Advanced Picture Book Writing, with Sean McCarthy, Spring 2020

In this workshop, picture book writers will work with literary agent Sean McCarthy and a curated group of peers to revise and polish a manuscript for submission. At the start of the group, writers will submit three stories to determine which story to focus on for the remainder of the workshop. Writers will do a broad revision of the selected story for their second submission, and will polish their work for their third submission. Writers will peer critique one another's work in addition to receiving feedback from Sean. 

Before applying, please be mindful of your schedule to be sure you have the time for critiques and revisions between each round. You should have space in your schedule to spend 1-2 hours per peer critique. The first round is particularly intensive, and even though your notes for this round can be shorter for each story than in future rounds (think one fat paragraph), this still requires a high level of engagement and you will have 18 stories to read. For rounds 2 and 3, you will be reading 6 stories.

From previous participants in Sean McCarthy's Fall 2019 group:

"The access to such a stellar agent was invaluable! Getting a professional critique is always helpful, but the chance to revise and resubmit several times, and to get feedback as the manuscript grows and takes shape, was so valuable." - Shay

"Great workshop format that allowed me to take one WIP forward; lots of work but well worth the investment of time (and $)." - Val M.

"I loved being able to dive in fully on one manuscript this fall. Now that the workshop is complete, I can also go back and revise my other two initial submissions with the fantastic notes from Sean and the group." - Brooke