In addition to online (Zoom and On Demand) classes below, GrubStreet will also be hosting limited in-person short classes and events at our new space in the Seaport this spring. To see the full list of all our steps in response to Covid-19, including updates about our space and events click here. 

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 so-called ...

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

Writers attending conferences - like last week's The Muse & The Marketplace 2021 - tend to react to the experience in one of two ways: despair or elation.

Camp #1 is overwhelmed with information. Too much of the advice they absorbed seemed contradictory or overly complicated. They’re not sure they even like agents and editors anymore. And dammit, if all those other attendees are trying to get published, how do they stand a chance? 

By Katrin Schumann

Editors often see projects at radially different stages of development. Truthfully, we sometimes see writing that is really, well, bad.

But does this mean it’s hopeless? When do you know if something is too "bad" to be worth fixing?

Of course, "bad" is a highly subjective term. Writing might seem "bad" to one reader, while another reader loves it