1-on-1 Boot Camp Starts Monday, February 3rd, 2025

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We are very excited to offer a limited enrollment one-on-one Short Story Submission Boot Camp with award-winning novelist Kelly Luce, the author of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (A Strange Object), winner of Foreword Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize for Fiction, and the novel Pull Me Under (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), a Book of the Month Club selection and one of Elle’s Best Books. Her work has been recognized by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Tennessee Arts Commission, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, Ragdale Foundation, the Kerouac Project, and Jentel Arts, and has appeared in New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Sun, Salon, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Southern Review, and other publications; her digital short story "Between the Lines" went viral in 2022. She received an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, where she was editor-in-chief of Bat City Review and editorial assistant for the O. Henry Prize Anthology. She is the editor of the Electric Literature’s Commuter and was a 2016-17 fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2023, she was awarded the Wachtmeister Prize from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. 

This course combines short fiction craft as well as a practical crash course in literary magazine submitting. Over the course of eight weeks, students will ready a short story for publication and then submit it to ten literary magazines.

Weeks 1-3: At the start of the course, students will submit a short story draft (up to 5,000 words). They will receive in-line feedback and be expected to submit a revision within two weeks. During this time, the student will have email access to their mentor to discuss craft questions that arise during the revision process.

Weeks 4-6: The student will receive a second round of in-line feedback and be expected to submit a revision within two weeks. During this time, the student will have email access to their mentor to discuss craft questions that arise during the revision process.

Weeks 6-8: The student will receive a thorough line edit of the story from the instructor. This includes edits for grammar, typos, usage, and syntax issues. After this edit, the story will be polished and submission-ready. The instructor will help the student create a cover letter for magazine submissions, and provide a list of suggested literary magazines (that are currently open!) to submit to. The instructor and student will finalize a list of ten magazines based on the writer's goals and tastes, and the student will make at least ten submissions.

• Students will receive two rounds of feedback on a short story (up to 5,000 words) and a line edit from a long-time lit mag editor to polish the story and ready it for submission.
• The student will learn to write a cover letter and will be introduced to a range of literary magazines appropriate for their work.
• The student will submit their polished story to at least ten magazines.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Weeks 1-5: Story feedback, line edits, and polish.

Weeks 6-8: Cover letter drafting and polishing, magazine brainstorming, submission prep, and ten submissions made.

TESTIMONIALS:

"Kelly's feedback was encouraging, motivational, instructive, and honest. She made me feel safe enough to take risks with my writing. Her guidance pushed me to work harder at revision and editing than I ever have before." -former student

"The Short Story Submission Boot Camp with Kelly Luce was an absolutely great class-I really appreciated the support and insight. Kelly had great expertise, and I felt very pushed by the feedback but also motivated. Loved the curated resources for submission." -former student

"Kelly Luce’s Short Story Writing Boot Camp far exceeded my expectations. Kelly’s top of the line feedback was the most valuable feature of the program, which is a remarkable blend of developmental editing and line editing. And it’s targeted for maximum results. It covered everything I hoped for. One of Kelly’s strength is not taking on too much, rather, staying laser focused on helping her students write their best possible short story." -former student

"I loved this course with Kelly. It was exactly as advertised and very enjoyable. What I found most valuable: working with an editor for the first time and being able to ask questions about submission procedures for literary magazines, along with the list of magazines I was given." -former student

TUITION PAYMENT:

Full Tuition for the 8-week 1-on-1 program is $1,199. Accepted writers must commit to the full eight weeks 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.

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this mentorship program.