Extended Three-Session Intensive Workshop,
Westport, CT: January-March, 2013
Learn revision techniques and then use them on your children's or YA manuscript in this 3-part, hands-on intensive which focuses on ways to improve your work. Bring a current manuscript or one that's stuck or needs new direction. We--Eileen Robinson and Harold Underdown of Kids Book Revisions--will show you how to use a variety of revision techniques, provide editorial feedback in one-on-one meetings, and help you find additional feedback in model critique groups set up just for the workshop. The workshop will run from 9 AM to 5 PM on the Saturdays of January 19, February 16, and March 23 at the Write Yourself Free storefront and workshop space in Westport, Connecticut.
Each day, we will provide a mix of instruction, hands-on practice, critique group time, and individual meetings, as follows:
- 9-12: Class time: learn and try out revision techniques, from the use of reader response theory to highlighting adverbs.
- January session: topics include understanding manuscripts through analysis and reader response, how critique groups work and don't work.
- February session: topics include revising overall structure, characterization, plot: the big picture.
- March session: topics include revising language, editing for typos, finding weak words: polishing and final edits.
- 12-1:30: Lunch break.
- 1:30-3: Critique group time: Eileen and Harold will lead two groups, formed from workshop participants around common interests (such as one group for fiction and one for nonfiction, or one for picture book length and one for longer works), and applying techniques presented in class time. Writers with longer works will be able to read different excerpts each week; writers of shorter works may present a different work each week.
- 3-5: Individual meetings, writing time, writing exercises, and networking.
- Each student meets every day with Eileen or Harold. We will discuss your goals and concerns in the first session, give "big picture" in the second session, and suggest final revision techniques most likely to be useful in the third.
- When not meeting with the workshop leaders, participants can gather for networking or work on their manuscript or provided writing exercises.
We will be adjusting what we cover in response to the needs of those who take part, and will then provide a more detailed schedule to those who have registered.
Who the workshop is for: If you have a completed children's or young adult manuscript in need of revision, you will learn from this workshop. Do not bring an incomplete draft or a fully polished draft. Do bring a story or work of nonfiction you have been working on for some time, perhaps one that has been through your critique group, but that you know still needs significant work, even though you may not yet know what it is.
We are happy to receive applications from writers of fiction or nonfiction, picture book or novel. Writers of poetry or magazine stories may not find this workshop as useful; please ask us if you aren't certain if the workshop is for you.
Practical details
Total cost of the workshop is $975 for early bird registration through December 5th. After that, the cost is $1,125.
Submission policy: For novels or longer nonfiction, please submit first 100 pages of your manuscript, with synopsis (and cover letter, if you want). If you have a short-form children's manuscript, such as a picture book or early reader, you may submit up to three manuscripts, totaling no more than 50 pages. Send these directly to Eileen Robinson, via email, as an attachment. (We prefer to receive your submission by email; if you prefer to mail it, simply contact Eileen for a mailing address.) If for any reason we do not feel the workshop will work for you, will let you know immediately and refund or return your deposit.
At the same time, please make a deposit: The deposit of $300 is due at the same time as your manuscript submission. Please pay online via the workshop page at Write Yourself Free, or mail check made out to:
The Editing Company
252 Post Road East
Westport, CT 06880Balance of $675 is due on Jan. 10th (or, if you register late, $825).
Deposits and the waiting list: The workshop is limited to 12 people, and you must make your deposit to be considered registered. That deposit is non-refundable but may be applied to a future workshop. If we have reached our limit of 12, you will be placed on our waiting list. We will tell you if you are on the waiting list. To stay on it, you must leave your deposit with us, but will receive it back promptly if you decide to leave the waiting list before the workshop or if you do not get off the waiting list into the workshop.
Harold Underdown and Eileen Robinson teamed up around 2008 to bring something different to aspiring authors. And since then they have created online classes and tutorials and in-person workshops, presenting and working with writers at SCBWI conferences, a recent workshop at Write Yourself Free, and a week-long retreat at Highlights.