MASTERCLASS | Pitching & Publishing Essays: Find Venues, Pitch Your Work & Get Published

REGISTER NOW  $195

LIVE ON ZOOM | Saturdays, Sept 7th and 14th, 11 am-1:30 pm Eastern | Nonfiction

Unlock the secrets to captivating essays: master the art of pitching, writing, and getting published in just two weeks!

Publishing a “hot essay” in a major national publication can get an agent’s attention, build your audience, and establish your place in the cultural conversation. But essays, articles, and OpEds also appear in local and regional publications, literary magazines and websites and help you explore your idea–and get immediate feedback on whether it resonates with readers.

Join two widely-published authors for a two-day masterclass in formulating your idea, writing an intriguing pitch, and turning that pitch into a 900-2000 word, ready-to-go essay, fast! You’ll learn how to create powerful beginnings and endings, how to spot your story’s connection to the cultural moment, where to find editors’ contact information (and identify what they want!), and increase your ability to quickly and confidently write and send out your work.

You’ll also get our exclusive list of media outlets that pay (and some that don’t but are still worth sharing your words with!)

Session One:

• Finding the right venues for your work
• Where the ideas come from–and making them come faster
• The key components of a good pitch–and writing your own
• Key differences between essays, OpEds and articles–and which one you want to write
• Choosing an idea and writing your first pitch(es)
• The practice of writing faster–without sacrificing story or craft

Session Two:

• Pitch feedback and revision
• “Thinking sideways” to target your pitch to more than one venue
• Brilliant beginnings and stick-the-landing endings
• When to “sell on pitch” and when to write the essay first
• Changing up an essay you’ve already written to make it sell
• Live-editing to show better pitching and better writing in real time
• Making the most of a published essay to build platform and move the needle on your writing career

This class is ideal for…

• Writers who’d like their work to capture attention and engage agents, editors and readers immediately
• Writers with a piece that’s been widely submitted and rejected 
• Freelancers ready to level up with techniques for writing faster and publishing more widely
• Memoirists getting query rejections for “not enough platform,” or working on a book proposal and getting stuck on the Marketing section
• Everyone mystified by what the heck a “pitch” is—and what makes one sellable
• Writers who really want to publish in a particular venue, but can’t figure out the secret sauce to get in

Closed captioning is available. ✔

Think you might miss part of the class? No worries, replays will be available. ✔

ABOUT INSTRUCTORS

Rebecca Morrison is a lawyer and writer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Today Show, NBC News, Salon, HuffPost, Newsweek, among others. Her middle-grade novel The Blue Dress, based on her childhood as an Iranian immigrant trying to fit into her family and her new American homeland, is coming out with Farrar Straus Giroux Books in the winter of 2026. You can find her at www.rebeccakmorrison.com.

Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She has edited and coached writers to publishing deals with Big Five, independent & literary presses. She’s guided essayists and humorists to publications including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Refinery29, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks.  Her own writing on travel, craft, culture and comedy has appeared in/on National Public Radio, CBC-Canada, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Writers Digest, Creative Nonfiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Kenyon Review Online, Travelers’ Tales and Flash Nonfiction Funny.

THE FINE PRINT

We understand that life can get in the way of your plans. We want you to be able to get the most out of your course, and our refund policy is designed to balance your need for flexibility with our deadlines and obligations to our teachers. Before the first class, you may request a full refund.

Please keep in mind that no refunds will be issued after class begins.

Questions? Please email Info@craft-talks.com