Workshops & Events

Get your op-ed out of your head and into the headlines! You have ideas and opinions about Middle East foreign policy or parenting trends; you feel strongly about health care reform or Red Sox reform; or you have a poignant story about your or your parents' experience with the health care system (or the Red Sox). Whatever the topic, in this seminar you'll learn the basics for writing and submitting the standard 600- to 900-word op-ed column. Via lecture, discussion of great examples from op-eds, short exercises, and Q&A, we'll show you how to 1) recognize and find great, timely, marketable topics for your op-eds that editors want; 2) how to leverage your personal experience and expertise; 3) where to publish your op-eds; and 4) how to pitch them to newspapers, magazines, online publications, and blogs. We'll look at exemplary pitch letters and go over standard protocol for working with editors. For any writers with an axe to grind or strong opinions who are looking for practical tips to get their op-eds into the marketplace.

In this seminar, via lecture, discussion of packet materials, short exercises, and Q&A, you will learn how to write killer pitch letters (a.k.a. “query letters”) for submitting short-form nonfiction (essays, op-eds, articles, and feature stories) to editors of mainstream and trade magazines, newspapers, literary magazines, blogs, and online publications; we'll also discuss how to write pitch letters for submitting nonfiction book proposals to agents and editors. By examining pitch letters that actually worked, we'll go over different strategies for making sure your idea is sharp, focused, original, and targeted, and how to express your idea in a well-crafted pitch letter. We'll also go over the top mistakes writers make when pitching editors and agents. Even if you don't have much publishing experience, we'll talk about how to leverage your background and expertise to best present yourself. Sorry, there won't be time to critique your pitch letters or stories themselves, but we will do in-class exercises to help you fine-tune your pitch letter skills. Please bring questions about communicating with editors and agents, and any questions or problems about any pitch letters you're currently working on. For anyone looking to learn how to pitch their nonfiction projects and get them out into the marketplace. (NOTE: This seminar is NOT about submitting poems, short stories, novels, children's or YA lit, screenplays, or literary nonfiction to literary magazines.)

You want to write feature stories for glossies like National Geographic Traveler or Glamour or for newspapers like the Boston Globe or Cambridge Tab; essays for Salon.com or Slate.com ; or op-eds for USA Today or the New York Times. Now what? In this seminar we’ll discuss how to come up with ideas that editors want and where to get insider information on who edits what. We’ll also look at the do's and don’ts of contacting editors and cover the basics of pitching stories and writing pitch letters. Equally important is grasping how much various markets pay, being able to read a contract and understand your publication rights, and developing a realistic game plan for your success. (Note: this class won’t cover corporate writing or freelance copywriting.) Come to class with three ideas for stories you might want to write and pitch.