From Research to Manuscript: A Year-Long Nonfiction Book Incubator with Julia Cooke

Begins Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026 

The cohort meets as a group every other Wednesday via Zoom, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET, September 2026 through September 2027 (with a winter break from December 22 to January 20). Each writer also has one individual one-on-one meeting with Julia in each of the program's three phases.

Note: Please do not pay for the program until you receive a formal acceptance notification via email.

Click HERE to Apply 

Early applications are encouraged, as the cohort is kept deliberately small.

About the Instructor

Instructor Julia Cooke is a journalist and author of narrative nonfiction whose reporting has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, The New York Times, Playboy, The Village Voice, The Atavist, and Saveur, and whose essays have been published in A Public Space, Salon, The Threepenny Review, Smithsonian, Tin House, and Virginia Quarterly Review, where she is a contributing editor.

She is the author of three books. Her latest, Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2026), traces the intertwined lives of pioneering foreign correspondents Rebecca West, Emily Hahn, and Martha Gellhorn, and was named to most-anticipated lists by Parade, Town & Country, and The Millions; The New York Times called it "a vibrant triple biography." Come Fly the World (Mariner/Icon, 2021) was a Goodreads Readers' Choice Award finalist, was selected for Malala Yousafzai's book club, and inspired the PBS American Experience documentary "Fly With Me." Her first book, The Other Side of Paradise: Life in the New Cuba (2014), was praised by Booklist for its "wonderful vignettes" of daily Cuban life.

Julia was a finalist for a 2014 Livingston Award in International Reporting and won a 2016 New York Press Club Award. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing 2014 and Best Women's Travel Writing (Volume 9). She is the recipient of fellowships from The Norman Mailer Center, The Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and Columbia University, and has given keynote lectures at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and the New York State Council for the Social Studies. She holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University.

Who is this year-long program for?

This year-long online nonfiction workshop is for writers in the beginning-to-intermediate stages of a research-driven book — narrative history, longform journalism, biography, or memoir braided with reporting. Whether you arrive with raw material that needs shaping into a coherent project or a proposal that needs developing into real chapters, this incubator meets you where you are and moves you forward. Fiction writers with highly developed, deeply researched manuscripts (historical fiction, for instance) are welcome to make their case in an application, with the understanding that the proposal and nonfiction-market portions of the program won't map directly onto their projects.

What to expect:

Maybe you have an academic research project that you suspect wants to be a narrative book. Maybe it's a family story that needs connective tissue and a wider frame. Maybe you spent years as a journalist and a piece you once thought was small turns out to have a book inside it — or a personal essay keeps pulling you toward something larger. If any of these is the book you've been carrying around, this incubator is built for you.

Here's what makes this creative nonfiction workshop different: Julia will be drafting her own next research-driven manuscript alongside the cohort throughout the year. The challenges you'll tackle together — navigating archives, conducting and integrating interviews, knowing when to stop researching and start writing — are ones she'll be facing in real time, not in the abstract. She shares her own systems with full transparency: your word counts will rise alongside hers in a spreadsheet the group shares, and she'll work through her own thorny problems in front of you as they come up. This is a working incubator in the truest sense — a year of building books together.

Over twelve months, this publication-focused online writing class moves through three phases, with the full cohort meeting every other week over Zoom. Guest faculty appear throughout the year: a deeply researched nonfiction writer in each of the first two phases, and, in the final stretch, a literary agent and an editor who demystify the path from finished pages to a book deal. In addition to the group sessions, every writer has a one-on-one meeting with Julia in each phase, tailored to wherever they are — consultation on work in progress, a structural problem they're stuck on, or targeted strategy toward submission. The cohort is kept deliberately small so that every writer gets sustained attention across the full year.

What are the writing goals?

In this program, students will develop a research-driven nonfiction book over a full year and finish with three concrete deliverables: a research outline for the full manuscript, an overview that maps how narrative and research interlock across the whole book, and substantial finished pages. Depending on each writer's track, those pages take the form of a submission-ready book proposal or chapters revised to submission quality. Writers receive feedback from Julia and their cohort in the every-other-week group sessions and in one individual one-on-one meeting with Julia per phase.

What we'll cover:

Together, the cohort will work through the challenges specific to research-driven narrative, including:

• Online versus archival research, and strategies for working in each
• Best practices for in-person interviews — tracking, conducting, transcribing, and integrating them
• Narrative structure for research-heavy books
• Tracking and organization tools for drafts-in-progress
• Attribution styles and tools
• Weaving research into a narrative flow without losing momentum
• Knowing when to stop researching and start writing
• Revision-phase research: filling the gaps that surface only in editing

Click HERE to Apply

COURSE OUTLINE

The incubator runs September through September, meeting as a group every other Wednesday over Zoom, with a winter break from December 22 to January 20. The year moves through three phases:

Phase One — Grounding (September–December): Clarify the premise and research aims of your book, develop a chapter outline and overview, and begin preliminary research across online and physical archives. A guest writer known for deeply researched nonfiction joins the group to talk through the opportunities and pitfalls of deep research.

Phase Two — Development (January–April): Keep researching while beginning to integrate that research into a chapter, troubleshooting alongside the group and reshaping your outline as the work reveals itself. A guest writer joins to speak to the craft of folding research into the writing itself.

Phase Three — Polishing & Publishing (May–September): Complete chapters and/or your book proposal and turn toward the path to publication. Two industry guests — a literary agent and an editor — join to demystify the pipeline from finished pages to a book deal.

In each of the three phases, you'll have a one-on-one meeting with Julia, tailored to wherever you are: consultation on work in progress, a structural problem you're stuck on, or targeted strategy toward submission.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A research outline for your full manuscript
• An overview that maps how narrative and research interlock across the whole book
• Substantial finished pages — a submission-ready book proposal or chapters revised to submission quality, depending on your track
• Hands-on strategies for archival and online research, interviewing, attribution, and organizing a long research-driven project
• A clear understanding of the path to publication, informed by guest sessions with a literary agent and an editor

TOUCHSTONES

Books this incubator is in conversation with:

• Julia Cooke, Come Fly the World and Starry and Restless
• Jonathan Harr, The Lost Painting
• Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds
• Sarah Perry, After the Eclipse
• Susan Orlean, The Library Book

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $7,200 USD. You can pay for the program in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout. Please do not pay until you have received a formal acceptance notification via email.

Click HERE to Apply

FAQs:

Why not an MFA program?

This program combines the best things about an MFA program — community, mentorship, and intensive craft analysis — with specialized and practical publishing advice tailored specifically to memoir and essay collections. You'll get sustained, individualized guidance without the cost, time commitment, or geographic constraints of a traditional degree program.

Why does this class cost so much?

The 12-month incubator is an MFA-level course, taught by a published memoirist and experienced educator who is also an MFA candidate. Your tuition helps pay your instructor a living wage and covers the cost of booking guest speakers, arranging one-on-one sessions, scheduling events, and administering the program.

Can I get a refund if I do not complete the program?

Once paid, your full tuition is nonrefundable. This is a selective program with limited spots. We are making a commitment to you for the full year and expect that you will do the same. For this reason, there are no refunds after your tuition has been paid.

I finished the incubator. When will I get published?

We can't promise that every writer who leaves the 12-month memoir incubator will get published right away, or ever. Publishing is a tricky business, involving lots of luck and time — as students who enroll in this course will learn! That said, as writers ourselves, we strongly believe that we can help prepare emerging memoirists and essayists to better navigate the publishing industry, and that our program and the connections made here will increase your chances of success.

In the course description, there are mentions of meetings with guest speakers. I want the details right now! Why can't I have them?

People who work in publishing are busy, and we confirm guest speakers on a rolling basis, as their schedules permit.

I'm early in my memoir process and don't have much written yet. Is this class right for me?

It can be! This incubator is designed for writers at various stages. If you have a clear sense of the story you want to tell and are committed to generating new material consistently, this program will give you the structure, accountability, and craft guidance to build your manuscript from the ground up. The key thing is that from day one, you come ready to write.

I already have a lot of essays written. Should I take this class?

Absolutely. Many writers have individual essays but struggle to see how they connect as a book. This incubator will help you identify your strongest work, find the gaps, and shape everything into a cohesive manuscript with a clear thematic throughline. You'll also receive feedback that deepens your existing pieces while generating new material to round out the collection.

Click HERE to Apply

Additional Program Information

• Tuition is $7,200 USD
• Between 7–12 writers will be accepted
• The incubator is fully online and students may participate from anywhere
• Meeting format: Zoom (Professional account provided by instructor)
• Level: All levels — writers at various stages of their memoir journey are welcome
• NOTE: Shifting some dates around may be necessary but any changes will be communicated well in advance, if possible