Class Description
You've finished your novel: congratulations! Now, if you're going the traditional publishing route, you have to get an agent who will act as the matchmaker between your literary opus and your publisher. What's the first step in this process? The all-important QUERY LETTER.
The query letter is your calling card to agents you're targeting. It performs the neat card trick of explaining how your novel is just like every best-seller in its genre while providing a unique, as-yet-unexplored viewpoint. It also provides the facts about your novel (how long; what genre; what books it's similar to) and introduces YOU as the writer—so your agent will know what you can contribute to your novel's promotion.
All in one page.
Sound impossible? It's absolutely not. Please join <em>New York Times</em> bestseller Jenna Blum as she leads you through how to avoid the most common query mistakes—and provides examples of queries for books that have sold. The class will be part lecture, part exercises, and part Q&A. Participants will ideally leave with a query tailored to their book, or at least an outline for one. Students should have a completed novel ready to pitch, and should bring with them their writing implements of choice (pen, paper, laptop, notebook).
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.