From Writer to Author: Creating a Roadmap to Publication with David Groff via Zoom

This interactive class, led by a longtime independent book editor and writer in the publishing world, helps you get the navigational tools you need to chart a path from being a writer who publishes individual stories, poems, articles, and essays to becoming the author of a published book. We’ll collaboratively explore the vast changes occurring in the publishing business and how, as a proactive writer with a sense of your own mission and identity, you can make those changes work for you; how to answer the five questions every agent, editor, and publisher will ask about your book; how to query an agent compellingly; how being a literary communitarian can benefit your book, your career, and the culture; and how you can captain your own journey to getting your words between covers and into the hands of readers.

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom and capped at 15. Link will be sent to email you use to register at the time of registration and again the day before the class. Please make sure to read our course policies page regarding workshop conduct and logistics before registering for any class at HVWC. Scholarship information will be available for this class in July and applications are due on August 15, 2022.

David Groff has written two books of poetry: Clay (Trio House Press, 2013), which received the Louise Bogan Award, and Theory of Devolution (University of Illinois Press, 2002), selected for the National Poetry Series. He has co-edited two anthologies, the Lambda Literary-award winning Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners (Wisconsin, 2013) and Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS (Alyson, 2010). Formerly a senior editor at Crown, David is an independent editor and publishing consultant, focusing on narrative nonfiction, poetry, and literary and popular fiction, working directly with authors, literary agents, and publishers. Authors he has edited have been published by Basic Books, Farrar Straus, HarperCollins, Hachette, Morrow, Oxford, Penguin Press, St. Martin’s, Simon & Schuster, and Wiley, among other houses. Since 2007, David has taught poetry, nonfiction, and publishing in the MFA creative writing program of the City College of New York.

Photo Credit: Henry Lee