Craft Seminar: Everyone's a Critic with Ruth Franklin
Craft Seminar: Everyone's a Critic with Ruth Franklin
1 Session: Sunday, October 25
11:00am-1:00pm ET
Ruth Franklin
Ruth Franklin has been writing criticism for The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Review of Books, and other publications for more than 20 years. She teaches nonfiction writing at Columbia School of the Arts and the Jewish Theological Seminary.
We’ve all finished a book, walked out of a movie, or wrapped up a series and immediately thought, “I have some thoughts on that.” But turning those raw opinions into a sharp, propulsive piece of writing that readers love—and editors actually want to buy—is its own craft.
In this craft seminar, longtime critic Ruth Franklin takes you on a deep dive into the practical mechanics of criticism. We’ll break down the anatomy of a brilliant review, learn how to weave in deep analysis without getting trapped in plot summary, and discuss how to pitch editors with an angle that ties into the current cultural moment. Whether you want to write for legacy publications, elevate your newsletter, or just build a more authoritative voice, this workshop will give you the tools you need.
Highlights:
Sharpen your critical voice
Understand the mechanics of criticism
Learn how to pitch editors
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, July 17.
Ruth Franklin is a book critic and former editor at The New Republic. Her most recent book is The Many Lives of Anne Frank (Yale University Press, 2025), which Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called “an essential look at the diarist’s legacy.” Her first biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2016), won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2016, a Time magazine top nonfiction book of 2016, and a “best book of 2016” by The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and others. In The Washington Post, Elaine Showalter called it “a sympathetic and masterful biography that both uncovers Jackson’s secret and haunting life and repositions her as a major artist.”
Franklin’s work appears in many publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper’s. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in biography, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Leon Levy Fellowship in biography, and the Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism. Her first book, A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2011), was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.
