Next Steps Series: Writing for an Audience

NEXT STEPS SERIES: WRITING FOR AN AUDIENCE
A 49 Writers Fundraiser Series

Next Steps is a series of professional development classes for writers ready to share their work with a wider audience. 100% of proceeds benefit 49 Writers. Join 49 Writers board members for a series of classes to get your work out into the world!

Read below for the full class descriptions and registration details.

NEXT STEPS SERIES: How to Find a Literary Agent
With Heather Aruffo
Saturday, March 4, 2023 | 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM AKST
Virtual via Zoom
$50.00 | $125.00 for all 3 classes

Description: Do you have a book manuscript or a proposal? Have you always wanted to publish and book but don’t know how? This class will go over the ins and outs of finding a literary agent, determining who is a reputable literary agent, if and why you need a literary agent, and how to write a query letter. We will look at examples of query letters before writing and sharing our own.

Bio: Heather Aruffo is a writer based in Fairbanks. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In 2021, she was awarded the Pen/Robert J Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her work has appeared twice in the Southern Review, Best Debut Short Stories 2021, and is forthcoming from the Alaska Quarterly Review. She has received support from the Fulbright Association, Breadloaf, the Rona Jaffee Foundation and Storyknife. She is represented by Justin Brockeaurt of Aevitas Literary Management.

NEXT STEPS SERIES: Trusted Critiques – Finding a Writing Group
With Barbara Hood
Saturday, April 1, 2023 | 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM AKST
Virtual via Zoom
$50.00

Description: Most of us who’ve ever written anything know the trepidation that grips us when we’re about to release a piece of our work into the world. We worry whether the story we’re trying to tell, or the argument we’re trying to make, has a spark or falls flat. Whether the images we’re trying to create rise from the page powerfully or get buried in aimless ramblings. So how to get reliable feedback before we take the leap and share our writings? One way is through a writing group – a small group of fellow writers committed to offering in-depth and honest reviews of each other’s work. Yet how do we find such a group? How do we keep such a group going in a way that is beneficial to all?

Join long-time 49 Writers board member Barbara Hood for this three-hour session to examine the pros and cons of writing groups. A long-time member of a writing group herself, she will explore the ways a writing group can help improve one’s work and build one’s confidence. She’ll also address some of the issues that cause groups to falter. The last hour of the session will be dedicated to introducing participants to each other and fostering the connections that can lead to the formation of new writing groups. Towards this end, interested participants will be asked to provide a short bio, writing sample, and contact information in advance.

Bio: Barbara Hood was drawn to writing as a staff reporter for the Polar Star student newspaper at UAF. Her interest continued in law school at the University of California Berkeley, where she served on the editorial board of Ecology Law Quarterly, one of the country’s oldest environmental law journals. Now retired after a 30-year legal career, she volunteers for justice and writing organizations and pursues her longtime interests in creative writing, photography, and human rights advocacy. Her essays, poetry and commentary have appeared in the Anchorage Press, Anchorage Daily News, and CIRQUE.

NEXT STEPS SERIES: Publishing Poems
With Mistee St. Clair and Emily Wall
Monday, June 5, 2023 | 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM AKST
Virtual via Zoom
$50.00

Description: Poets Mistee St. Clair and Emily Wall are co-teaching this 2-hour class on how to submit your poems for publication. We’ll talk about how to gain confidence, how to write a good cover letter, how to find literary journals, how to choose your presses, the good and bad of contests, and much more. Students will have an opportunity to draft materials and work together. By the end of the class each student should have a plan for sending his/her/their work out.

Bios: Emily Wall is a poet and Professor of English at the University of Alaska and holds an M.F.A. in poetry. Her poems have been published in more than 60 literary journals across the US and Canada and she has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. Her chapbook Flame won the Minerva Rising Dare to Be chapbook prize. She has won a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award as well as two Juneau Arts Council grants. She has five books of poetry: Fist and Flame are chapbooks published by Minerva Rising Press. Liveaboard and Freshly Rooted have found homes in Salmon Poetry. Her most recent book Breaking Into Air: Birth Poems is published by Red Hen Press. Emily lives and writes in Douglas, Alaska and she can be found online at www.emily-wall.com.

Mistee St. Clair is the author of the chapbook This Morning is Different, an Alaska Literary Award grantee, and has poems forthcoming in or has been published by The Common, Northwest Review, SWWIM Every Day, and more. She is a 49 Writers board member and lives with her family and border collie in Juneau, Alaska, a northern rainforest, and is an editor for the Alaska State Legislature. She can be found at misteestclair.com.

If you want to attend as a student for free, send a photo of your student ID to administrator@49writers.org.

Register here:

Cancellation Policy: Refunds will be issued up to 48 hours before the first class. For requests within 48 hours of the first class, we will offer a 50% refund. Thank you!