6-Month Fiction Mentorship with Ethan Chatagnier, Starts Monday, January 22nd, 2024
**Applications are Required**
Click HERE to Apply by January 12th, 2024. Early applications are encouraged. Payment plans are available.
The program Will Start on January 22nd, 2024
IMPORTANT: Please do not pay for the mentorship until you receive an acceptance notification via email.
Application Process: Complete Application Questionnaire and submit a ten-page writing sample using standard manuscript format to blake@writingworkshopsdallas.
Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.
We are very excited to offer a limited enrollment one-on-one 6-Month Novel Mentorship Program with award-winning novelist Ethan Chatagnier, author of the novel Singer Distance (Tin House Books), winner of the Golden Poppy Award from the California Independent Booksellers Alliance, and the story collection Warnings from the Future (Acre Books), a finalist for the Foreword INDIES awards. Singer Distance was a best book of 2022 at NPR and PopSugar and a most anticipated fall book at LitHub, Gizmodo, Vulture, Tor.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer, ALTA, Debutiful, and DailyHive. Ethan’s short stories have also appeared in the Pushcart Prize anthology, the New England Review, Georgia Review, Colorado Review, Story, and other journals, and listed as notable in the Best American Short Stories. His essays, book reviews, and interviews can be found in the Kenyon Review, the Chicago Review of Books, The Millions, The Common, TriQuarterly, and other publications.
Read an Interview with Ethan on Scaling the Obstacles as a Fiction Writer.
This mentorship program is for students who are committed to a book project–either a novel or a story collection–and have at least 10K words of it drafted. Students should also be ready to produce 5K words or more per month (about 1 double-spaced page per day), and also to spend some time discussing the work, revising, and doing recommended reading. We can arrange a personalized goal together, mostly likely to get to the end of the project, or to get far enough that the end is in sight.
This mentorship is open to writers of all fiction genres, and the instructor would be especially excited to work with projects between genres or combining them. We’ll work together to find the best plot, structure, themes, and language for your project. The primary requirement is commitment. Within that time frame, meetings and check-ins can be flexible and work around the student’s availability.
MENTOR'S INPUT:- Initial consultation
- Personalized writing accountability schedule, recommended readings, and exercises
- Regular email check-ins and guidance
- Optional monthly 1-hr video or phone conference
- Editorial feedback - critique letters and in-line comments
- Help defining the project and crafting a query letter for it
- Moral support
MENTEE'S RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Turn in monthly pages plus reflection letter
- Read craft essays/books, fiction, and other sources as recommended by the instructor
- Participate in regular email discussions
- Attempt revisions in response to feedback.
MENTORSHIP OUTLINE:
Below is a rough template of what a mentorship schedule may look like, but actual schedules will be more detailed and individually tailored after the initial consultation. Also, while this schedule indicates a couple check-ins per month, students can email the instructor with questions at any time. Guidance and help is not limited to what’s listed here.
Month 1
Week 1: Initial consults. Establish plans and goals. Packet 1 due (existing work)Two weeks later: mid-month check-ins. Feedback on Packet 1 returned
Week 4: Check-in/optional videoconference
End of month: Packet 2 due
Month 2
Week 1: Monthly check-in and planning sessionTwo weeks later: mid-month check-ins. Feedback on Packet 2 returned
Week 4: Check-in/optional videoconference
End of month: Packet 3 due
Month 3
Two weeks later: mid-month check-ins. Feedback on Packet 3 returned
Week 4: Check-in/optional videoconference
End of month: Packet 4 due
Month 4
Two weeks later: mid-month check-ins. Feedback on Packet 4 returned
Week 4: Check-in/optional videoconference
End of month: Packet 5 due
Month 5
Two weeks later: mid-month check-ins. Feedback on Packet 5 returned
Week 4: Check-in/optional videoconference
End of month: Packet 6 due
Month 6
Two weeks later: mid-month check-ins. Feedback on Packet 6 returned
Week 4: Final consultation and mentorship debrief
End of month: Final packet due. Feedback to follow.
Tuition Payment:
Full Tuition for the 6-month program is $4495. Accepted writers must commit to the full six months and meet all assigned deadlines. You can pay the tuition in full or opt for equal monthly payments by selecting Shop Pay Installments or Affirm at checkout. If you decide to create a monthly payment plan using Shop Pay or Affirm, you can do so once you add "Full Tuition" to your cart, enter your contact information, and are on the payment page.
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS:
"This class really opened my mind and give me an actual process for mining for ideas that I can use on a regular basis. I feel like I know how to look at, read, or hear anything in the media and come up with not just one but multiple story ideas from it. I had never thought about how to look for questions, conflicts, and characters like that before. It feels like learning how to "flip the script" and find angles like in journalism, but from a literary perspective -- which is something I feel I've drastically needed in my journey as a writer!"
"I was very excited going into the class, and it exceeded my expectations. Ethan's feedback was generous and insightful, and I thought the assigned reading was very well-chosen. I appreciated the opportunity to look at novels and screenplays alongside each other-- it helped me understand storytelling from a more well-rounded perspective."
"This class was encyclopedic in a great way! The course is excellent and extremely in-depth! I so appreciated Ethan's expertise and depth of knowledge."
"I went into the novel-plotting class with a mess of half-written drafts, and I left with a sense of real clarity and direction about the story I want to tell. Ethan was a kind and insightful teacher, and I found his generous feedback invaluable. I'm so impressed with how much information he was able to pack into our 6-week class-- I really feel as if I understand the foundations of storytelling in a way I never have before."
PAYMENT OPTIONS:-
Instructor: Ethan Chatagnier
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Mentorship starts Monday, January 22nd, 2024
Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this class.