What Readers Want

A short, information-packed writing class on what readers want. It's simple. By thinking about what readers want from their stories, writers can harness the power of reader emotion to write amazing stories, novels, screenplays, picture books, poems, and more.

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How to Have a Career in Publishing

How do you have a career in publishing? This is the question on a lot of minds. Do you have to move to NYC? Do you have to be incredibly lucky? Learn how to have a publishing career with this video.

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How to Find a Literary Agent for Children’s Books

You’ve written a killer query, researched your comps, and crafted your bio. Your opening is polished, and you slogged through the synopsis. Your submission package is ready! Now, how do you go about finding a literary agent for your children’s books?

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In Favor of Present Tense Writing

One of the first decisions we have to make before writing is what tense to use. Present tense writing is often overlooked in favor of past tense—but when is present tense the better choice?

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Audience, Craft, Writing, Memoir Draft, Memoir Editing, Memoir Outline Joiya Morrison-Efemini Audience, Craft, Writing, Memoir Draft, Memoir Editing, Memoir Outline Joiya Morrison-Efemini

Put Your Words Down, Flip Them, and Reverse Them: Writing Your Memoir in Reverse Chronology

If you’re writing a memoir, you have to write your life events exactly the way they happened—but you don’t have to write them in order! Give your readers a backwards walk through your remarkable life with reverse chronology.

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Story Mastermind: Picture Book Mini-Mastermind

Story Mastermind is our small group writing workshop. We'll tell you a little bit about the program, but mostly we will be talking today about picture book premise, and how to make sure that your story has strong bones and how to tell a compelling picture book story in today's market.

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Story Mastermind: Novel Mini-Mastermind

Story Mastermind is a five-month small group workshop intensive. The deliverable is a fully workshopped novel draft and submission materials. We’ll give you a taste of how we discuss story in Novel Mastermind: from the premise, the elevator pitch, the logline; to theme, character objective, and stakes.

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Mary Kole Mary Kole

ANNOUNCING THE GOOD STORY GRANT WINNERS FOR 2022

The Good Story Grant aims to help two writers reach the next step in their creative journeys. This grant is open to writers of all skill levels, and working in all genres and categories. The award is $1,500 US, used however you’d like … as long as it has to do with writing and helps you tell your story.

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Ways to Hook a Reader

You do need to clear a pretty high bar to impress an agent, a publisher, or a reader once you get published. The opening pages are a really, really important part of this. Adding some character relatability and a little bit of conflict goes a long way in hooking a reader.

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Writing Career Goals

Allow yourself to dream big. What does that look like for this project or for yourself as a writer? Some writers want movie adaptations, or to write a New York Times Best Seller, but a lot of people just want to keep writing.

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How to Overcome Writer’s Block: Memoir Edition

Many writers run into some form of writer’s block, but nonfiction and memoir writers have certain challenges to overcome writer’s block that fiction writers don’t face. Someone writing a novel can simply … make up what happens next. But memoir writers can feel constrained by wanting to be true to reality.

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Swearing In Children’s Books

This is everybody's favorite fucking topic. It is swearing in children's books. Very controversial. Keep in mind the power gatekeepers have in children’s publishing.

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Learning From Failure

It may seem weird to talk about failure and rejection in writing context as a good thing. But I really want to help you reframe it, because the actual writing journey is rather long. If you don't enjoy the actual writing process, you're gonna have a tough time because there is so much rejection and failure inherent in that journey.

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How To Write a Query Letter

One way you might think about how to write a query letter is as a cover letter. It has its own rules and formatting for the literary world, but essentially you are pitching your project to your potential employer. So, what are the rules? How do you start?

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