well as marginal comments. Can be a short story, a sample chapter, or an entire manuscript. Rate is a flat fee of $0.10/word. A one-time follow up is also included. Phone, FaceTime, or email.
FAQ
How do recordings work?
Almost all of our classes are recorded and uploaded to Vimeo. If you have time zone differences, get sick, or know you need to skip a session, we’ll send you a password-protected link to view the recording. You’ll have four weeks to view it. We also have an archive of past classes available for purchase. If interested, please inquire with kate@theshipmanagency.com.
Can I register for a class that’s already started?
For craft seminars and master classes, we welcome registration at any point. We’ll send you recordings and class materials to catch up. For workshops, we might be able to get you in, as long as you reach out before the third session.
What are the scholarship options?
Most of our classes have full or partial scholarship offerings. If so, those details will be listed on the course page along with an application via Google form. Scholarships are awarded based on financial need, stated interest, and, in some cases, the quality of the writing sample you submit. We will do our best to give you a decision at least a week before the class begins.
Can I set up a payment plan?
We offer payment plans for classes over $300. Those require a non-refundable deposit of $100-$250, depending on the course fee. You’ll pay in regular increments before the 30th of each month until the total course fee is fulfilled. kate@theshipmanagency.com can help you determine a schedule and get you set up. It’s essential that students stay on track so we can pay our instructors on time. If you can no longer keep up with your payment schedule, we will unfortunately have to withhold access to the class.
What if I want to withdraw from a class?
If you let us know at least 2 days before the class starts, we’ll be happy to offer you a full class credit or a refund minus a $25 processing fee. If the class has already begun, we won’t be able to offer a refund or credit. If there are extenuating circumstances we should consider, please write to kate@theshipmanagency.com.
What if a class is canceled?
Occasionally we cancel classes due to low enrollments or very rarely when a conflict comes up for the instructor. In that case, you’ll be offered a full refund or class credit.
Other guidelines:
Craft seminars and master classes generally have open enrollment, while workshops have capped enrollment. We process registrations on a first-come basis.
Students are not allowed to share the Zoom link for classes, record sessions, distribute or reproduce any associated materials.
We’re committed to ensuring our students are treated with respect. If you have a concern, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
2 Sessions: Saturday + Sunday, June 7 + 8
11:00am-1:00pm ET
Jenny Johnson
Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, BOMB Magazine, and The New York Times. Her honors include a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship, and a NEA Fellowship. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University, and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop.
What are your strategies for conveying what you see, picture, or imagine through language? What do you notice? How long do you hold the gaze? What might happen if you held it longer, if you kept looking, if you refused to turn away from your subject? Furthermore, how is the work of a writer like that of a filmmaker? In this class, we will consider how cinematic techniques can be applied to poem making and descriptive prose. You’ll be asked to consider the types of camerawork you already employ when describing and the angles of observation that you tend to overlook. Come prepared to experiment with close-ups, aerial views, jump cuts, interior and exterior shots, etc. We’ll be taking cues mostly from poets, Chen Chen, Geffrey Davis, Jean Garrigue, Kamilah Aisha Moon, and K. Iver, to name a few, but writers of all genres interested in strengthening their imagery are welcome.
Workshop Highlights:
Observe camera work in model poems and discuss its effects
Reflect upon your patterns of observation and set new intentions for seeing
Generate new work that integrates a variety of camera shots
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, May 30.