Author: Sharla Yates

Unsure how to start writing about grief, loss, or trauma? Stuck midstream? Wondering how honest to be?

Creative Nonfiction

Writing about grief, loss, or trauma can feel overwhelming. Where do you begin? How much should you reveal? And how do you shape painful experience into something meaningful—for both you and your reader?

Robert Frost famously said, “No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader.” But turning raw emotion into compelling narrative requires more than catharsis. It demands reflection, structure, and the willingness to uncover what’s at the heart of the story.

In this 90-minute live webinar, we’ll explore how acclaimed memoirists and essayists approach emotionally charged material—and how you can apply their techniques to your own work. We’ll look closely at the roles of conflict, joy, and meaning-making in shaping personal narrative and discuss strategies for writing that is honest without becoming unmoored.

You’ll leave with practical tools to deepen your creative nonfiction and move your work forward—with insight, clarity, and connection. We’ll also revisit Frost’s lesser-known companion quote: “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”

There will be writing in this webinar!

Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXAMINE the nuts and bolts of craft in notable examples of memoir and essay about loss, grief, and trauma 
• EXPLORE narrative balance of research, memory, and imagination
• DEVELOP confidence in your right to write your version of events

This webinar is a great fit for creative nonfiction writers of all levels who are…

• Seeking to create a compelling story from the experience of grief, loss, or trauma
• Interested in crafting scenic writing
• Creating narrative from researched fact and individual memory

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

JESSICA HANDLER is the author of the novel The Magnetic Girl, winner of the 2020 Southern Book Prize, a 2019 “Books All Georgians Should Read,” an Indie Next pick, Wall Street Journal Spring 2019 pick, Bitter Southerner Summer 2019 pick, and a SIBA Okra Pick. Her other books include Invisible Sisters: A Memoir and Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss. Her nonfiction has appeared on NPR, in Tin House, Drunken Boat, The Bitter Southerner, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and More Magazine. She lives in Atlanta.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Mindfulness allows us to see with fresh eyes, to uncover what hasn’t yet been explored, and offers a powerful counterbalance to the disappointments that accompany rejection and ambition. Learn to reclaim the joy in your writing life.

All Genres

Too often, as writers, we find ourselves drawn to common, customary, and comfortable realizations–but the practice of mindfulness can open us to see with fresh eyes, to search our memories, and reveal what hasn’t yet been explored. Mindfulness teaches us to listen to others, but also to ourselves, even those thoughts that make us uncomfortable. (Perhaps especially those thoughts!)

Practicing mindfulness offers a powerful counterbalance to the disappointment and dissatisfaction that too often accompany the world of publishing, rejection, and ambition. To live a more fruitful writing life, we can make both the practice of writing and the work itself less about ourselves, becoming mindful of our motives and our attachment to desired outcomes.

Can’t make it live? No worries—a replay will be available to all registrants.

In this webinar, you will:

• DISCOVER how mindfulness can free up our creativity and enhance our enjoyment of writing
• EXPLORE how to move beyond “safe and customary” realizations in our writing 
• LEARN ways to lessen the disappointment and dissatisfaction that accompany the business side of submission, rejection, and ambition.
• NURTURE compassion for our characters, our family members, and ourselves.

This webinar is a great fit for writers of all levels who…

• Feel stuck, discouraged, or dissatisfied with their writing life, and wish instead to be energized and optimistic
• Want to see with fresh eyes, moving beyond common and comfortable realizations
• Want to reconnect with the joy and surprise they once felt as writers

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

One of our most popular and beloved presenters, DINTY W. MOORE is the author of the memoirs Between Panic & Desire and To Hell With It, and the writing guides Crafting the Personal Essay and The Mindful Writer, among other books. He has published essays and stories in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Short Reads, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Savvy book marketers know that successful promotion starts long before publication.

All Genres

Set yourself up for lasting success with key decisions to make and actions every self-publishing author should take before publication—steps that significantly impact how well your book will market once it’s out in the world. While these elements aren’t always labeled as “marketing,” neglecting them can limit your book’s reach and longevity.

What can you do when you’re not active on social media (and should you be)? When marketing, where should you spend and where should you save? How can you connect with other authors as colleagues, early readers and potential blurbs? Through David’s expert experience and case studies showing how people with limited free time put these principles to work to achieve their goals, you’ll understand how to weave marketing strategy into the publishing process itself, so your book launches stronger and stays marketable for the long haul.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN the “forever decisions”: the 9 things you cannot change without republishing your book.
• UNDERSTAND the 5 types of comp titles research and how each contributes to a successful launch.
• DISCOVER why creating a distribution plan is the first and most important step in self-publishing.
• GET THE NITTY-GRITTY on how to coordinate print book pre-ordering using IngramSpark and Amazon KDP to meet deadlines, make/save money, and avoid publishing the wrong version of your book.
• LEARN the A-B-C list method for reaching testimonial writers, influencers, and readers/buyers.
• FORMULATE a review strategy: a framework for seeking and using editorial and customer reviews during book preparation.
• KNOW HOW TO LEVERAGE the strengths of self-publishing when it comes to distribution, pricing, media outreach, and contacting influencers.

This webinar is ideal for Writers who…

• Wonder if self-publishing is right for them
• Need to know more about self-directed marketing, even if they’re publishing traditionally
• Want to build connections with readers long before their book is released
• Understand better with detailed case studies of how other authors “did it”
• Don’t have vast sums of money for marketing, or vast amounts of time to spend online

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

David Wogahn is the author of six self-published books, including the Countdown to Book Launch® series of publishing guides and the Before the Launch workbook. In 2012, he became the author of the first LinkedIn Learning course on the topic of self-publishing (Lynda.com at the time).

David is a frequent speaker and trainer and has given presentations for the Independent Book Publishers Association, IBPA Publishing University, the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), the Independent Writers of Southern California, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and Jane Friedman, among other publishing professional organizations.

Before founding the author services firm AuthorImprints.com in 2011, David worked for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and the Los Angeles Times, and was co-founder and COO of the first online publisher of sports-team branded websites known today as the CBS College Sports Network.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Every beginning sets a tone, establishes a voice, and signals the quality of the language that is to come. Your beginning is one of your most important writing choices–learn to make it powerful.

All Genres

Will that language be complex and tangled? Plain-spoken? Vanilla? Lavender? Will it zing like jazz or sing like a lullabye? Will it feel lethargic, or will it clop, or will it swashbuckle?

It’s always time to think about sentences—to explore the ways they work (and sometimes don’t), the ways we bend them to get closer to the truth, and the ways we work on patterns and rhythms so that the pages remain alive. 

Prose from Hilton Als, Michael Ondaatje, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Jia Tolentino, Annie Dillard, Olivia Laing, Carmen Machado, Terry Tempest Williams, and Mark Richard will inspire us and lead our way.

Exercises presented will be focused on voice, tone, mood, and pace.

In this webinar, you will:

• REFINE your writing voices
• EXPERIMENT with mood, tone, and pace
• DEVELOP powerful new beginnings
• CREATE a better understanding of your writerly strengths

This webinar is ideal for writers who:

• are intent on capturing the attention of agents, editors, and readers.  
• are keen on perfecting their work.
• wish to build more dimension into their writing.
• Want to learn more about sentence craft and explore their writing voice.

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

One of our favorite presenters, BETH KEPHART, is the award-winning writer of memoir, children’s books, young adult novels, and craft books. She is also a paper artist. Her new book, her first novel for adults, is Tomorrow Will Bring Sunday’s News: A Philadelphia Story. Please join her Substack journey at The Hush and the Howl. More at bethkephartbooks.com

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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How to responsibly craft scenes you or your protagonist didn’t witness, don’t fully remember, or can only speculate about—with clarity, honesty, and emotional truth.

Fiction & Nonfiction

First-person POV in both memoir and fiction demands emotional truth, but what happens when the main character simply doesn’t—or can’t—know what happened, but the story still demands that certain information come through? In this craft-centered session, we’ll explore techniques for threading in offstage action, family history, hidden truths, and essential context—without breaking the voice or cheating the form. 

Memoirists may need old family stories, information from people they’re estranged from or are deceased, or cultural context from before their birth.

Novelists know that first-person fiction is intimate and immediate—but your narrator can’t be everywhere, can’t know everything, and might be naive, biased, or flat-out wrong. 

Whether due to absence, memory gaps, or lost connections, writers often face the challenge of telling stories that hinge on scenes the main character never witnessed or the memoirist can no longer verify. 

This special 2-hour webinar explores how to use informed imagination and clearly signaled speculation to bring in offstage information and uncover hidden truths without misleading your reader or losing consistency in POV. We’ll explore writing the unknown using speculation, research, deduction, mysticism & faith. Through discussion, examples from published work, and a guided writing exercise, we’ll learn how to responsibly fill in the blanks—and consider when doing so serves the memoir or novel and when it doesn’t.

This is a TWO-HOUR class, with 20 minutes of writing time in the middle. 

• 40 minutes – Learn five types of perhapsing, see them in published work, and understand why and how to create scenes and montages outside the protagonist’s direct experience.
• 10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.
• 20 minutes – Revise a scene to include perhapsing, or write a few speculative paragraphs from scratch. Allison will continue taking questions in the chat. OPTIONAL: volunteer for live-editing and upload your scene as a Word doc or docx to a Google Drive.
• 40 minutes – Allison will live-edit pages shared on screen, noting where the writer is succeeding in the purpose of the scene, and what revisions she suggests to make the prose even more effective. During live edits, she’ll call out specific techniques and tips for everyone to apply to their own work, right away. 
• 10 minutes – Q&A and planning your writing from here.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE the challenges of uncertain or secondhand scenes, backstory, subtext and offstage action in first-person prose.
• DEFINE emotional truth in fiction and the ethics of invention in nonfiction.
• DEEPEN your narrative authority by signaling speculation on the page with language and structure.
• WRITE a speculative or secondhand scene using clear signals to the reader.
• DISCOVER what’s working with live-editing of volunteer pages and tips for everyone.

This workshop suits memoirists and novelists at all levels who want to use ethical imagination as a craft skill, not a shortcut.

You’ll receive the slides and prompts to take this work into your manuscript

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She’s helped writers sell to Big Five and literary publishers, hit the NYT Bestseller list, and sign multi-book deals. She’s guided essayists and humorists to publication in media including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Refinery29, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with weekly blogs on craft and the writing life.

Allison works with literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction, and is familiar with the conventions of most genres. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and spent 20 years as a circus aerialist and acrobat before writing and editing full-time.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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You don’t need a personal brand. You need a personalized path. Even if you’re the most marketing-skeptical writer, this webinar can help you get unstuck, find your people, and build a platform in a way that feels like a natural extension of your work—and yourself.

All Genres

Marketing is often framed as a hustle: build your list, grow your audience, get on every platform, sell your work. But for many writers, this can feel overwhelming, confusing, and a little gross. Let’s be honest: writing is hard enough. What if finding and connecting with readers was the fun part? Or at the very least, what if your marketing efforts didn’t all feel like agony, obligation & ick?

In this webinar, we’ll walk through the six most common roadblocks writers face in building a platform—-and the spots where most writers get stuck, spin their wheels, or want to give up. 

Over our time together, you’ll learn simple, sustainable strategies to build momentum, and start showing up with less anxiety and more intention. Whether you’re launching a newsletter, trying to grow your readership, or just want to be less allergic to the idea of “putting yourself out there,” this webinar will give you a map—and a little motivation—to move forward.

In this webinar, you will:

• IDENTIFY six key roadblocks that prevent creative momentum
• LEARN how to define a personal “North Star” to guide and focus all your marketing decisions
• UNCOVER simple, human strategies for building confidence and finding your audience
• SHIFT away from “content creation” to “creating connections”
• EXPLORE sustainable, low-tech ways to stay consistent without burning out
• RECEIVE a list of practical tools, prompts, and resources to keep making progress long after the webinar ends

This webinar is ideal for Writers who…

• want to grow their audience without compromising their voice or values
• are overwhelmed by marketing advice and/or unsure where to start
• are “doing all the things” and still feel like nothing’s working
• came to writing later in life and feel behind when it comes to platform-building
• are building toward publication but feel paralyzed by self-promotion

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Stephen Knezovich is the co-founder of Short Reads and Ascender Book Services. He is also the marketing strategist for Off Assignment, a collage artist, and the curator of two newsletters: Read This and Gluu. Previously, he spent 16 years as the director of marketing for the literary nonprofit and publisher Creative Nonfiction. And before that he was a fledgling graphic designer, an occasional DJ, an inept book reviewer, an undisciplined fiction writer, the interim GM of a (now successful) restaurant, a film school dropout, the founder of a fake fraternity, a passionate (but decidedly not professional) skateboarder, and an aspiring comic book illustrator. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife, two kids, and their giant dog.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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Storytelling skill is the most challenging aspect of the craft of writing. Learn how to design a structure that will hold your readers and keep them turning the page.

Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir, Novel, & Short Story

Storytelling skill is the most challenging aspect of craft: the way the plot unfolds and how events create new energy and excitement for readers to keep going. For many of us, these skills do not come naturally.  We have to train and practice.

Structuring a successful project requires knowing where to start, what to include, and how to deliver a powerful, memorable, and compelling story with a meaningful resolution. In this webinar, we’ll explore the basic principles of story design and present proven templates to help you re-think your approach to story design, restart your project, and save revision time.

This webinar is for novelists, short story writers, memoirists and nonfiction writers who are working on individual pieces or a book-length project.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE ready-made, easily customized templates that jump-start your story 
• TROUBLESHOOT pitfalls that hold great stories back
• LEARN the six key scenes that make a story rivet your reader

This webinar is ideal for Writers:

• Stuck in a novel or memoir (especially if you’ve reached the murky middle!)
• Struggling with a large amount of material
• Who feel they have not yet mastered essential plot skills
• Who worry their work isn’t capturing attention

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

One of CRAFT TALKS’ most popular presenters, for her insightful and inspiring webinars, HEATHER SELLERS is the author of 11 books, including four books on craft, a memoir, a children’s book, a collection of short stories, and four volumes of poetry.  She teaches in the MFA program at the University of South Florida, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, The Sun, and The Best American Essays.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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Learn to bring more immediacy and urgency to your prose by replicating how life feels in the moment, crafting scenes that capture the texture of actual living.

Fiction & Nonfiction

Our lives—and our characters’ lives—unfold in distinct moments – specific times, particular places, intimate details – rather than through explanatory passages and abstract interpretation. In this webinar, we will practice bringing more immediacy and urgency to our prose by replicating how life feels in the moment, and crafting scenes that capture the texture of actual living.

Whether working with our own remembered lives in memoir, or our characters’ constructed lives in fiction, rather than “naming” a character’s emotional reactions, let the reader experience the discrete moments that bring the significant feeling forward. We will look at examples from both memoir and fiction and discuss how to use the techniques in your work. Allison and Dinty will also “improvise” scenes, writing in the moment to illustrate how details accumulate to create a whole.

You’ll leave with a better understanding of your craft, clear ideas to enhance your scenes, and prompts and nudges to get you started on new work or revision.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE how scenes can resonate more powerfully by replicating “real” life events
• DISCOVER ways to increase the immediacy and urgency of your story
• LEARN HOW deliberate craft choices create a powerful emotional connection
• WATCH Allison and Dinty improvise scene writing and editing live on Zoom

This webinar is ideal for:

• Writers sick to death of hearing “show don’t tell” and unsure how to act on that feedback
• Writers who have been told they “Explain too much.”
• Writers who’d like their work to immediately capture attention and engage agents, editors and readers.
• Writers with a piece that’s been widely submitted and rejected
• Memoirists needing new ways to recreate intensity of feeling on the page
• Novelists struggling with their genre, who need to embrace tropes while keeping them fresh.

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

DINTY W. MOORE  is author of the memoirs Between Panic & Desire and To Hell With It, and the writing guides Crafting the Personal Essay and The Mindful Writer, among other books. He has published essays and stories in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Short Reads, and elsewhere. He is founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction.

ALLISON K WILLIAMS is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She’s helped writers sell to Big Five and literary publishers, hit the NYT Bestseller list, and sign multi-book deals. She’s guided essayists and humorists to publication in media including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Refinery29, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with weekly blogs on craft and the writing life. Allison works with literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction, as well as essays, short fiction, and and social platform. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and spent 20 years as a circus aerialist and acrobat before writing and editing full-time.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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