The Chapbook Shape-Up: A Guided Revision Intensive with Renee Emerson

Begins Monday, March 1st, 2027

Limited to 8 Writers

Now Enrolling! Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Instructor Renee Emerson is the author of the poetry collections Keeping Me Still, Threshing Floor, and Church Ladies. She is also the author of the chapbook The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants and the middle-grade novel Why Silas Miller Must Learn to Ride a Bike. She holds an MFA in poetry from Boston University, where she was also awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and children.

Who is this class for?

Limited to just eight writers, this online poetry workshop is designed for intermediate poets who already have a body of work in progress and are ready to shape it into a cohesive chapbook manuscript. If you have a folder of poems and no clear sense of what holds them together, this is the course that will help you find it. Students will leave with a working draft of a chapbook, a revision and polishing plan, and a submission strategy.

What to expect:

Assembling a chapbook asks something different of a poet than writing individual poems. The poems have to resonate on their own, but the collection also has to work as a single, longer piece of music. Over eight weeks, this creative writing workshop pairs close reading with focused revision so you can hear that larger music in your own manuscript and shape it deliberately.

Each week, you'll study how accomplished poets build thematic unity, emotional momentum, and memorable openings and endings, drawing on the work of Louise Glück, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, Natasha Trethewey, and Claudia Emerson. Weekly lessons move through manuscript architecture, sequencing, voice, recurring imagery, cutting poems that aren't earning their place, identifying gaps, and drafting new work to strengthen the collection. Generative and revision exercises apply each technique directly to your own pages, so the manuscript moves forward every single week.

The course is taught asynchronously, so you can work at your own pace inside weekly deadlines while participating in an active discussion community. Enrollment is limited to eight poets, which keeps the workshop conversation close and the writing feedback substantive. You'll share revisions, discuss assigned readings, and offer thoughtful responses guided by workshop principles. By the end, you'll have a substantially revised manuscript, a clear sense of its shape, and a practical plan for submitting to contests, journals, and independent presses — plus a repeatable approach to revision you can carry into future chapbook and full-length projects.

Two Live Zoom Sessions

Two live Zoom sessions round out the course: a mid-course manuscript clinic for bigger revision questions, and a closing publication Q&A on submission strategy, contests, and presses. Rather than fixing these in advance, Renee will poll the cohort after the class begins and schedule times that work for everyone enrolled. Both are recorded and posted in the Wet Ink classroom for anyone who can't join live.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will produce a revised chapbook manuscript of 15–25 polished poems (approximately 20–35 pages), professionally formatted to meet standard submission guidelines and ready to send to chapbook contests and small presses. Students will complete a full sequencing plan with an intentional opening poem, closing poem, and overall organizational structure, plus a working title and finalized table of contents. Each student will draft one new poem (or substantially revise an existing one) to fill an identified gap in the manuscript, and will build a revision roadmap identifying which poems to keep developing, cut, or replace after the course ends.

Feedback is ongoing and layered. Renee participates weekly in discussion boards and revision conversations, responds to weekly revision exercises and check-ins, and delivers one in-depth critique of a chapbook packet during the course. Every student also receives a personalized editorial letter on the complete manuscript with revision and publication recommendations, along with written peer feedback on a selected packet of 2–4 poems. Students will finish with a curated list of 10–20 appropriate chapbook contests, presses, and journals matched to their manuscript, plus a submission timeline.

Readings

Readings may include excerpts from Demystifying the Manuscript by Susan Rich and Kelli Russell Agodon; Poems Talking to Poems (Tupelo Press); and Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems, edited by Susan Grimm. Weekly poetry selections are drawn from Louise Glück, The Wild Iris; Sylvia Plath, Ariel; Sharon Olds, Stag's Leap; Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard; and Claudia Emerson, The Late Wife, along with selected contemporary chapbooks and sample submission materials.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Finding the Shape

Focus: Discovering the manuscript's central idea and organizing structure.
Activity: Manuscript inventory, identifying themes, creating possible sequences, the "elevator pitch."
Texts: Louise Glück, The Wild Iris (selected poems)

Week 2: Sequencing the Manuscript

Focus: Creating momentum through ordering, openings, and endings.
Activity: Rearrange poems and revise the first and final poems.
Texts: Sylvia Plath, Ariel (selected poems)

Week 3: Voice, Image, and Cohesion

Focus: Strengthening voice and recurring images.
Activity: Identify motifs and revise poems for greater connection.
Texts: Sharon Olds, Stag's Leap (selected poems)

Week 4: Deepening the Poems

Focus: Emotional complexity, specificity, and meaningful revision.
Activity: Close revision of key poems; optional group manuscript clinic.
Texts: Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard (selected poems)

Week 5: Themes and the Heart of the Collection

Focus: Clarifying the manuscript's overarching concerns.
Activity: Identify the central questions, images, and ideas driving the chapbook; recurring word activity.
Texts: Claudia Emerson, The Late Wife (selections)

Week 6: Cutting and Strengthening

Focus: Deciding what belongs and what doesn't.
Activity: Remove weaker poems, identify gaps, and create a revision plan.
Texts: Selected contemporary chapbooks

Week 7: What's Missing?

Focus: Completing the manuscript's emotional and artistic arc.
Activity: Draft or revise missing poems; finalize sequence and title.
Texts: Selected published chapbooks

Week 8: Preparing for Publication

Focus: Submission strategy and next steps.
Activity: Format manuscript, research presses and contests, create submission plan.
Texts: Sample chapbook submissions and contest guidelines

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Leave with a substantially revised chapbook manuscript of 15–25 poems, professionally formatted and ready for submission.
• Learn to sequence a collection so that individual poems build on one another and the manuscript reads as a single sustained work.
• Study how poets including Louise Glück, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, and Natasha Trethewey create thematic unity, emotional momentum, and memorable openings and endings.
• Develop the editorial judgment to identify which poems to keep, which to cut, and where the gaps in your manuscript are.
• Receive a personalized editorial letter from the instructor plus written peer feedback on a packet of your poems.
• Build a submission strategy with a curated list of 10–20 chapbook contests, presses, and journals matched to your manuscript.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class is asynchronous, meaning you complete the weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times to allow for greater participation; your cohort will consist of writers from different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices.

Along with your weekly deadlines, there is plenty of interaction with the instructor and your peers within Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts are all available through the online classroom. Students also post work and provide and receive feedback in the online classroom.

You can finish the work as you see fit, week to week, which is perfect for any schedule. There are discussion questions each week inspired by the assigned readings and topics in the lecture notes. Students are encouraged to take these wherever they find most compelling and/or useful. The instructor engages with these discussions throughout the week, and you will receive feedback on all assigned writing activities.

HOW DOES WET INK WORK?

Wet Ink was built and designed specifically for online writing classes. Wet Ink is private, easy to use, and very interactive.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $595 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.