Take a Deep Dive into Your Writing Craft
Workshops, master mentors and a writing community all invested in you.
Find community among aspiring and published kidlit authors
Whale Rock Workshops is designed to help you get your best work done. Through workshops, retreats, mentor programs and online resources, we create an environment that facilitates productive and effective writing.
Students are mentored by master-level instructors and by Whale Rock staff who are committed to helping students do their best work without injecting their own points-of-view or biases.
The affordable alternative to an MFA writing program
Whether you’re working on your first novel or you’ve published several books, each book is as unique as each writer. Build your skills and deepen your craft through our notable programs:
Mentorship Semester
Spend three months working one-on-one with a master-level writing instructor. Mentees also participate in a 12-week curriculum that includes workshops and lectures with all our mentors. An MFA experience at a workshop price!
Learn How To Series
Join Whale Rock Faculty for a 90-minute seminar exploring craft, learning a new skill, or diving deep into a piece of literature. Our Learn How To series is a great way to get to know our instructors, our community, and walk away with a new tool in your writer’s toolbox.
Master Classes
Whether you want to draft picture books, complete a synopsis for your work in progress or master writing a chapter that keeps readers turning the page, these multi-week writing classes are designed to hone craft and gain skills. Each class culminates with a complete project.
We believe that great teachers change lives
We curate experts from the publishing world to nurture our students. Our faculty include distinguished editors and award winning young adult, middle grade and picture book authors.
Work with amazing editors and authors like:
Patricia Lee Gauch
Gary D. Schmidt
“AMAZING. My mentor’s comments were kind, thought-provoking, and gave me the added boost in confidence I needed to do the work. Being able to read feedback, and then talk through possible solutions to my literary dilemmas-on more than just short sections- was so exciting. This was my favorite part of the program: The individual feedback. All of the mentors were so knowledgeable and brought so much to the table.
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Deepen your craft
Does an MFA make you a better, more successful kidlit writer?
About ten years ago, every member of my writing critique group decided to get an MFA in Children’s Writing. Every member of the group, but me.
Ten years later, I still don’t have an MFA. Would an MFA have helped me be more productive? I will never know. But, I’m also confident to say that having an MFA is wonderful if you can do it, but not having an MFA doesn’t hurt your trajectory.
How to Build Your Own MFA-like Curriculum
Did you know that Whale Rock Workshops’ programming is designed to be on par with MFA-level seminars and is geared towards authors who want to dive deep into craft and literary analysis? And, unless they are subject-area experts, our faculty members are critically acclaimed and/or award-winning and/or MFA bearing, and/or MFA-teaching, multi-published authors and editors.
Whether you are new to Whale Rock or are one of our original attendees, we want to be sure you know how to make the most of your Whale Rock experience. We’ve collected some of the most popular questions and answered them, including: How can I create my own affordable MFA experience? Read more