Whale Rock Mentorships, Winter 2025
Our Mentorships are immersive, writing experiences designed to offer writers one-on-one attention, feedback and skill building from master, MFA-level faculty members.
Our mentorship faculty members team up for this unique online program designed for picture book, middle grade, and young adult authors. With award-winning authors, editors, professors and former professors from Hamline University and Vermont College of Fine Arts, students receive one-on-one guidance and stewardship. For authors contemplating an MFA program, this is a wonderful alternative to grow your skills without the steep price tag. For authors who have an MFA or never considered one, this is your opportunity to get pages read and critiqued by master instructors.
All workshops are recorded.
Novel Foundations
Kathryn Erskine
DATE: Tuesdays, January 7 - 28, 2025
TIME: 7:00 - 9:00 PM EST
WHERE: Online
Kick off your 2025 writing journey with this novel refresher workshop. Join National Book Award winner and master instructor Kathryn Erskine for a unique opportunity to revisit the building blocks needed to complete a cohesive manuscript; building blocks that are often forgotten when drafting.
Weekly sessions include on-the-spot writing assignments, prompts, mentor texts and discussion. Post-workshop, students may submit the first 10 pages of their work-in-progress and receive editorial feedback from Kathy.
Workshop will be recorded.
THIS CLASS IS FULL!
Winter / Spring 2025 Write Now!
WHEN: Tuesday, January 7, Wednesday, January 8, Thursday, January 9 - Tuesday, April 29, Wednesday April 30, and Thursday, May 1, 2025
WHERE: Online
Dates: Wednesday & Thursday mornings (10:00 AM - 12:30 PM ET) and Tuesday evenings (7:30 PM - 9:30 PM ET)
There’s nothing like a regular meeting time and space to keep your writing commitments honest. Our Write Now! groups are FREE and offer the support you need to show up and work each week. (Note: You must be a newsletter subscriber to participate in Write Now!)
What We Wish Someone Had Told Us… And What We’d Like to Tell You!
Liz Garton Scanlon & Audrey Vernick
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 2025
TIME: 7:30 - 9:00 PM EST
WHERE: Online
$30.00
Join authors Liz Garton Scanlon and Audrey Vernick as they share what they’ve learned from more than two decades each in the wilds of publishing. With humor, practicality, and encouragement, they will give you the headstart and insider tips they wish they’d had themselves -- regarding the writing, editorial, and publishing process end-to-end.
Workshop will be recorded
Master Class: Dive into Picture Books
Phyllis Root
DATES: Wednesdays, February 5 - March 19, 2025
No class February 19.
TIME: 7:30 - 8:30 PM EST
WHERE: Online
Join MFA-level, master-instructor Phyllis Root for a six-week deep dive into picture book writing. Whether you're an experienced picture book writer or whether you're at the beginning of your picture book writing journey, this six-week workshop will examine multiple mentor texts per week and use those texts as a spring board for inspiration. Writers will participate in on-the-spot writing prompts and discussions and will have a weekly assignment to draft a picture book.
Come prepared to read. Come prepared to write. Come prepared to discuss.
All classes are recorded.
Virtual Mini Writing Retreat with Heather Demetrios
WHEN: Friday, February 7, 2025
TIME: 10:00 - 12:00 PM, EST
WHERE: Online
Our mini-retreats have been so popular that we’re bringing this one back again!
Want to carve out some real writing time for yourself apart from the demands of the outside world?
Join award-winning author and meditation instructor, Heather Demetrios for an evening designed to help you access flow in your work. This virtual Write Now! mini-retreat kicks off with a meditation and prompt designed to spark your subconscious writer-self. Shut out the world and let go to your stories. (Like all our meditation and writing retreats, this event has a sliding scale. Pay what you can!)
Workshop will be recorded
Turning Memory into Fiction
Evan Griffiths
Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 7:30 PM EST
$30.00
We’re often told to “write what we know.” But what does that actually mean, and how do you do it? Join award-winning author and VCFA faculty member Evan Griffiths for this 90-minute workshop that explores using our own lives as wells of inspiration for fiction with the goal of forging strong personal connections to our stories. Through generative exercises, we’ll experiment with concrete aspects of our memories (e.g., adapting place-based memories into fictional setting descriptions—a world-building hack!) AND the more abstract aspects (e.g., fictionalizing a moment of intense feeling from childhood in order to imbue a scene with emotional resonance). You’ll come away with techniques you can revisit again and again.
Workshop will be recorded.
The Short Novel
Gary Schmidt & Shelley Tanaka
DATE: March 23 - August 24, 2025
WHERE: Online
Short novels are in demand. Teachers want them, librarians want them, and kids want them. And yet authors continue to churn out 200-page-plus books for young readers.
In this new and unique offering, beloved faculty members Gary Schmidt and Shelley Tanaka will walk you through the process of writing a short novel (approximately 80-120 pages) from beginning to end. That’s right, you will come up with a novel premise and by the end of the workshop you should be able to write the full manuscript with the help of these two amazing mentors.
We can only accept ten students for this intensive workshop. Registration opens December 15, 2024.
Workshops will be recorded, but we recommend attending all workshops.
Revise Your Picture Book Manuscripts: A Faculty led, Writer-Centered Critique Group
DATES: Wednesdays March 26 - May 21, 2025
TIME: 7:30 - 8:50 PM EST
WHERE: Online
ONLY 3 SPOTS LEFT
Do you have picture book manuscripts that you’d like to revise with a small, committed group of writers dedicated to helping you produce your best work? Join award-winning author and MFA-level instructor Karen Krossing for this in-depth, hands-on, nine-week workshop limited to eight participants. You’ll use your own manuscripts to explore picture-book craft/revision, you'll discuss craft elements you can apply to your own manuscripts, and you’ll participate in weekly online discussions that dive into picture book craft topics.
A perfect partner to our Master Class: Dive into Picture Books workshop with
Phyllis Root.
In Person Master Skills Workshop
Patti Gauch and Gary Schmidt
When: September 7 - September 13, 2025
Join Patti, Gary and other children’s literature authors for a week designed to help you dive deep into your craft and take your writing to the next level. Each year, our instructors bring new lessons, new prompts and new exercises to help you master your craft.
Details Coming Soon
Virtual Master Skills Workshop
Patti Gauch and Gary Schmidt
WHEN: October 19 - October 25, 2025
WHERE: Online
Join Patti, Gary and other children’s literature authors for a week designed to help you dive deep into your craft and take your writing to the next level. Each year, our instructors bring new lessons, new prompts and new exercises to help you master your craft.
All workshops are recorded.
Details coming soon.
Caboose Retreat 2025
WHEN: November 2 - November 8, 2025
WHERE: Sabillaville, MD
Join Whale Rock Workshops faculty for our first-ever writing retreat in Sabillasville, MD. Make lifelong writer friends with this seven-day, six-night getaway. Faculty and writers will cook together, eat together, walk together, laugh together, and of course write together.
Stay tuned for more details! Registration begins January 2025.