Publishing Intensive I

All levels. This daylong intensive seminar will provide a comprehensive overview of the publishing business and opportunities for writers of memoir, adult fiction, and young adult.

In addition to hearing from the three instructors about their experiences finding literary agents and publishing with large and small presses, the class will feature four guests:

Adriann Ranta, a major literary agent at Foundary Literary + Media in New York City will skype into the class for an hour to describe what she looks for in manuscripts.

Michelle Triant, senior publicist from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, will come to the class and discuss steps authors should take, even while writing, to prepare for the book’s viability as a commercial object produced by for-profit company. She will bring samples of effective marketing materials from literary novels and works of memoir.

Author Donna Miscolta, who will talk about her writing life and specifically the challenges of maintaining a robust literary career while working a full-time job.

Young-Adult literary agent Clelia Gore will also visit the class to lead a break-out group of YA writers to describe the unique parameters of their business, which operates differently from adult literature.

The instructors will also provide resources on grants, fellowships, and residencies (a list of dozens of each). There will also be information on submitting to magazines, building a platform, and more.

Hugo House will provide free pizza to students during a one-hour lunch break.

This course takes place at Seattle University, Pigott 103.

Note: Publishing Intensive II will take place in May 2017 and will be directed at writers who are nearly finished with a manuscript and are focused on immediate next steps. Publishing Intensive I and II can be taken on their own or paired.

If you are registered for a Yearlong in Prose, Memoir, or Young Adult Fiction this class is included, and you do not need to register.

Beginning Fall 2021, we will be adding select in-person classes back to our course catalog. The majority of our classes will still be offered via Zoom.

If a class says IN-PERSON in its title, it will take place in person at our permanent home in Seattle.

If a class says ASYNCHRONOUS in its title, it will take place on Wet Ink, our asynchronous learning platform.

If a class does not have a marker after its title, it will take place via Zoom.

Instructor: Karen Finneyfrock & Peter Mountford & Theo Nestor

Class Type: 1 Session

Fiction, Multigenre, Nonfiction, Publishing, The Writing Life

Start Date: 11/20/2016

Days of the Week: Sunday

Time: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm PST

Minimum Class Size: 5

Maximum Class Size: 100

$189.00 Member Price:
Become a member >

$210.00 General Price:

Class has begun, registration is closed.

Karen Finneyfrock & Peter Mountford & Theo Nestor

Karen Finneyfrock is the author of two young adult novels: The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door and Starbird Murphy and the World Outside, both published by Viking Children’s Books. She is a former Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House.

Peter Mountford is the author of the award-winning novels A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism, and The Dismal Science. His work has appeared dozens of major magazines and newspapers. He teaches at Sierra Nevada College’s MFA program.

Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of Writing Is My Drink (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008). Nestor has taught the memoir certificate course for the University of Washington’s Professional & Continuing Ed program since 2006.