Workshops for Groups

About:

Gail offers readings and writing workshops for many organizations, both in-person and on Zoom, and will sculpt a presentation to suit your needs. Book club and private writing group events on Zoom are free. Honorariums for library events and public writing workshops vary from $200 to $400 depending on workshop length and nature of the funding. Funding for events may be available through TWUC, of which Gail is a member, with the National Public Readings Program. For more, contact Gail's office.

Here's a sample of writing workshops that Gail offers:

From Literary to Thriller: Crossing Genres to Add New Life to Your Craft

Writers too often get stuck writing in just one genre. In this workshop, bestselling novelist and writing mentor Gail Anderson-Dargatz offers her own experience to demonstrate how borrowing from the toolboxes of other genres can breathe new life into our craft and writing lives and open the door to new markets.

Writing Hi-Lo Books for the Educational Market

People think writing for kids is easy, but any writer who publishes children’s or YA fiction will set you straight: writing for kids is hard. Writing hi-lo books for striving readers is even harder, but also highly rewarding, and there is a growing market for high-interest, low-reading-level books. In this interactive workshop, award-winning novelist Gail Anderson-Dargatz will talk about the craft involved in writing hi-lo books, a vibrant market that many writers aren’t aware of.

Sculpting a Good Idea into a Great Book

Many book manuscripts suffer from a lack of thorough development. This can stand in the way of their potential for success, or even prevent them from being published. In this interactive session, award-winning novelist and writing coach Gail Anderson-Dargatz explores the steps and strategies of development editing that help turn a good book idea into a great book.

Writing Home

We’ve all heard the phrase “write what you know” but writing fiction from real life isn’t easy. We worry about what mom will think. We worry if we have the right to tell the story, or write about a given location. We get stuck in reality -- what “really happened” -- and our fiction flounders because of it. In this workshop, we’ll explore all these issues and more with the goal of writing powerful fiction that has the authority that can only come from “writing what you know."

Overcoming Our Fears to Write Powerful Stories

Our fears can stop us from finishing a book -- or even starting it. We may feel we need to stick to writing only what we know, and write from personal experience, but then worry about what Mom will think. And we so often avoid our protagonist’s conflicts, for the same reasons we avoid our own. The result: passive protagonists and wandering storylines. Author and writing coach Gail Anderson-Dargatz will draw from more than twenty years of experience as a writer, teacher and developmental editor to explore the many ways we avoid conflict in our projects and our writing lives, and offer solutions that will help kickstart your writing and help you develop your project to the fullest.

Pantser or Planner? Approaches to Plotting Your Novel

The real work of the novelist is developing conflict and structure, and most writers struggle with it. Fortunately, past writers have done the heavy-lifting. Gail will offer an overview of approaches to constructing plot, whether you’re writing literary or commercial fiction. She’ll follow up with exercises you can do at home to help you better understand story and the outlining process.

Workshops for Groups (continued)

Neurodivergent Writer's Circle:

Meet like-minded writers self-identifying as highly sensitive, ADHD, on the spectrum or gifted. We'll talk a little about our traits as we explore how our quirks and anxieties can play out on the page.

Submitting Your Writing 101:

Getting our work out there can feel like an overwhelming task. Where do we even begin? In this presentation, Gail offers an overview of the steps involved in getting your writing published, from finding markets open to submissions to writing a query letter. Whether you're ready to get your short work or your book-length project out there, Gail will offer guidance that will help you find a home for your project.

POV 101:

Choosing and maintaining point of view can be a challenge. In this workshop, we'll discuss POV options and how to avoid head-hopping.

Writers Writing about Writers Writing:

We often take the advice to “write what you know” too literally, making our protagonist a writer or researcher, like us. Through discussion and an exercise, Gail will talk about why this can be a problem and what steps we can take to make our protagonist a truly dynamic and active character.

Step Outside and Jumpstart Your Writing:

Whether we're reworking our project or starting a new one, we need to feed our muse. Stepping outside our comfort zone recharges our writing like nothing else. Gail will offer strategies for finding our stories out there in the big wide world, and for engaging our senses so we can engage our readers.

Interview to Build Your Story:

Interviewing adds depth to both non-fiction and fiction projects. In this workshop you'll practice your interviewing skills. Bring your notepad!

Engage Your Reader's Senses:

To engage readers, writers must engage their senses. Come prepared to engage yours in a fun writing exercise.

Develop Your Characters:

In our early drafts, characters are often passive and not always likeable. We'll discuss how to make your protaongist active, one your reader will fall in love with.

Thrills and Chills:

In this interactive workshop, we'll discuss writing both thriller and horror fiction, and how it's not always what you think. Bring your ghost stories!

Using Setting to Express Emotion:

In this workshop, we'll explore how to use setting and situation, and the objects found there, to convey character emotion.

Blue Pencil Sessions:

Bring a 2000-word sample of your manuscript to an online or in-person meet-and-critique event with award-winning author and writing coach Gail Anderson-Dargatz. Ask those pressing questions about craft or the publishing industry in this quick 20-minute session.