The Work Room
Online Workshops, Craft Seminars, + Manuscript Consultations
A program of The Shipman Agency
Please note: For questions regarding Work Room classes, please contact Kate Mabus, kate@theshipmanagency.com
Faculty: John Manuel Arias, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Fatima Bhutto, Sumita Chakraborty, Kavita Das, Jaquira Díaz, Edgar Gomez, Garth Greenwell, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Patricia Spears Jones, Joseph Keckler, Porochista Khakpour, Stephen Kuusisto, Dorothea Lasky, Greg Mania, Megan Milks, An Xiao (Ana) Mina, Jamie Quatro, Khadijah Queen, Danniel Schoonebeek, David Shields, Javier Sinay, Rob Spillman, Meredith Talusan, David L. Ulin, Nikki Wallschlaeger, Jen Winston
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 workshops and seminars will be hosted on The Shipman Agency’s Zoom account. For manuscript consultations, you’ll communicate directly with the author. Craft Seminars + Master Classes generally have open enrollment. Workshops have capped enrollment.
Information on how to access classes will be sent 2 days prior to the start date. All classes are recorded. If you want to attend but the time zone doesn’t work for you, register for the class and email Kate Mabus, kate@theshipmanagency.com to let her know you’ll need the recording. She’ll send you a password protected link that will be good for one week. Recordings will be viewable for 4 weeks after the class date.
A portion of all Work Room proceeds will be donated to ACLU Drag Defense Fund
Books by Work Room faculty, and new and forthcoming books from our clients, are available on our affiliate page at Bookshop.org.
ALL GENRES
8 Sessions: Saturdays, July 11 - August 29
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 be 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 the 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 Friday, July 3.
1 Session: Saturday, July 25
1:00-3:00pm ET
Ruth Franklin
Ruth Franklin has been juggling parenthood and writing for more than twenty years. Her criticism and essays appear regularly in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere, and her books include Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award) and The Many Lives of Anne Frank.
Are you a mother who’s struggling to get back into her groove as a writer? Has becoming a mother changed your mind about what you want to write about or what success as a writer looks like to you? Whether you have a new baby at home or you’re an empty nester (or any stage in between), this single-session workshop will help you use your experience with motherhood to increase your creativity, tapping into resources you didn’t know you had.
We’ll look at inspirational passages about parenting and creativity from mother-writers such as Shirley Jackson, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Audre Lorde, and come up with nuts-and-bolts strategies to keep your work moving forward even after you’ve been up all night with a sick child. “Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had and dealing with fears you never knew existed.” (Shonda Rhimes)
Workshop Highlights:
Reframe your self-narrative around parenting and writing
Learn from the experience of others with similar challenges
Strategize practical tips for working under time constraints
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Friday, July 17.
1 Session: Saturday, July 11
11:00am-1:00pm ET
Kleaver Cruz
Kleaver Cruz, nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Debut Author, is the writer of The Black Joy Project: A Literary and Visual Love Letter to How We Thrive. They hold an MFA in Fiction from the University of Pittsburgh. Cruz has been selected for residencies and fellowships at Loghaven Artist Residency, Cultured Magazine, and Alma|Lewis, and has participated in the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Kleaver believes in telling the stories that did not exist when they needed them the most.
Stuck at the starting line? Sometimes the most direct path to a story begins by moving sideways. During our time together, we will explore "tangential thinking" to unlock fresh openings for your fiction. Drawing from my own practice, inspired by poet Harryette Mullen's Urban Tumbleweed, we will use the Tanka to sharpen our observational skills. For those new to the form, a Tanka is a succinct, five-line Japanese poem. Its power lies in its brevity and the volta, or turn, in the final two lines that shifts perspective or deepens emotion. This technique translates beautifully into the expansive flow of prose. Rather than summarizing plot, we will write Tankas to capture the sensory textures and quiet moments orbiting your characters, using the poem's structure to bypass writer's block and access the emotional core of your work.
We will then bridge the gap between poetry and prose, transforming these single-stanza observations into compelling opening sentences or narrative musings. Whether you are drafting a new novel or revisiting a piece that feels stalled, this practice offers a unique lens to re-engage with your story. Join us for a journey from syllables to sentences and discover how to reignite the story you are itching to tell.
Workshop Highlights:
Discover a new practice for crafting sentences through poetry.
Deepen your understanding of the relationship between poetry and prose.
Draft the beginnings of a new story or reinvent a work in progress.
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 3.
2 Sessions: Sundays, July 26 + August 2
1:00-3:00pm ET
Jonathan Escoffery
A must-take seminar for writers preparing to apply for fellowships, residencies, and graduate programs, from Stegner and NEA Fellow Jonathan Escoffery.
Whether you want to enhance your craft or win more writerly time and support, chances are that someday you’ll face a competitive application process. At such times, a well-written artist statement can go a long way to make you stand out from the pack. In this session, we’ll discuss the key components that every personal statement and statement of purpose should include, as well as holistic, big-picture considerations for making your application as strong as can be. A necessary and practical workshop for writers looking to apply for fellowships, residencies, MFA programs, and grants. You will be provided with resources, sample statements, strategies, and tips that will ensure your applications are taken seriously.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn about the types of residencies, conferences, creative writing programs, and fellowships that exist, how to find them, what takes place at each, and strategies for making oneself an attractive applicant.
Learn what elements must be included in a statement of purpose versus a personal statement.
Take home a strategy guide and sample statements that will be discussed in class.
This class has 1 full and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 17.
2 Sessions: Sundays, August 9 + 16
2:00-3:30pm ET
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of The Wonder Paradox: Awe, Poetry, and the Meaningful Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), as well as Doubt (Harper Collins) and Stay (Yale), and her three poetry books include Who Said (Copper Canyon). Her prose and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Vox, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, Tin House, and The Kenyon Review. She has taught writing in the graduate programs of The New School and Columbia University.
Dutiful but dull, AI can do your chores for you but can't shine with the full wattage of a nimble human author. This two session seminar will be a discussion of specific ways to find your own voice and make sure it stands out from what AI can do. Before AI, finding one's voice was already key, now it's everything. We'll look at traditional ways to develop one's voice, such as using regional terms and speech patterns. We'll also ask what AI can't accomplish, such as speaking from personal experience, and we'll think about the development of voice in these terms. All levels are welcome.
In the class, we’ll read short excerpts from writers whose voices are unmistakably their own and discuss what qualities make them so effective, such as rhythm, surprise, specificity, emotional risk, obsession, humor, and repetition. Some of the authors we’ll consider are James Baldwin, David Sedaris, Joan Didion, Zadie Smith, and Tim O’Brien. Participants will experiment with exercises designed to loosen predictable prose and move toward language that is wholly their own. The goal of the course is not only to resist AI, but to become more deeply, fully ourselves on the page.
A special feature of the class is that participants will be invited to send the instructor a short piece of writing and will receive feedback by the second session. This can be a writing sample or a description of a project. This is entirely optional.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn how to attract agents and editors.
Discuss techniques for exciting prose and developing your own voice.
Learn to use structure to get from idea to finished.
This class has 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 31.
1 Session: Saturday, August 22
12:00-3:00pm ET
Ryan Chapman
Ryan Chapman is the author of the novels Riots I Have Known, which NPR called "one of the smartest--and best--novels of the year," and The Audacity, praised as "delicious satire" by Vanity Fair. He teaches at Vassar College and the Sewanee School of Letters.
What do we talk about when we talk about comic voice? Vladimir Nabokov’s linguistic wordplay. Paul Beatty’s situational ironies. Oscar Wilde’s bone-dry wit. (And whomever you’re thinking about right now.) Comic voice is endlessly capacious and incredibly elastic. It allows us to trojan-horse the most difficult subjects into our fiction. It provides catharsis when the world feels on the verge of collapse. And, as we’ll learn, it’s essential for defining our prose style and our ideal reader.
This craft seminar will enumerate strategies for employing the comic--broadly defined--in our own practice. Whether you’re interested in satire or the lightly humorous, you’ll come away with practical steps for advancing your craft. Expect nerdy discussions on rhetoric and earnest ones on empathy, with close readings of brief passages by Miranda July, Gunnhild Øyehaug, Gary Shteyngart, Donald Antrim, and Rebecca Makkai.
While this session will draw upon my MFA pedagogy, it’s for writers at every level of their practice.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn concrete strategies for adapting comic voice to your prose style
Perform close readings of how the comic works at the level of the sentence
Develop your sense of your own individual voice and your ideal audience
This class has 2 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, August 14.
Fiction
6 Sessions: Tuesdays, June 30-July 4
6:30-9:30pm ET
Ru Freeman
Ru Freeman is an award-winning writer, poet, and activist who 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. 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.
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Sometimes writers are too close to the material. You have worked on it so long that what seemed like it glittered now appears dull. Characters who were conjured in full emotional regalia now wander seemingly without purpose. Detail is missing or buried under generalities. Setting is diluted or absent. Dialogue is arrested mid sentence. The plot sickens. Perhaps it isn’t quite so bad, but you are tired of clutching your pages to your chest in the hope that it is a good working-draft but harboring a suspicion that it needs something beyond hope to reach its potential.
This workshop offers a rare opportunity to have an entire draft of a novel workshopped alongside carefully selected peers who are similarly motivated by an understanding that their drafts need work, and a commitment to doing it. During these weeks we will deep-dive into segments of your novel, diagnose where it might be stuck, and brainstorm approaches to move it forward. You will have the opportunity to ask for help with specific issues and get input in moving your novel forward.
This workshop provides:
Full workshop of your entire novel
The opportunity to create community with your workshop cohort for future exchanges
Regular one-on-one sessions with the instructor after each workshop and upon conclusion of the session to discuss your work and next steps
This is a workshop for writers who:
Have a first draft (of approx. 80-85,000 words) in hand and are ready to revise
Have some experience giving and receiving feedback in a workshop setting, and are willing and able to read the drafts of their cohort and be ready to respond to their questions, centering their work and journey over personal aesthetics
Our time will be organized as follows:
We will workshop in sections of 1/3 of each of your drafts, hearing and responding to questions from each writer. The first two weeks will also focus on compelling beginnings, the second two weeks on sustaining middles, and the last two on endings and how they are earned.
After each workshop has ended, the writers whose work was discussed during that workshop will schedule a half-hour check in with me to discuss any pressing issues with their workshop segment, which equals an hour and a half of one-on-one time with me during the session. In addition, you will also schedule a longer hour-long conversation with me to discuss progress after our entire session has concluded.
To apply, please submit the materials below to kate@theshipmanagency.com by June 1st.
The first 15 pages of the novel you want to workshop
A one page synopsis including word count
A 200 word bio including your vision for the novel you are working on
3 Sessions: Sundays, July 5, 12, 19
1:00-3:00pm ET
Andrea Lawlor
Andrea Lawlor is the author of the novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (Vintage), and two chapbooks of prose poems, Position Papers Vol. 1 (Factory Hollow Press) and Position Papers Vol. 2 (Belladonna*). Their stories, essays, and poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Brooklyn Rail, jubilat, and The New York Times. They are the recipient of a Whiting Award for Fiction and the Prix Sade, as well as fellowships from Lambda Literary, the Ucross Foundation, and MacDowell. They teach creative writing at Mount Holyoke College and live in Western Massachusetts.
In this hands-on workshop, we will explore short forms including prose poetry, micro essays, flash fiction, fables, parables, and more. We will encounter examples of published work and make our own pieces. We will focus our attention on language, precision, compression, the turn. Together, we will investigate how the constraint of length might create the aesthetic and political effects we desire. While this will be a mostly generative space, there will be opportunities to share your work and receive feedback.
Workshop Highlights:
Generative! You'll write something in every session, with optional assignments between sessions as well.
Genre-agnostic! We'll tarry in the fields of poetry, prose, and hybrid forms.
Open to all! This workshop is designed for emerging and experienced writers.
This class has 2 full scholarships and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, June 26.
1 Session: Sunday, July 12
2:00-4:00pm ET
Laura van den Berg
This craft seminar will be taught by Laura van den Berg, who is the author of six works of fiction, most recently the novel State of Paradise (FSG, 2024). She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her next novel, Ring of Night, is forthcoming in 2027. Laura has taught in the MFA programs at Columbia and the Michner Center at UT Austin and currently directs the Creative Writing program at Harvard.
Scenes are one of the most important components of narrative writing. What makes a scene? How can we encourage our scenes to become more dynamic, surprising, and layered? As writers, we’re often told that the most important moments in a story should be rendered “in scene”—but is that always the answer? How can we approach "scene work" in a less conventional way? This seminar will explore how to write fully alive scenes through close reading, craft discussion, and writing exercises. Writers can expect to leave the seminar with new ideas on how to approach writing scenes and practical tips for tackling challenging scenes in their work.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn how to write dynamic and surprising scenes
Expand your sense of what a scene can do
Seminar will be a mix of craft lecture, discussion, writing, and Q & A
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 3.
1 Session: Wednesday, July 15
6:00-9:00pm ET
Swan Huntley
Swan Huntley is the author of four novels and two illustrated books for adults. She earned an MFA from Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo.
Before writing a novel, there are many foundational choices you need to make. What is the structure? What is the timeline? What is the internal arc of the main character? What is the external arc?
In this class, Swan will take students through her process of making these choices. She will also share the template that she uses before writing a novel, which distills the fundamentals into a simple form.
Workshop Highlights:
An understanding of the foundational choices you need to make before writing a novel
A template to fill out
A clear plan for starting or continuing your novel
This class has 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 3.
1 Session: Thursday, July 16
6:00-8:00pm ET
Isle McElroy
Isle McElroy is the author of three novels, The Atmospherians (2021), People Collide (2023), and The Channel (forthcoming in 2027). They are currently a Shearing Fellow at UNLV and teach in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College.
In fiction, it’s often assumed that everything the writer produced is fully imagined–or, in the case of autofiction, that nothing is made up, each character representative of a real-life parallel. The truth is normally far less interesting. Fiction writers peel from life required to create their fictional worlds, sometimes borrowing heavily, sometimes very little at all.
In this workshop, we will explore strategies for bringing real life into fiction. Why, for instance, might a writer borrow from real life to write fiction when they could just as easily make it all up? How might real life details undermine narrative momentum and coherency? When is it necessary to fictionalize?
Workshop Highlights:
Learn strategies for borrowing from real life in fiction
Discuss the ethical implications of borrowing from real life
Write a short exercise blending real life and fiction
This course has 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 3.
1 Session: Sunday, August 2
2:00-5:00pm ET
Laura van den Berg
This craft seminar will be taught by Laura van den Berg, who is the author of six works of fiction, most recently the novel State of Paradise (FSG, 2024). She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her next novel, Ring of Night, is forthcoming in 2027. Laura has taught in the MFA programs at Columbia and the Michner Center at UT Austin and currently directs the Creative Writing program at Harvard.
Finishing a first draft of a novel is thrilling, but it can also be overwhelming to figure out next steps. This craft seminar will explore strategies for revising a novel. We will consider a variety of revision tools and processes; discuss strategies for sustaining momentum and commitment; and begin to build a revision roadmap. Writers can except to leave the seminar with an expanded revision toolkit and a clearer understanding of their own intentions and revision plans.
Workshop Highlights:
Learn strategies for approaching a novel revision: how to build a roadmap; where to begin; how to organize your revision plans
Learn tips for navigating roadblocks and “stuckness”
Seminar will be a mix of craft lecture, discussion, writing exercises, and Q&A.
Advance reading will be assigned.
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 24.
4 Sessions: Thursdays, August 6, 13, 20, 27
6:00-8:00pm ET
Maria Dahvana Headley
Maria Dahvana Headley is the New York Times-bestselling, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award-winning author of eight books in a variety of genres, most recently Beowulf: A New Translation (FSG), The Mere Wife (FSG), and Magonia (HarperCollins). She's recently served as the Lund Gill Chair at Dominican University, and the Rachel Rivers-Coffey Distinguished Professor at Appalachian State University.
One of the things she's best known for is opening her new translation of Beowulf with the word "Bro" - so, yeah, she knows some things about crafting the kind of beginning that sells the book.
The beginning isn't luck - it's stone cold craft. This is a class about hooking readers, whether they are prospective agents and editors, or members of the reading public. The first five pages are, in either case, the sink or swim pages. I'll be sharing techniques for clarifying voice, style, character and action, and working with you on your first five, whether they already exist, or not. We'll begin with creating and sharing a one-line pitch, and we'll continue through our four sessions to get you to five active, revised, and indelible pages.
Frequently, writers begin their stories in the wrong place, and find themselves flailing trying to get readers to stick. We'll go through your pages and pitches to diagnose the proper starting point, and I'll give feedback along the way. We'll be writing in class, as well as reading great beginnings from across a variety of genres.
Workshop Highlights:
Writers will learn how to craft their first five pages - voice, plot, characters - to get readers hooked and fascinated.
We'll write new versions in class, and work on them with feedback.
Writers will leave this class with several versions of the first five, and a lot of new knowledge on how to find the most viable beginning for their story.
This class has 2 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 31.
1 Session: Monday, August 10
6:00-8:00pm ET
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Maurice Carlos Ruffin, who was recently honored with a Guggenheim Award, is a Professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University and an instructor at Randolph College Low-Res MFA program. He is the author of three New York Times Editor's Choice books, including the novels The American Daughters (One World, 2024) and We Cast a Shadow (One World, 2019) and the story collection The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You (One World, 2021).
Writing a novel requires a mixture of earnest creativity and steely-eyed determination. In this generative session, aspiring novelists are encouraged to bring their drafts or start new drafts. We will focus on techniques for discovering unforgettable characters, building irresistible plots, and undeniable themes. In-class assignments will include drafting material without concern for perfection or propriety. This is your chance to create work that you will be proud of and readers will love.
Workshop Highlights:
Generative workshop for aspiring novelists.
Craft advice on characters, plotting and theme.
Polishing a manuscript.
This class has 1 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 31.
NonFiction
1 Session: Saturday, May 9
3:00-4:15pm 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 the writer and editor Michele Filgate called, "One of the best books I've ever read." 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. 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.
The poet and essayist Alice Notley writes, “I woke up thinking that a dream is like an illuminated manuscript, in which words and letters are enlarged, made calligraphic, highlighted, painted, with stories and symbolic figures in the margins… You might well say that that is what poetry, or essay-writing is—an art form based on telepathy, a sending of complex messages through an almost immaterial presentation (a few words on a page?); or, you might say, that all communication is like that. And isn’t it?”
In this session, we will engage two published flash essays that begin in a dream, and we will discuss ways in which to write from the dreams that consume us. Via a writing prompt, we will practice methods of rescuing the “dream” from mere ephemerality on the page, fostering connections between the dream-world and the “actual” world, in order to best arouse this sort of “telepathic” communication between writer and reader. Participants will engage the writing prompt in real time, and will then share their work with their peers.
Workshop Highlights:
A frank discussion of the interaction between interiority and exteriority in creative nonfiction.
An opportunity to practice writing via an in-class generative prompt.
An opportunity to share your work with your peers and instructor, soliciting feedback on how to expand the piece.
3 Sessions: Thursdays, May 21-June 4
7:00-9:00pm ET
Javier Sinay
This writing workshop is taught by Javier Sinay, an author and a journalist. His books include The Murders of Moises Ville, the true story of his journey reporting a long forgotten true story of violence and displacement, but also resilience and cooperation. In 2015 he won the award of Fundación Gabo (the most important for journalism written in Spanish language) for his story “Fast. Furious. Dead” published in Rolling Stone. He has lead writing workshops, in person and virtually, at The Work Room, the Yale Journalism Initiative, UMass (College of Social & Behavioral Sciences--Journalism), Brandeis University, The Center For Fiction (NY), Lighthouse (Denver), the National Library of Argentina, Casa América (Madrid, Spain) and more. He lives in Buenos Aires.
In this workshop we will read and write to learn about those who came before us -- and thus we will better understand our identity: Who were they? Who are we? Why did Jorge Luis Borges never publish the story that dishonors his grandfather? Why does Prince Harry say so little about his father in his memoir? Why did our grandparents do what they did? From how many generations do we carry genes? These and other questions about genealogy, family, molecular biology and inheritance can help us find answers through words.
This workshop is for any writer interested in identity and will teach you how to write a perhaps epic and surely revealing family memoir. We will read pieces by Jorge Luis Borges, Margo Glantz, Leonard Cohen, Gabriela Wiener and Jordan Salama, among others. And my book 'The Murders of Moisés Ville’.
Workshop Highlights:
Instructor and peer feedback
Generative writing exercises
To apply for a scholarship, please fill out this form by Wednesday, January 28.
2 Sessions: Saturday, June 20 + 27
11:00am-1:00pm ET
David McLoghlin
David McLoghlin is a prize-winning poet, and a writer of memoir plus and personal essay. His third book, Crash Centre (2024), was recently shortlisted for Ireland's Pigott Prize, Ireland's most valuable poetry prize. 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 the Poetry Foundation’s website. He is working on an immersive work of memoir plus about the legacy of his grandfather, Eddie Hackett, "the father of Irish golf design," and the journey into Irish golf of a complete novice.
We have an instinctive sense that time slows in scenes, giving us immersive sensory detail, conflict and dialogue, but what about exposition (also known as reflection, “glide,” or summary)? In fact, exposition is just as important as scenes, as it’s where the writer explains, and comments on scenes. Here is where the writer provides essential information that moves the story forward and links scenes together. Scenes are where we “show,” whereas in summary, we “tell.” Both are essential. Learning how to identify your principle story points (or scenes) will help you to structure your story. As you develop and improve your scenes, you will also develop a better sense of what they mean for you, and how to link them together. This knowledge in turn will help you to develop and improve your narrative voice, which is what well-employed exposition does. Scenes often tell the core story of the past, whereas exposition is in the voice of the adult narrator located in the “narrative present,” reflecting on the past.
This masterclass is structured around reading short extracts from memoir and personal essay; practical tips for how to execute scenes and summary in our own work; and, in-class writing exercises to improve our own craft learnings. Students will have ample opportunity to practice what they are learning. 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.
Workshop Highlights:
You’ll learn to identify scenes and summary (exposition) as you read the work of others as well as your own writing
You’ll learn how to write better scenes and summaries
As a result you will get a better sense of the story you are trying to tell, which will help you improve your narrative voice as a whole.
This class has one full scholarship and two partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, June 12.
1 Session: Saturday, July 18
12:00-1:30pm 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." 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 the craft essay, “Finding a Form Before the Form Finds You,” essayist Patrick Madden writes, “I appreciate the value of subversion and of challenging myself… choosing or borrowing a form, then writing under constraint, with and against expectation, to force yourself into thinking new ways.” In this lecture, we will discuss various ways of subverting one’s initial engagement of a subject via seemingly whimsical formal experimentation, until that whimsy gathers the sort of gravity that essayists sometimes (perhaps reductively) call “ecstatic truth” or “emotional truth.” We will take a look at various examples of such formal experimentation, from those launched and performed by the Oulipo collective in 1960s France, to contemporary “updaters” of such essayistic experimentation, as Carmen Maria Machado, Jenny Boully, and Judith Schalansky. We will close with a “subversive” writing prompt.
Workshop Highlights:
A frank discussion of the interaction between form and subject matter.
An engagement of a fun, whimsical, generative writing exercise.
An opportunity to ask the author anything about the lecture's themes, and/or about the writing and publishing process.
1 Session: Sunday, July 26
2:30-4:00pm ET
Anna Clark
Anna Clark is an investigative journalist at ProPublica and a faculty member in Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. She is the author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy, which won the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and the Rachel Carson environmental book award, and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. She edited A Detroit Anthology, a Michigan Notable Book, and wrote a book about the Great Lakes State's literary history. Anna was a Fulbright fellow in creative writing in Kenya and a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan.
Let's talk about how to talk to people. Interviewing people who have a meaningful vantage on the story you're writing brings potency, power, and revelation to your work. And no matter what your writing background is, you have a right to ask questions.
In this quick-moving seminar, we'll look at how nonfiction and fiction writers have integrated original interviews into their prose. We'll talk about the distinctions in interviewing people you're acquainted with and people who are strangers, as well as interviewing public figures versus private folk. We'll walk through the interviewing process step by step: deciding when it's worth it to pursue an interview; finding people; reaching out; prepping for the conversation; balancing prepared questions with real-time pivots; follow-ups; and lacing what you hear into story.
We’ll ask: What kind of questions do you need to ask to get clear, vivid facts? What kind of questions will evoke rich storytelling detail that you can use in your scenes? How do you navigate complex, emotional or otherwise challenging issues? What if someone lies to you? Or if you hear contradictory accounts of the same event? What are common mistakes that interviewers make? Ethically, what is your responsibility to the people you interview?
In collaborative fashion, we'll dig into all of this, and more. There will, of course, be time for questions.
Workshop Highlights:
How interviewing can bring power to your prose
How to find, and approach, people for an interview
How to conduct a great (and ethical!) interview
This class has 3 scholarships for a reduced fee of $45 available on a first come, first serve basis. Please email kate@theshipmanagency.com to request one.
3 Sessions: Tuesdays, July 28, August 4, August 11
6:00-8:00pm ET
Ryan Berg
Taught by Ryan Berg, an award-winning memoirist and experienced instructor of creative nonfiction, this course invites writers to engage the stories they have been avoiding and shape them with care and craft, drawing on Berg’s focus on the intersection of personal narrative and healing. Open to all levels, the class is best suited for writers ready to explore their own experiences on the page and participate in a thoughtful, craft-focused environment.
Some stories resist us for years. We circle them, intellectualize them, joke past them, or convince ourselves they are too personal, too fragmented, too unresolved to become art. Yet often the material we avoid contains the emotional center of our work.
In this generative workshop, writers will examine how personal narrative can hold difficult experience on the page without sliding into confession or retraumatization. Through close reading, discussion, and guided exercises, we will work with structure, scene, emotional distance, and voice. We will study writers who engage honestly with their hardest material while remaining attentive to craft, including Melissa Febos, Carmen Maria Machado, and Alexander Chee.
Students will receive:
Generative writing prompts and in-class exercises
A curated reading list and craft resources
Practical strategies for approaching emotionally difficult material
Optional written feedback on up to 10 pages of personal narrative
This class has 1 full and 2 partial scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 17.
Poetry
1 Session: Saturday, August 1
11:00am-2:00pm ET
Craig Morgan Teicher
This craft seminar will be taught by Craig Morgan Teicher, who is the author of five books of poems. He also wrote Cradle Book: Stories and Fables (BOA, 2010) and the chapbook Ambivalence and Other Conundrums (Omnidawn, 2014). His collection of essays, We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress, was published by Graywolf in 2018.
My teacher Lucie Brock-Broido used to advise us, in typically cryptic fashion, to "strike to the dark crystal" in our poems. That meant something like: aim for the pain, aim for the vulnerability. Sometimes, we're able to find that dark crystal in a first draft, but often we must dig it up in revision. In this one-day workshop, students will each present one poem that they are seeking to crack out of its shell. We will look for the places where the poem is protecting something, and we will try, in the most artful and compassionate manner, to reveal it.
Workshop Highlights:
Students will learn new revision strategies
Identify moments when poems run or hide from their subjects
Workshop one new poem through lively discussion
This class has 2 scholarships available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, July 24.
1 Session: Tuesday, August 25
7:00-9:00pm ET
Diana Arterian
Tap into poetry's ancient form with Diana Arterian, a writer who has published two book-length poems that attend to history, power, family, and politics. Her recent collection, Agrippina the Younger, earned the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Award and was named "best of" by Ms. Magazine and Electric Literature. Her first volume, Playing Monster :: Seiche, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was a Poetry Foundation Staff Pick. Diana has also been an editor at Noemi Press for over a dozen years, and is deeply connected with book-length poetry in the manuscripts she edits there.
While poetry began with mothers singing lullabies, the epic is poetry's most enduring form the world over. The book-length poem is the epic's modern mode, harkening to poetry's origins. It allows us to attend to concerns beyond what a single page (or even a dozen) can contain. As heady and exciting as this all might be, many logistical things nettle the book-length poem. How do you make sure it's not lesser than the sum of its parts? How do you manage order? How do you keep a reader interested, even if the collection doesn't adhere to a chronology? How do you excerpt it for publication in journals?
This craft seminar will be a mix of lecture, discussion, and resource sharing. In the lecture portion, Diana will describe shapes and gestures in modern book-length works of note from Alice Notley to Ross Gay to Muriel Rukeyser, as well as her own experiences in crafting such work. Discussion will be a space for people to describe their own challenges, as well as brief prompts from Diana regarding the shape and approach to your work. While poem drafts or a manuscript draft are not required, ideally this seminar will be a space for people to bring burning ideas and questions for a book-length work.
Workshop Highlights:
A space to explore with other poets curious about the book-length poem and interrogate its defining features, spaces for intervention, and how your work operates within that form.
In-depth feedback and discussion as a group to help you refine your work and troubleshoot broader challenges with the manuscript.
A thorough list of notable examples of book-length poems that challenge and expand the form.
This class has 1 full and 1 partial scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, August 14.
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.
I am now available to work with students individually to consult on their longer nonfiction projects. I work with writers who are interested especially in formally innovative nonfiction — whether reported and / or memoir, or blends of both. I am especially interested in working with writers coming from historically marginalized backgrounds, in particular fellow trans and queer folks.
I’m the former Deputy Features Editor of BuzzFeed News and a nonfiction writer whose essays and features have been published by a wide variety of outlets, including The Believer, Esquire, The Cut, and This American Life. I have two degrees in nonfiction writing (from Brown, and then an MFA from the University of Iowa) and have taught this genre widely. My acclaimed debut book, A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise — published initially by Scribner in 2018 — received wide critical attention for its formal innovation and ground-breaking messages. (I’m at work on its sequel.) In general, I am most interested in working with writers who are already serious about their own projects and feel they’d benefit from some coaching and fresh perspective.
To apply to work with me, please submit ~5 – 10 pages of your project for me to review. Send our sample to Kate Mabus, kate@theshipmanagency.com
$500 is my lowest rate, offered to discuss a portion of a manuscript (up to 20K words). For those who’d like me to review longer volumes of prose, we can discuss and agree upon a fair rate (up to $1000 for 60K words or roughly a “full” book manuscript). When we work together, we’ll probably have one or a few video calls to discuss your project, with periodic check-ins afterwards, depending on your needs. We can discuss and agree upon specifics when we speak initially to discuss working together. Looking forward to learning more about your project and how you feel I might be of help.
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
$400/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.
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 twelve 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, the New School, and other institutions 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 $750 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.
For an additional fee, I also offer post feedback consultations via phone/zoom to discuss any follow up 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!
I’m interested in working with prose writers who desire to have their short fiction, personal essays, or novels receive extensive global feedback. Typically, I like to learn a bit about what I’ll be working on to see if we’re a fit before moving forward, and I may ask to see a short excerpt (1-3 pages) of the piece, so that I can gauge my interest and reading speed.
I am also excited to work with writers who are preparing to apply to graduate-level creative writing programs, including MFA and PhD programs. As a graduate of University of Minnesota’s MFA program and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, and as a former Provost Fellow in USC’s PhD in Creative Writing and Literature program, I feel well-equipped to help. I have also served as a juror/ reader for such programs for several years, which has given me insight about the application process from the faculty perspective. I am happy to review personal statements, statements of purpose, and writing samples, as well as to discuss the decision to apply for such programs.
I am open to longer-term coaching on a case-by-case basis, but prefer to work on a project together before moving forward with such arrangements.
I began my teaching career in 2012, and my fiction has earned awards and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paris Review, the National Book Foundation, the Booker Prizes, and PEN America, to name just a few.
For full-length manuscripts (novels and memoirs), my rate is $4,000. For shorter work, my starting hourly rate is $150, which includes two reads of the manuscript and a feedback letter, which typically ranges from 2-4 pages, addressing elements of the writing such as:
Character Development (round vs. flat; wounds, flaws, & fears)
Character Desire (concrete & abstract; internal & external; tangible & intangible)
Plotting & Structure
Stakes/ What’s at Stake?
The First Pages (inciting incident)
Backstory
Point of View
Narrative Distance
Voice & Style (in larger terms)
Obstacles, Conflict, & Complications
Pacing
Suspense & Foreshadowing
The Final Pages (crisis; climax; denouement; reversal)
Character Arcs
Theme & Premise
Setting
Text & Subtext
Missing or Irrelevant Scenes
This does not include copyediting; however, as a natural part of tracking the work's movements, and strengths and weaknesses, a large degree of marginalia is almost guaranteed. We’ll agree to a turnaround window prior to getting started, but a story under 30 pages will typically receive feedback in a week’s time. Full-length manuscripts typically take 4-6 weeks.
I'm also happy to speak over the phone after you've received my feedback to discuss it further for approximately one hour.
Short stories, Personal Essays, Memoir
Me; I have taught for decades in the US (across the country and at a range of institutions including Columbia University and CCNY) and abroad, published collections of stories, essays, and novels, and produced anthologies of seminal work on issues of social justice including Palestine and world activism. I have also published poetry and work as a freelance journalist, and served as a judge for prestigious awards including the PEN Hemingway Prize. 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-utilized aspects of their repertoire. 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.
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 work could be intimate and personal or complex and global or all these things. I like to work with writers who have a complete project in hand. Please provide a work sample of up to 10 pages for review to evaluate fit.
For full-length manuscripts (novels, short-story collections and memoirs), the rate is $4,000, which includes the following:
Line-edits
Feedback letter of 5-10 pages, addressing elements of prose writing including beginnings/endings, voice, character development, plot/structure, narrative distance, authenticity, language, point of view, setting, and scene.
2 hour long conversations during and after the review
For shorter work, my starting hourly rate is $150, which includes a feedback letter between 2-3 pages.
Having served as a juror for some of the most competitive conferences and residencies in the United States, I am happy to review personal statements and writing samples and provide guidance with applications. The fee for coaching at this level is $150/hour.
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.
Hi, I’m Swan. I’ve published four novels and two illustrated books for adults. I’ve worked extensively as an editor and teacher. I would describe my feedback style as both very honest and incredibly compassionate. I know how important it is to be told the truth - in a really kind way.
If you want to work with me, you can send me the first 10 double-spaced pages of your novel. I will make notes using Track Changes. Then we will have a discussion about your work and the estimated cost for a read of the full project.
My rate is $250/hour. My minimum fee is $2,500.
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
Fiction, Nonfiction
Sarah Manguso is the author of ten 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-five 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 $2500. Scholarships are available.
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.
“Greg’s approach to teaching and mentorship is representative of who he is as a whole: thoughtful, compassionate, insightful, honest, and humorous. I’ve benefited from one-on-one sessions with him and have also taken part in a seminar that he led. In each setting, Greg excelled at providing his students with the individualized counsel that an aspiring writer can only hope for. He provides equal parts praise, guidance, and compassionate critique in a way that encourages his students to harness and unleash their own creative prowess."
- Clay Klaus-Wade
"Greg is a fantastic teacher. He is encouraging, specific in his teachings and an effective communicator. He clearly loves to teach and to share his knowledge. He always involves the student and simultaneously emboldens the student to craft their own style. He creates a safe space for each student to ask questions, to test their own theories and assumptions."
- Buffy Shutt
Hi! Thanks for your interest in learning with me. A little bit about myself: I am the 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. I am currently working on my next memoir, Not a Wonderland: Dispatches From a Body That's Trying to Kill Me, and Save Our Serotonin: An Illustrated Guide for the Modern and Mentally Ill.
My teaching philosophy is pretty simple: If you care about your story, someone else will, too. My job—and joy—is to help my students hone their craft by looking inward. Because only by looking inward can you learn to write about the way you move through the world. I'm not here to teach as much as I am to hold up a mirror and help you mine your reflection for the things you might not have noticed before or hadn't thought to consider in one way or another—all of the things that make up the fabric of your being, the things that should be radically honored both on and off the page.
This consultation will begin with an initial hour-long meeting and conversation about your work-in-progress. I want to hear about why you started writing your project, and where you imagine it going. I want to know why your project matters to you. We will also discuss any concerns or challenges you face, as well as what you want to achieve by the time you finish your final draft.
Following our conversation, I will then give line-by-line edits, along with detailed editorial notes on your work-in-progress. This can include a nonfiction manuscript, book proposal, book chapters, query letter, essay(s), article(s), work samples, or any other form of nonfiction prose.
Price breakdown: $200 flat fee for the first 20 pages (12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and one-inch margins), and $3 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 $175 for the first 20 pages (12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and one-inch margins), and $3 for every page after that.
Please note: Payment is for the initial flat fee. Additional page fees to be determined and invoiced separately.
I look forward to working—and learning—with you!
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
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.
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!
Option 1 - $500
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.
Option 2 - $2000
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.
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. 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.
3 Sessions: July 6, 8, 10
5:00-7:00pm ET
Fargo Nissim Tbakhi
Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a Palestinian performance artist, poet, and writer of criticism and short fiction. His performances have been programmed at the Arab-American National Museum, the Whitney's Independent Study Program, the Poetry Project at St Marks, Cannonball Festival, Mosaic Theater, the Abrons Art Center, the DC Palestinian Film and Art Festival, OUTsider Fest, and elsewhere, and has received support from the MAP Fund, the National Performance Network, and others. His debut poetry collection, Terror Counter, was published by Deep Vellum in 2025 and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He has taught in the theater department at Towson University, and lectured or offered guest workshops at a variety of educational institutions both formal and informal.
The art of performance is often expected of writers, and seldom taught to us. If it is, the performance is subservient to the writing it interprets, with little consideration of the mutual, enlightening relationship between performance and text. Performance, as a rich and slippery artistic form, can do things that writing itself cannot, and vice versa; this workshop will offer a set of tools to surface and invest in this form, considering performance as a set of tools which can enrich and enliven our writing practice both on and off the page. Over three sessions, participants will be introduced to a range of performance elements and learn how to integrate them into a writing practice holistically and intentionally.
We'll begin by analyzing and unpacking a range of performance elements (time/duration, body, sound, space, object, etc), using examples from notable writer-performers. We'll then experiment with surfacing these elements in a piece of writing from each participant, seeing how performance illuminates, challenges, subverts, or clarifies the intentions and strategies of the writing. Finally, we'll share and exchange feedback on our performance experiments.
Workshop Highlights:
For anyone just beginning to explore performance, this workshop will offer a clear and accessible framework to experiment and play freely, with clear examples and language.
For those looking to deepen their relationship to performance, the workshop's structure will offer a way to scaffold towards more sophisticated engagement and application of performance theory and practice.
For anyone and everyone, the discussion and exploration of the mutual relationship between performance and text will offer a broadly useful way to analyze, interpret, and create art that is strange, experimental, and meaningful.
This class has 5 scholarship available. To apply, please fill out this form by Friday, June 26.