The Writer's Corner Calendar
A look at our upcoming live, interactive sessions that you won't want to miss. We can't wait to see you there!
Join us in The Writer’s Corner every week! Each session will feature inspiring discussions, interviews on craft, advice on all aspects of getting published, and a safe space for writers to get support and advice. Here’s a look at our next few sessions (check back for additional guests soon!) …
June 9 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Megan Febuary on Trauma-Informed Writing
Megan Febuary is a trauma-informed writing coach and the founder of the global storytelling platform and literary magazine For Women Who Roar. Called a leading expert in creative recovery, Megan received her MA from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, where she focused her research on the body as a storyteller. She is also the Author of BRAVE THE PAGE: How Writing Our Hard Stories Brings Healing and Wholeness and the For Women Who Roar poetry collection.
June 16 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Mark Jason Williams on The Quest for the Modern Love Essay
It’s every essayist’s dream placement. If you’re writer, chances are you are very familiar with the New York Times Modern Love column! Join us for a deep dive into how Mark got the coveted spot. We’ll hear about his experience (and also talk about other outlets to try if your piece is rejected). Read his essay HERE!
Mark Jason Williams is an award-winning playwright, essayist, and travel writer who has explored 55 countries across all seven continents. He is the co-author of Out in the World, National Geographic’s first LGBTQ+ travel book, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, HuffPost, Wired, Salon, and more. A lifelong New Yorker, Mark holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He lives with his husband and their two senior rescue dogs. Visit him at markjasonwilliams.com.
June 23 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Michele Filgate on What Makes a Strong Personal Essay
Michele Filgate is the editor of What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About and What My Father and I Don’t Talk About. Her writing has appeared in Longreads, Poets & Writers, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Gulf Coast, Oprah Daily, and many other publications. She received her MFA in Fiction from NYU, where she was the recipient of the Stein Fellowship. She teaches at The New School.
July 28 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Catherine Newman for A Craft Conversation
Catherine Newman is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night, the kids’ craft book Stitch Camp (co-authored with Nicole Blum), the best-selling how-to books for kids How to Be a Person and What Can I Say? and the novels We All Want Impossible Things, Sandwich, and Wreck (forthcoming October 2025). She writes the Substack newsletter
Haven’t signed up for The Writer’s Corner yet but want to learn more? Here’s what to expect …
Sometimes, writing can feel lonely. What if it didn’t have to? What if one hour a week you could meet up with other writing friends from anywhere you choose? Think of The Writers’ Corner as a weekly online coffee date where the topic of conversation always centers around the thing we all love—WRITING.
Each session will feature inspiring discussions, guest hosts, interviews on craft, advice on all aspects of getting published, and a safe space for writers to get support and advice.
All you need to do is sign up for a subscription to WISDOM & WORDS and every week via email, you’ll receive a link to join our online meeting.
We can’t wait to see you there!
A Look at Recent Past Sessions …
February 3 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Christie Tate for a Discussion on Craft
Christie Tate is an essayist and author who writes creative nonfiction and memoir. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Group, which was a Reese’s Book Club selection and has been translated into 19 languages. She is also the author of B.F.F.-- A Memoir of Friendship Lost & Found. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. Her essays have been nominated for Puschcart Prizes, and Kiese Laymon selected her essay, Promised Lands, as the winner of the New Ohio Review’s 2019 nonfiction contest. She writes about addiction, eating disorders, friendship, alienation, recovery, and her Grandma’s farm in Forreston, Texas. She grew up in Dallas and now lives in Chicago with her family. She has finally stopped telling people that she graduated first in her law school class. Please don’t hate her because she has no pets.
February 10 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Joanna Rakoff for a Discussion on Craft
Joanna Rakoff is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and the bestselling novel A Fortunate Age, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Fiction and the Elle Readers’ Prize. Rakoff’s books have been translated into twenty languages, and the film adaptation of My Salinger Year opened in theaters worldwide in 2021 and is now streaming. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Sewanee, Bread Loaf, Jerome Foundation, Authors’ Guild, PEN, Ragdale Foundation, Art OMI/Ledig House, and Saltonstall; and has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Aspen Words. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, Elle, Porter, and elsewhere, and her new memoir, The Fifth Passenger, is forthcoming from Little, Brown in 2024.
The film adaptation of My Salinger Year stars Margaret Qualley as Joanna and Sigourney Weaver as her boss. Directed by Oscar-nominee Philippe Falardeau, the film opened in sixty-five countries in 2021, and is available for streaming.
February 17 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Judith Newcomb Stiles on Not Allowing the Writer’s Hustle to Eclipse Creativity
Judith Newcomb Stiles straddles the tightrope between memoir and fiction, weaving together local Cape Cod stories as she blends them into fiction to protect her relatives who are already mad at her. She is a staff writer for the Italian publication Ytali.com, covering all things American, such as “Who is the Boss of Her Body?” Her essays have appeared in the anthology Hemingway Shorts, honorable mention-Kenyon Review, first place award 2024 Room Magazine Creative Non-Fiction, and NY Times Tiny Love Stories.
Stiles earns her living as a potter turning mud into money in the guise of colorful pottery. She figured if she could do that magic trick, she could write the book that was burning inside. HUSH LITTLE FIRE—release May 2025—a Penguin Random House Spring Book Club Pick. HUSH LITTLE FIRE is Cape Cod novel about the naughty people of Wellfleet.
Join us as Stiles puts on her writer’s hat (takes off her potter’s hat) to talk about how as writer over 70, she wrote a book, found an agent, and landed a publisher in a world that traditionally ignores “older” women.
February 24 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Marion Roach Smith on The Principles of Memoir Writing
Marion Roach Smith is the author of four books, all of which contain a large degree of memoir. Her most recent book is The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing--And Life, (Grand Central, 2011). Under the name Marion Roach, she is the author of The Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning and Sexual Power of Red Hair, (Bloomsbury, 2005); co-author with famed forensic pathologist Michael Baden, M.D., of Dead Reckoning (Simon & Schuster, 2001); and author of Another Name for Madness, (Houghton Mifflin, 1985).
A former staff member of The New York Times, she has written for The New York Times Magazine, Prevention, The Daily News, Vogue, Newsday, Good Housekeeping, Martha Stewart Living, Discover and The Los Angeles Times. A former commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, until recently she had a talk show on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius/XM 110.
Marion is a sought-after speaker on the power of telling one’s tale and the value of memoir. She is a long-time teacher of memoir and has taught thousands of people to write what they know.
March 3 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Cynthia Weiner on Inspired By: How to Weave Together Real Life and Fiction
Cynthia Weiner has had a long career writing and teaching fiction. Her short stories have been published in Ploughshares, The Sun, and Epiphany, and her story “Boyfriends” was awarded a Pushcart Prize. Recently, her story “A Castle In Outerspace” was republished in Coolest American Stories 2024. She is also the assistant director of The Writers Studio in New York City.
A GORGEOUS EXCITEMENT, her first novel, was inspired by her upbringing on New York’s Upper East Side in the 1980s, and particularly by the infamous “Preppy Murder” of 1986, to which she had a personal connection, having spent many nights drinking with the real-life Preppy Killer and his friends at Dorrian’s (the model for Flanagan’s bar) that summer.
Weiner now lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.
March 10 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Open Discussion
This session will be an open forum for writers to share what’s on their minds. Bring your struggles, questions, and wisdom! Just a reminder that these monthly open sessions are not recorded because we want it to be a safe space for honest conversation.
March 17 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Helen Hill on A Spring Reset for Your Creative Mind
Helen began studying yoga with a cryptic book purchased from a new age store Burlington, VT in 1999. She has used the practice to recover from injuries as an athlete, an outdoor adventurer and childbirth. She is a 200HR RYT (Naturally Yoga), a certified Ayurvedic Home Chef, Master-Level Reiki Certified, has a Children’s Teacher Certificate, a Chair Yoga certificate, has some therapeutics training and works with special needs children. She is eternally grateful to her teachers and mentors.
Having grown up in Belgium and England, she adds cultural influences to her classes and is known for playful classes that amplify the benefits of yoga and ignite the imagination. She also conducts ayurvedic cooking classes and writing/yoga workshops. She sees clients in northern NJ and the lower Hudson Valley, and virtual classes are available wherever you are in the world. You can find Helen online at HelenHillYoga.com.
When she is not busy teaching, Helen writes poetry and is currently working on, Stronger than Ever, a book of poetry and practical tips about healing from a ski accident. She also paints, enjoys time with her kids and plays outside in the great outdoors.
March 24 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Elizabeth Peavey on The Best Truth
In this session, we will discuss a common conundrum for writers: How much should you share with readers (especially when it involves wrestling with hard truths)?
Celebrated Maine author, performer, and educator Elizabeth Peavey has helped people craft and share their stories for over 30 years. In January, she returned to print after an eight-year hiatus with her cover story, “Peavey Presses On,” for The Bollard magazine, where she also launched her new monthly column, “Out There” in February (thebollard.com).
Her one-woman show,My Mother’s Clothes Are Not My Mother, ran for six years and received the Maine Literary Award for Best Drama. She is the author of three books, has appeared in several anthologies, and has written countless print columns and features for publications, including two popular humor columns, which ran for 20 years. She has taught creative nonfiction, personal narrative, humor writing, and public speaking and performance to audiences ranging from undergraduates and MFA candidates to new Mainers, prison inmates, corporate executives, older adults, and middle school boys. She is a frequent keynote and guest lecturer at conferences and schools, and she provides story training to nonprofit and educational organizations – proving we all have a story to tell. TLM:elizabethpeavey.com
March 31 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Amy B. Scher on How to Build a Book Proposal that Stands Out
Amy B. Scher is the bestselling and award-winning author of five books, which have been translated into 20 languages and endorsed by notable authors such as Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray Love); Vikas Swarup (Slumdog Millionaire); and Sanjiv Chopra, MD, Harvard Medical School and (Brotherhood with Deepak Chopra).
With over two decade’s experience in publishing and marketing (Harley-Davidson, State Farm, Scripps Howard News, Thrillist)—Amy has created a diverse career by seamlessly combining her skills in multiple mediums. She writes and teaches on the topics of healing, human-ing, and writing. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Thrillist, CBS, CNN, Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Daily News, Good Morning America, National Geographic, Cosmo, Oprah Daily, and more.
Recommended by literary agents and publishing pros, Amy is known for building book proposals that sell. From concept to finish line, she helps authors clarify their book’s focus, marketing plan, and more to create a proposal that stands out from the rest.
April 7 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Kelly McMasters for A Craft Conversation
Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of the Zibby Book Club pick The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays (WW Norton) and co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult). Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah's top 5 summer memoirs and is the basis for the documentary film ‘The Atomic States of America,’ a 2012 Sundance selection, and the anthology she co-edited with Margot Kahn, This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017), was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The American Scholar, Literary Hub, Newsday, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction, Romper, and The Rumpus, among others. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia's School of the Arts and is the recipient of a Pushcart nomination and an Orion Book Award nomination. Kelly has spoken about creative nonfiction at TEDx, authors@google, and more, and has taught at mediabistro.com, Franklin & Marshall College, and in the undergraduate writing program and Journalism Graduate School at Columbia University, among others. She is currently an Associate Professor of English and Director of Publishing Studies at Hofstra University in NY. Learn more about Kelly’s work at kellymcmasters.com.
April 14 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Tricia Rose Burt on Finding the Courage to Follow the Creative Call
Tricia Rose Burt helps people find and tell their stories. After spending nearly 15 years with some of America’s top business institutions, Tricia made a dramatic shift and enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This bold move led to a decade as a visual artist until the 2008 market crash forced another pivot. She created an award-winning one-woman show — How to Draw a Nekkid Man — about her transformation from executive to artist and her storytelling career took off after performing with The Moth, where she is also part of their corporate storytelling arm, MothWorks. These days, Tricia combines her corporate background and artistic experience, teaching storytelling to executives to help them more clearly share their ideas and initiatives. She also hosts and produces the award-winning podcast “No Time to be Timid,” the centerpiece of the No Time to be Timid movement.
April 28 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Ruthie Ackerman on How to Get Your Writing Out of Your Head and Onto the Page
Ruthie Ackerman’s writing has been published in Vogue, Glamour, O Magazine, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Salon, Slate, and Newsweek. She launched the Ignite Writers Collective in 2019 and has since worked with hundreds of writers to publish their own stories. Her client wins include a USA Today bestseller, book deals with Big 5 publishers, representation by buzzy book agents, and essays in prestigious outlets. Ruthie Ackerman has a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
In her new memoir, THE MOTHER CODE: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Myths That Shape Us (Random House; on-sale May 6, 2025), award-winning journalist Ruthie Ackerman takes readers on a bold and deeply personal journey into motherhood in the 21st century.
May 5 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Diana Ventimiglia on Top Tips from a New York Times Bestselling Editor
Diana Ventimiglia is a New York Times bestselling editor with over 17 years’ experience working with authors who speak to the diversity of our lived experiences. She’s drawn to strong voices in spirituality, identity & sexuality, relationships, psychology, mental health, female empowerment, and LGBTQ+ rights. Diana believes that everyone has a story to tell and lessons to share, and the best part of her job is partnering with incredible individuals who are dedicated to starting bigger conversations and inspiring individual and collective healing. She truly couldn’t imagine doing anything else! When she’s not working with authors, you’ll find her working through the 5 plus books on her nightstand and yelling at her cat, Phillip, to stop knocking things off the shelf. But he’s so cute!
May 12 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Rachel Kramer Bussel on The Secrets to Writing Personal Essays that Get Published
Rachel Kramer Bussel is an essayist, journalist, and editor based in New Jersey. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour, Publishers Weekly, Salon, Slate, TODAY.com, The Village Voice, and many other publications. She's the founder and editor of personal essay magazine Open Secrets and organizer of personal storytelling summit Open Secrets Live. Rachel is the author of How to Write Erotica and Lap Dance Lust and editor of over 70 erotica anthologies. She teaches essay writing workshops online and is working on a nonfiction anthology and a podcast on our relationships with and attachments to our belongings. Find her on Instagram and Bluesky at rachelkramerbussel.
In this session, we will talk to Rachel about what she looks for in selecting essays and how to write revealing material.
May 19 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Domenica Ruta for A Craft Conversation
Domenica Ruta is the NYTimes bestselling author of the memoir With or Without You and the novel Last Day, a 2019 NYT Notable book of the year, as well as co-editor of the anthology We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart and Humor. She's published short fiction and essays in the Iowa Review, the Boston Review, the Indiana Review, Epoch, Ninth Letter, The Cut, and elsewhere, and has been anthologized a handful of times, most notably in Wanting. She publishes personal essays with zero regularity and lots of love for free on her Substack. Her latest novel, All the Mothers, is on sale now everywhere books are sold. To find out if she doing a reading or event in your area, check out her website or follow her on Instagram at @domenicaruta .
June 2 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Laura Munson on Finding Your Writing Voice
Laura is the New York Times, USA Today, and international best selling author of the novel Willa’s Grove and the memoir This Is Not The Story You Think It Is. She has been published in nine countries and has been featured in Vanity Fair, Elle, Redbook, Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, Publisher’s Weekly and published in the New York Times ‘Modern Love’ Column, the New York Times Magazine ‘Lives’ Column, O. Magazine, and many others. Her new book is The Wild Why: Stories and Teachings to Uncover Your Wonder.
Laura is the founder of the acclaimed Haven Writing Retreats, speaks at women’s conferences and literary events, and has appeared on Good Morning America, The Early Show, NPR, and media outlets across the globe. She lives in Montana.