Author: Sharla Yates

You need a synopsis to sell your book to agents and publishers. Writing it now can solve plot and structure problems, determine which characters belong, and create a map to finish your book.

for Creative Nonfiction, Nonfiction and Fiction

Writers often dread distilling their beautiful story into a dry synopsis—and they’re right! It’s not creative and fun. But the synopsis is not only a requirement for querying and publishing, it’s also a valuable tool to shape your story and get closer to “The End.” A good synopsis gives an overview of your whole book, in an easy-to-process form. By examining turning-point scenes, character objectives, and the underlying dramatic question that propels your book, you’ll know where you’re going and how to get there. 

You’ll be able to send a draft of your working synopsis in advance. Allison will use volunteer examples to show what makes a synopsis work (and what doesn’t!). Then she’ll live-edit participant synopses to show how to reverse-engineer your manuscript from your synopsis to create more tension, power, and literary might. (Please note, she won’t get to everyone: examples will be chosen to benefit the whole group!)

Suitable for writers with a manuscript in any stage from messy early draft to ready-to-query.

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

• 40 minutes – Learn how to write a synopsis, using images, turning points, and character objectives. Allison will use submitted examples and synopses of already-published books to show what works and what doesn’t.
• 10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.
• 20 minutes – Revise your synopsis with new tools and knowledge. Allison will continue taking questions in the chat. OPTIONAL: volunteer for live-editing and upload your scene as a Word doc or docx.
• 40 minutes – Allison will live-edit some of the shared synopses, showing where the writer is succeeding, and what revisions she suggests. During live edits, she’ll call out specific techniques and tips for everyone to apply to their own work, right away. 
• 10 minutes – more Q&A and planning your writing from here.

In this webinar, you will:

• UNDERSTAND why agents and publishers need a synopsis—and how they use it to assess your manuscript
• LEARN how opening and closing images anchor your synopsis and your book
• DISCOVER how “Chekhov’s Gun” makes your synopsis actually interesting!
• USE “but, because, therefore” to write a rough synopsis
• DEVELOP a working synopsis to guide your writing process
• REFINE your synopsis for querying your book

This workshop suits …

• Writers of fiction and nonfiction who intend to traditionally publish
• Novelists stuck in the “messy middle”
• Memoirists whose draft has “gotten away from them” and needs shape and focus
• Writers working on a second book… who’d like the process to move faster this time!
• Writers hearing feedback that their book lacks tension, needs a stronger hook, or the story is “hard to follow” or “didn’t grab the reader”
• Developmental editors who want to understand synopses and better communicate that knowledge to their author clients.

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 have a story to tell. But how do you convince the publishing industry that people want to read it?

In a world where an estimated two to three million books are published every year, your memoir needs to stand out, not just with compelling storytelling, but with a marketable hook that expands its audience. Enter memoir-plus, a powerful approach that blends memoir with something more, making it bigger, bolder, and more irresistible to readers and publishers alike.

This idea-packed webinar will help you explore new ways to frame your memoir, whether you’re still brainstorming or deep into drafting. You’ll leave with fresh inspiration, actionable insights, and a clearer path toward a memoir that stands out in a very crowded field.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN the distinction between traditional memoir and memoir-plus, and why it matters
• ENCOUNTER standout memoirs, discovering how their marketing copy positions them as “pluses”
• GET INSPIRED with over 20 different “pluses” you can add to your memoir
• FIND OUT where to highlight your memoir-plus elements in a book proposal, to attract agents and publishers

This webinar is ideal for you if You’re …

• Just getting started and want to build a memoir concept with marketability in mind from the beginning
• In the muddy middle and feel called to reframe or reimagine your project to make it bigger, bolder, and more marketable
• Ready to pitch your memoir-plus and need strategies to make it stand out

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Jennifer Leigh Selig is an LBGTQ+ teacher, international speaker, book publisher, and author whose writing and teaching career spans four decades. She’s the author of dozens of newspaper articles, book reviews, essays, journal articles, short stories, screenplays, and books, including the Nautilus Gold award-winning book, Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit, The Writer’s Block Workbook: A Psychologist’s Guide to Working With and Through Writer’s Block, and Deep Memoir: An Archetypal Approach to Deepen Your Story and Broaden Its Appeal.

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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Thousands of writers are jumping on the Substack bandwagon every month. Learn how to break in with your newsletter.

Regular email newsletters allow writers to build an organic audience based on direct connection with readers, and this kind of platform can be attractive to literary agents. Substack has more than 20 million active subscribers, and over 17,000 writers are being paid for their writing on the platform. But with thousands of writers joining every month—many of them famous—how can a new writer break in?

After nearly four years writing her Substack Between Two Things, Lindsey DeLoach Jones has learned lots of lessons the hard way. In this presentation, she’ll give tips for writing essays that will succeed in the email format, building an audience (using Notes and other features), and connecting with other like-minded writers. She’ll also help you think through your newsletter goals (from earning money to practicing your skills to building an email list that supports your writing and publishing).

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE various ways to interact on Substack
• LEARN how to write a newsletter people want to read 
• SET goals for your newsletter.

You should take this webinar if you

• Are new to building a platform
• Have considered moving to Substack
• Want to better reach your audience
• Are unsure how to tackle the Substack essay format

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Lindsey DeLoach Jones is a writer living in Greenville, South Carolina. She often finds herself inside the tension between seemingly opposed forces—the spiritual and the practical, the mysterious and the mundane, the Mother and the Artist. In this spirit, she has been writing a Substack called Between Two Things since 2021.

Lindsey holds a BA and MA in English and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She has served as the Writer-in-Residence at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and has taught literature and writing at Clemson University. Lindsey currently teaches writing online and in person at Writeshare, the writers’ network she co-founded in Upstate SC, and for organizations such as CRAFT TALKS. She previously served as Editor of Emrys Journal and Edible Upcountry.

Lindsey’s essays have appeared in HuffPost, HuffPost Parenting, Split Lip, Under the Gum Tree, and Motherwell. She is a recipient of the Vandermey Nonfiction Prize, and an essay nominated by Pigeon Pages was recently a finalist for Best of the Web.

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 make scenes sizzle with specifics, stakes, characterization, and drama—while staying grounded in your story’s truth.

for Creative Nonfiction and Fiction

Filmmaker Howard Hawks said, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.” Substitute “movie” with “short story,” “novel,” “essay,” or “memoir,” and we have a prescription for how to inject your story with dramatic, cinematic flair. In this seminar, we’ll look at great examples of scenes—or “live moments”—where things are happening, characters are interacting, stuff is being said, action is going on, and big things change, with clear dramatic beats and an arc.

Whether you’re working on novels and short stories or narrative nonfiction and memoir, we will look at tools that fiction writers use to create gripping moments on the page. Scenes include dramatic beats and an arc, and both fiction and creative nonfiction writers need the same tools screenwriters use to create gripping moments on the page.

Learning from master writers like Jaquira Diaz, Michelle Kuo, Stephen King, Steve Brusatte, Bill Bryson, Cheryl Strayed, and others, you’ll discover powerful tools to craft your own scenes. You’ll learn to gradually build tension; create structures for your scenes with a beginning, middle, and end; build in clear conflict, stakes, and interiority; and make the world of the scene real via description.

In-class exercises will allow you to practice your new scene-writing techniques and begin to write a new, scintillating scene you can apply to a current writing project.

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

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE the key elements of scene writing via examples from masters in the craft
• DISCOVER how to tap into your perhaps-unrealized scene writing skills
• ENHANCE your narratives with new scene-writing tools

This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who:

• Worry their scenes lack drama
• Want to harness the craft of fiction for their personal narratives—and find powerful truth in their fiction 
• Struggle with punchy dialogue and concrete setting
• Aren’t sure how to write a scene they can’t fully remember
• Want to understand how a scene contains dramatic beats and an arc

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

ETHAN GILSDORF is a writer, teacher, performer, and the author of the Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Esquire, Wired, Salon, O the Oprah Magazine, Brevity, Electric Literature, Poetry, The Southern Review, among other publications, and named “Notable” by The Best American Essays. He teaches workshops in essay, creative nonfiction and memoir at GrubStreet in Boston, where he leads the Essay Incubator program,  and at LitArts RI. He is also on the faculty of the Solstice MFA Program at Lasell University.

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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Deepen your writing and discover stories your body knew all along.

for Creative Nonfiction

Our body is the most reliable record-keeper of life experiences, much more so than our brain and what we like to call “memory.” For writers, our embodied experience is a vast and often-overlooked treasure chest of powerful stories.

Learn the importance of tapping into the treasure chest that is your body and how useful it can be to mine your body parts to re-member, or make whole, past experiences that have brought you to this point in your life. Together, we will consider excerpts from authors whose bodies feed remembering, and whose beautiful, memorable writing inspires us by its sheer physicality.

Become energized to dig into your own exclusive story archive with body-focused writing prompt ideas to explore in your own writing practice after the webinar. Gain a new set of tools for accessing your stories by collaborating with your eyes, belly, hips, or feet, etc., and discover the wonder of your body’s evocative abilities to turn forgotten incidents into vividly remembered scenes for richer, more visceral essays and memoir.

In this webinar, you will:

• LEARN the body’s ability to “keep the score” of our experiences
• ACQUIRE tools to collaborate with your body in finding stories
• DISCOVER the generative wealth of materials for your story
• BECOME empowered to start your own body-writing journey
• HEAR inspirational examples of embodied writing

This webinar is ideal for…

• Want to explore new ways to access memory and story
• Seek to deepen their stories
• Are curious about what “writing the body” or “embodied writing” is about
• Have been reluctant to consider their bodies a valuable collaborator
• Want to get out of their head!

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Nina B. Lichtenstein (PhD. MFA) is a recovering academic and the founder and director of Maine Writers Studio, offering workshops, retreats, and book doula services. A native of Oslo, Norway, she is an award-winning teacher who has taught literature, languages, and writing on three continents. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, and her memoir, Body: My Life in Parts is a memoir-in-essays published by Vine Leaves Press in May 2025. 

Nina also runs a monthly literary salon and open mic in Brunswick, Maine, and enjoys connecting folks in a warm and welcoming literary community.

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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Maintain and nurture your relationship with your writing to strengthen your stories and ease your creative process.

This webinar is part of the season pass. Interested in joining the subscription? Read more here.

For all writers

Every relationship has its ups and downs, and your relationship with your writing is no exception. We sometimes grow apart through life’s changes, schedule shifts, or that nagging feeling that there must be something more out there. 

It’s normal to find that what worked in our creative process ten years ago no longer feels right and to experience cycles of connection and disconnection. It’s what we do next that makes all the difference. It’s time to check in and honestly assess what’s working in our creative relationship and what’s not. To clarify what helps us write—and why—and establish a healthy and rewarding relationship with our creation. 

Writers know that we need our writing to be at its best, but what we often don’t acknowledge is that our writing also needs us. Explore what it means to be in the right relationship with our writing, why it matters, and how to chart a flexible path forward together with communication, clarity and commitment. This experiential, process-based workshop includes generative writing exercises to help you reconnect with your writing, honoring the changes both of you have gone through over the course of your life together.

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

We will be writing during this webinar! Come with an open mind, an active imagination, and writing tools.

In this webinar, you will:

• EXPLORE your relationship with writing
• DISCOVER key techniques to maintain a flexible, committed writing practice
• INQUIRE into your changing writing relationship through generative prompts and invitations
• RECOMMIT to yourself and your writing

You should take this webinar if:

• You feel disconnected from your writing or unmotivated
• You used to have a writing process that worked, but now you’re struggling to connect with your words
• You value writing as a means of self-inquiry and discovery.
• You’re looking for ways to invigorate a lackluster writing practice

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Laraine Herring’s memoir, A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens, was released in 2021 from Regal House. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Tiferet, The Rumpus, The Manifest-Station, and many more. She’s the editor of the anthology Becoming Real: Women Reclaim the Power of the Imagined through Speculative Nonfiction (Pact Press, 2024), and a trilogy of writing books from Shambhala, including Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice. 
A retired professor of creative writing and psychology, Laraine founded the online ‘zine Hags on Fire, a place for women to share stories about menopause, and co-designed The Imaginal Memoir Cave immersion program with Gayle Brandeis. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Counseling Psychology, and lives in the mountains of northern Arizona with many cats.

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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Enhance your writing and engage your audience with the power of essential questions that captivate and connect with readers. 

This webinar is part of the season pass. Interested in joining the subscription? Read more here.

Memoir, Fiction and Screenplays

Elizabeth Gilbert credits the runaway success of “Eat, Pray, Love” to her essential question—“What if my life belonged to me?” It worked for her—let’s make it work for you. To capture the attention of a broader audience and make your writing resonate more deeply with readers, discover the transformative power of essential questions to elevate your storytelling and expand your readership. 

In this webinar, we’ll examine essential questions in bestselling works, primarily focusing on memoir, with a sprinkling of fiction and film. We’ll discuss the difference between implicit and explicit questions and explore techniques for placing these questions in your scenes and narrative. 

You’ll finish this webinar equipped with an expansive list of essential questions and the motivation and inspiration to use them to elevate your writing today!

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

In this webinar, you will:

• DISCOVER why essential questions lead to increased engagement for readers (and appeal to publishers)
• LEARN the difference between implicit and explicit questions
• ANALYZE how bestselling books effectively use essential questions
• RECEIVE an expansive list of essential questions to apply to any and all writing projects
• GET INSPIRED to harness the power of essential questions

This webinar is a great fit for writers of fiction & nonfiction including screenwriters who are…

• Looking to enhance their storytelling skills and engage readers more deeply.
• Seeking new strategies to broaden their audience and increase their work’s appeal.
• Wanting to stand out in a competitive market by using essential questions to convince agents, editors, and publishers that there’s a readership for their work.

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

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Jennifer Leigh Selig is an LBGTQ+ teacher, international speaker, book publisher, and author whose writing and teaching career spans four decades. She’s the author of dozens of newspaper articles, book reviews, essays, journal articles, short stories, screenplays, and books, including the Nautilus Gold award-winning book, Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit, The Writer’s Block Workbook: A Psychologist’s Guide to Working With and Through Writer’s Block, and Deep Memoir: An Archetypal Approach to Deepen Your Story and Broaden Its Appeal.

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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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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