Author and GrubStreet instructor Ethan Gilsdorf shares some tips and practical insight into how to set and reach your writing goals in 2022. You can learn more about this subject in Ethan’s two upcoming Online: Zoom seminars, So You Want to be a Writer in 2022? on Friday, January 21st or Saturday, February 19th.

If you’re anything like me, then this will sound like a familiar scenario: The new year begins. You make a list of resolutions, hopes and dreams: to improve your diet, your fitness, your mindfulness, or to change any …

When I teach workshops on writing and/or publishing, I often start out by asking writers to work on the "one-liner" for their projects, whether fiction, nonfiction, or collections. I encourage them to try winnowing it down to just one line — and no, that single line can't comprise 200 words.

Usually someone will ask, sometimes a little aggressively, "Why?" The subtext is perfectly reasonable: their book or collection is too complex to be expressed in one line

This post was originally published on Dead Darlings, a blog about novel writing run by alumni of GrubStreet's Novel Incubator program.

Sometimes writing is a way of laying claim on the chaotic, of imposing a kind of fitful understanding onto something that defies order or remedy.

By Katrin Schumann

You may have heard, these days many writers are waiting. Waiting to hear back from their overwhelmed agents. Waiting to hear from busy publishers. Waiting for Covid to really be OVER so they can do live book events again. Waiting for inspiration becuase they're exhausted by the last year and a half. Waiting because their release dates have been moved (again).

Thinking of taking an intensive course this year? Interested in taking your short stories or essays to the next level? Ready to write your memoir or novel draft? Applications for our upcoming intensives are now open! Learn more about each of the unique intensive programs below:

Memoir Generator 

Application Deadline: Monday, July 26th at 11:59 PM (ET)