Story Mastermind Small Group Writing Workshop

This is a post about Story Mastermind, my small group writing workshop, taught over six months, in the comfort of home. I realize that not everyone here has heard of it, and so I wanted to let you know that applications for cohort four are now open!

Six-Month Intensive Small Group Writing Workshop

As many of you know, I’ve been devoted to teaching about writing and publishing for over a decade now (this blog started in 2009!). I have been blogging here, I’ve written a book of writing advice, and I work on over one thousand one-on-one freelance editing projects per year.

But I have always—ALWAYS—wanted to host a writing workshop. In fact, I was making plans for one during late 2019, and thinking about holding the inaugural event in 2020.

The world had other plans!

I realized that I could do more good, dig in more deeply, and truly offer a unique experience for the writing marketplace by instead pivoting to a remote workshop intensive held over six months. This fits somewhere between a really craft-focused weekend or weeklong conference (there are a lot of those) and a two-year MFA program.

And so, Story Mastermind was born. On Zoom. Just in time for the pandemic.

A Mini-MFA in the Comfort of Home

We have now run three cohorts of Story Mastermind and I am loving it. Not only the process of teaching and making my own dreams come true, but seeing our writers commit to and craft their novel drafts and picture book portfolios.

The rich discussions, guest visits from agents, editors, and published authors, and the group accountability and support have all been a wonder to behold.

So have the deliverables! Novel Mastermind students emerge from our time together with a pressure-tested and peer-workshopped novel draft, complete with submission materials. Picture Book Mastermind students have a full collection of at least six picture book drafts that they can submit confidently.

Get a Taste of the Workshop

If you’re at all interested in applying for Story Mastermind before applications are due on October 8th, 2021, I want to invite you to matching two-part workshops for the Novel Mastermind track and the Picture Book Mastermind track.

The Novel Mastermind workshop Part I is tonight, September 13th, at 7:30 p.m. CT.

(Part II will be a workshop of your submissions, two weeks later. You can register for that here.)

The Picture Book Mastermind workshop Part I is on Tuesday, September 14th, at 7:30 p.m. CT.

(Part II will be a workshop of your submissions, two weeks later. You can register for that here.)

I hope to see you there, and I can’t wait to share the magic of Story Mastermind with you.