first Saturday of the month, September 7, 2024-May 3, 2025, 1-4pm EST
Writing an essay collection presents specific challenges: balancing the integrity of each individual piece with the cumulative effect of the whole; hewing to a core theme without getting repetitive; deciding whether a collection needs a narrative arc, and if it does, what separates it from a memoir? This nine-month course will help writers navigate these considerations and more as they build toward a finished, polished manuscript that’s ready to send out to agents and editors.
We’ll read and discuss six successful essay collections, and guest authors including Melissa Febos (Girlhood), Kiese Laymon (How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America), Jill Christman (If This Were Fiction), and Esmé Weijun Wang (The Collected Schizophrenias) will join us for Q&A sessions. A mix of generative- and revision-focused exercises and assignments will help writers hone their essays both individually and as parts of a larger whole. And each writer will get two rounds of feedback on 30 pages per turn from the group plus feedback on an additional 30 pages from me (90 pages total).
In the last few sessions, we’ll turn our attention toward preparing for publication, culminating in class visits with a panel of agents and a panel of editors from big 5, independent, and university presses to demystify the various paths toward publication to help each writer choose the best one for them and their book.
By the end of this nine-month course, you can expect to have all or most of an essay collection written and revised, a draft of a book proposal, and a solid plan for how to get your collection out into the world.
What you’ll get:
Two opportunities to workshop with the group
One additional round of written feedback from the instructor (for feedback on 90 pages total)
Prompts and assignments to help you develop your individual essays and your collection as a whole
Instruction, examples, and assignments to help you prepare the book proposal and query letter you’ll need to get your collection published
Class visits with published authors of acclaimed essay collections, with opportunities to ask questions about their writing processes and publishing experiences
Class visits with industry professionals (agents, editors from both big 5 and independent presses), with opportunities to ask questions about how to navigate the submissions process
Nine monthly group meetings that each include some combination of workshop, prompts, analysis/discussion of assigned readings, guest visits, check-in/discussion of students' progress and questions
A one-on-one meeting with me upon completion of the course, to talk next steps and a game plan to polish and submit your essay collection for publication
A private Discord for keeping in touch with fellow students between monthly meetings to share resources, encouragement, and ideas
What will be expected of you:
This is a small group workshop (capped at eight participants), which means the class will only function if everyone is committed and engaged. By joining the class, you will be committing to:
Showing up to every meeting
Being respectful and kind to your peers, our guests, and me
Reading and preparing detailed, thoughtful feedback on all workshop materials
Reading the guest authors’ books and coming prepared with questions (participants will be responsible for buying or borrowing guest authors' books)
Putting in the work to develop your project along the way so that you get the full benefits of the class!
The line between an essay collection and a memoir can be fuzzy. While designed specifically for writers working on essay collections, this class is definitely open to people who are working in the in-between space of memoir-in-essays, and/or people who are not sure where their project falls on this spectrum. As long as you're comfortable treating the distinct smaller units of your book-length work as “essays,” this class will work for you—even if you consider the project as a whole to be a memoir rather than a collection. If you have any questions about whether your project is a fit, please flag that on your application and we can discuss.
This class is best suited for writers who have at least a few essays drafted (even if they’re messy), and at least a general sense of the themes/focus of their collection (even if it’s tentative).
Class will meet the first Saturday of the month, September 7, 2024-May 3, 2025, from 1-4pm EST. Detailed schedule available below. All class meetings will be held online, via Zoom. Meetings will not be recorded; participants are expected to attend live.
Applications are due by July 15, with notifications by early August. See application details here.
The total cost is $2,500, with the option to pay in full upfront or in five monthly installments of $500.
9/7: Introductions. A shorter meeting to get to know everyone and their projects, and discuss how the class will run. First prompt and craft assignment: Working with outlines to see both the forest and the trees when planning and revising an essay collection.
10/5: Book discussion and author visit. Workshop. Craft lecture and prompts: Structuring an essay collection. In-class work with outlines to refine structure and identify gaps. Generative assignment to fill gaps.
11/2: Book discussion and author visit. Workshop. Craft lecture and prompts: Variety in form and pushing outside of your comfort zone. Generative assignment to try a new-to-you essay form (with optional prompts to work from).
12/7: Book discussion and author visit. Workshop. Craft lecture and exercises: Thematic outlining and dealing with foundational information that needs to be repeated in multiple essays. Revision assignment.
1/4: Book discussion and author visit. Workshop. Craft lecture and exercises: Revising essays to work as both stand-alone pieces and parts of a larger whole. Revision assignment.
2/1: Book discussion and author visit. Workshop. Lecture and exercises: Elements of a book proposal. Generative assignment to draft key sections of a proposal.
3/1: Book discussion and author visit. Workshop. Group brainstorming session for comp titles. In-class work on remaining book proposal sections.
4/5: Agents panel. Workshop. In-class work on query letters.
5/3: Editors panel. Workshop. Wrap-up discussion.
One-on-one meetings in May and June.