Workshop Description: The first three pages of your book are the most important pages you’ll write, whether it’s to entice an agent or editor, or to have someone buy your book once it’s published. But even more important is that first sentence, because if that doesn’t interest anyone, no matter how exciting or sexy, or how much the rest of your story pulls at heart strings, no one will read it. We’re going to look at how to hook those readers and keep them reading, from opening sentence to succeeding scenes and chapters.

Workshop Description: Do your manuscripts get comments like “your story is too quiet” or “you have too much external conflict”? Do you find it hard to put your characters in sticky situations? Sally Kilpatrick relays her own journey to creating conflict even when, in real life, she prefers to run away. Starting with the tried and true concept of GMC, she’ll expand upon the concept and guide you through adding internal conflict and other strategies for making sure that your story has layers.

Workshop Description: You’ve written the novel, sent it to beta readers and critique partners, and now you’re in editing mode. Revising is hard work and can take multiple passes, but editors are here to help. In this workshop, we’re going to review the different levels of editing, common issues found during edits, finding and working with an editor, and strategies to incorporate developmental edit notes.

Workshop Description: There’s not a group of people more adept at procrastinating than writers, which makes it all the more important for us to be able to write when we actually sit down to do so. This workshop explores common reasons behind writer’s block and provides hands-on practice at different techniques for overcoming it.

Workshop Description: This workshop will address feedback–both giving and receiving–with a focus on providing and taking effective, useful notes. Workshop attendees will learn to look at criticism in a sensitive, identity-informed, and productive way.

Workshop Description: I’ve struggled with anxiety for most of my life, although I didn’t recognize it as such until I began writing—most notably, when I spent over a month in 2016 frozen by worry, watching HGTV instead of meeting my deadlines. And once I finally completed my contract, I thought hard about how I could ensure that didn’t happen again. I began to study the conditions under which I wrote most easily and happily, and then I considered whether I could feasibly recreate those conditions in future contracts and/or in self-publishing. After creating a plan that better met my needs, I began writing again and found the process much, much more joyful.

If you’re struggling too, you may want to study your own triggers and needs before creating a similar plan—so you can (hopefully) find yourself writing with more ease and less anxiety, rather than quitting the profession entirely. And if that’s what you want, I’m here to help!

Workshop Description: Search Engine Optimization. It’s an effective way to improve your web traffic. But when it comes down to it, where should we even start, what has the most impact and–how do you know if you’re even doing it right? In this workshop we’ll review five easy ways you can get more search traffic to your website, regardless of your web skill level.

This workshop is for you if you …

• have a website or plan to launch a website soon
• write, publish and manage your own website content (or plan to)
• want to improve traffic on your site, or grow your readership online

Pre-workshop questions for consideration:

• Who do you see as the audience of your website? (i.e. who do you want to visit your site?)
• Why would this audience come to your site? What are you offering that is unique, special or of value to this audience?
• What do you hope this audience learns on your website?
• What action(s) do you hope this audience takes on your website?
• If you were searching for a website like yours, what keywords or brief phrases might you enter into search?
• Now, spend 5-10 minutes brainstorming. What additional keywords or phrases might someone use to find your content?
• Go incognito on your browser and then Google those phrases and keywords. Does your site appear?