Program Details & Schedule

Program Details

105+ Hours of Instruction

• For most of the 12-month program, students meet in 3 ½ hour workshops on Monday evenings at GrubStreet HQ. Workshops are led by instructor Michelle Hoover, who also provides written feedback and offers prepared sessions on various elements of the craft of novel-writing. These classes also include analysis of published novels and impromptu discussions about the novel-writing process. Guest speakers are invited at various points in the year to address topics that merit extra attention or a different voice.

• The workshop schedule includes scheduled breaks to allow for vacation time, especially in the summer and over the holidays. Because workshop participation is crucial, the full 12-month schedule will be available to students soon after students are notified of acceptance into the program. This should allow plenty of time to (re-)schedule any trips or other commitments over the course of the Incubator.

9 Hours of Individual Consultations with Instructor

• Students meet with the instructor for an hour following each of the student’s four workshops as well as an additional four hours of meetings during the breaks and another meeting after the end of the program. These meetings will be scheduled at mutually-agreeable times and held at GrubStreet HQ or on Zoom, if the student prefers. In these meetings, Michelle will discuss individualized assignments, including a craft essay and outside reading, as well as the novel itself, workshop feedback, and any troublespots the students might be having. These hours are student-directed and project-focused, designed to augment the curriculum with instruction that is particular to each student's specific projects and goals. Additional meetings are available by request if necessary.

Student Accountability Groups

• Students should expect to focus much of their break weeks on preparing for the upcoming trimester, including meeting with their fellow students in weekly accountability groups. These groups are student run, accountable to the instructor, and can be adjusted to meet the needs of the group.

Mentorship

• Students are offered one and sometimes two mentors from among our alumni group to provide additional support throughout the year, help with navigating the program’s requirements, and general advice to ensure that each student achieves their goals or comes as close to it as possible.

Additional Full-Novel Consultation and Meeting with Established Author

• As part of the third phase of the year, students receive detailed written feedback on their revised novel as well as a face-to-face or phone/Zoom discussion with an established author who will act as a second reader. Students will have a choice of 25+ such authors to choose from. The program considers this outside voice vital in providing a well-rounded response to the novel as a whole.

One Manuscript Mart appointment with an agent/editor plus access to exclusive industry events

• The Manuscript Mart is an opportunity to have five pages of the student's manuscript read by an agent or editor, who will meet with the student for twenty minutes at the conference to provide critical feedback.

• Annual industry events include (in-person and/or online) mixers, panel discussions, and other exclusive gatherings where program students get rare access to agents, editors, other established writers, and more.

Beyond the Program

• Graduates of the program also join an active community of alumni, who together celebrate one another's publishing successes, curate a bi-annual reading series, run a popular daily craft blog called Dead Darlings—named a top 50 writing blog by Positive Writer—and have the choice to take part in an bi-annual retreat, craft salons, and other supportive writing and reading events.

The General Schedule & Timeline

The Novel Incubator contains three phases.

There are breaks between each 10-week program phase (each break approximately 4 to 6 weeks long), to allow students to process collected feedback and deeply revise parts of their manuscripts.

A full schedule of dates and a course plan will be shared by the instructor at the start of the program. Dates may shift slightly during the program, depending on student and instructor schedules, which the class will discuss as a group as needed. For now, the general schedule for each phase is as follows:

Class meets on Mondays, 6:30 to 9:30pm ET, in-person at GrubStreet’s Seaport location

• Phase One: June 2, 2025 to August 4, 2025
• Phase Two: October 6, 2025 - December 8, 2025 (October 13th shifts to October 14th)
• Phase Three: February 2, 2026 - April 6, 2026 (February 16th moves to February 17th)
• Final Classroom and Individual Meetings: Dates TBD
• Graduation: Tentatively the week of May 5, 2026

Special note: Due to the intensity of the program, students should be prepared to spend a minimum of fifteen hours per week either in class, preparing for class, or working on their own revisions. Many of our students have had full jobs as well as young children and/or other commitments and still enjoyed a successful year. A student’s ability to handle the workload depends on the student’s unique commitment, diligence, and time management skills. If you have concerns, please contact us and we'll try to put you in touch with an alum who successfully completed the year despite other constraints.

Post Program Meetings & Opportunities

When the Novel Incubator Program ends, the connections continue. In the months after the official conclusion of the program, writers again meet individually with the instructor for a one-hour meeting to discuss progress made during the year, the writer’s agent/editor meeting(s), where the novel now stands, and plans for the work ahead. The entire class also convenes one last time for a three-hour session to discuss next steps, making commitments that will spur their books to completion, and to discuss other opportunities available to them in the literary world.

Novel Incubator Alumni Group

All students throughout the year and afterwards are welcome to enjoy the benefits of our extremely active alumni group in which students continue to read each other’s work, take part in our Novel Incubator reading series Craft on Draft, are invited to publish on our Dead Darlings blog and to attend our book club meetings, social events, readings, and yearly writing retreat, as well as much, much more. (Note: GrubStreet is also embarking on an exciting initiative to develop a more robust program for Intensives alumni. We’re in the middle of gathering ideas and thoughts from graduates of our programs to fuel events and workshops tailored specifically for their needs to continue supporting them in a more sustained way on their writing journeys. Stay tuned for more!)