Editing and Consulting for Writers
Ongoing Coaching
Available at $100 per hour. By phone, Skype, or in person. We can meet and review your work, discuss career development, do intensive craft study on an element of craft, whatever you need.
Quick Edit and Review Meeting. For former and current students only. We meet for 1.5 hours, I read short pieces and give insights and edits on the spot. Up to 8 pages review, double spaced prose. Coaching on revisions and publishing.
- Fee: $150 per meeting or $275 for 2 meetings
First Chapter and Synopsis. A review of your one-page synopsis and first chapter up to 15 pages. I respond with thoughts and suggestions. Use form at bottom to contact me.
- Fee: $300
Four-By-Four Coaching/Consult. Four coaching/intensive manuscript review sessions over about 8 weeks. I read and mark 15 pages prose for each session, followed by a one hour private meeting by phone or in person. Includes craft discussion, reading suggestions, and strategies for revision and publishing. A great option for the start of a book, a series of short essays or stories, a poetry collection, or refinements to a section of a book. Writers using this service have published and won awards. Use form at bottom to contact me.
- Fee: $1200
- $10 additional for additional pieces in a single prose packet
- 60 pages prose or 30 pages poetry
- Single session/15 pp: $450
- One page prose is 250 words
Four-by Four-Coaching/Craft Study Special
Four coaching/intensive manuscript review sessions plus four follow up meetings and craft conversations over about 16 weeks. I read and mark 15 pages prose for each session, followed by a one hour private meeting by phone or in person. Two weeks later, we have a follow up conversation with intensive craft discussion regarding assigned reading. Includes craft discussion, reading suggestions, and strategies for revision and publishing. A great option for a first draft or work in progress where the writer has not had access to intensive craft study workshops or classes, or where the writer would like to make a commitment to taking the writing to the next level.
- First time fee for four sessions: $2,500
- Discount Fee for additional sessions: $2,250
- 60 pages prose or 30 pages poetry
- Single session/15 pp: $550
- This works best in a series of at least four sessions
Intensive Manuscript Review
Intensive editing marks, suggestions about pacing, layering, metaphor, ways to bring the heart of the story. Editing for phrasing, illogical connections, missing material, general issues to work on. Includes detailed, page by page comments, a letter, and individual meeting by phone or in person. Minimum: 50 pages. Use form at bottom to contact me.
- $10/page for first 50 pages. $7.50/ page for remaining pages.
- Includes 1-hour follow-up meeting by phone, Skype, or in person.
- 50 page minimum / $500
- $250 deposit reserves your start date
Mentoring – the Low Cost Alternative to an MFA Program
A transformative learning process at about a tenth the cost
Schedule a one-hour meeting to assess your readiness for this rigorous program: $75 fee, waived if you sign up within 1 month.
Following the Low Residency MFA mentoring model I have adapted from the top-rated Warren Wilson College MFA Program and my own process, I will review your creative material in a series of packets, via email or postal mail. I respond with manuscript markup, craft advice, reading assignments, assignments for short essays on craft, and general discussion of writing strategies, all in a detailed letter. This is an incredibly effective and affordable way to make MFA-level progress in your mastery of craft at about one-tenth the cost.
- We compile a reading list and discuss your reading.
- Each packet includes a program of assigned reading and craft study.
- Each fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir packet includes: 20 pages fresh material or revision
- Poetry Packets: 8 pages.
- I assign you short essays on how writing works.
- I provide a detailed letter with each packet review.
- We start with a one-hour meeting, and end with a one-hour review.
3 packet exchanges: $2500 (up to 60 pages manuscript transformation)
5 packet exchanges: $4,000 (up to 100 pages manuscript transformation)
$500 Deposit reserves your dates.
My qualifications:
- An uncommon “sixth sense,” honed over years of experience, reading, and study, that tells me the shapes and solutions that will serve the heart of a story, essay, or poem.
- 15 years private and conference teaching and consulting on fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, from beginners to post-MFA level.
- 30 years of professional editing and writing for trade fiction, nonfiction, and university publishers.
- 20 years networking with writers and publishers regionally and nationwide
- Numerous awards, including the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Honorable Mention for Distinguished Fiction and an NC Arts Council Fellowship (2012), Hedgebrook, Ucross, Headlands, and Hemingway Foundation Fellowships
- MFA, Warren Wilson College
Past Institutional Clients / Staff Work:
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Harper Collins, Duke University Sanford Institute for Public Policy, UNC Institute of Government Publishing Division, Duke University Chronicle, Capital News Group, TeleSpan Publishing Company, National Parks Magazine, American Land Forum.
Published Writing: 2 literary books in 2 editions each, 5 anthologies, more than 50 stories, articles, poems in Story, Garden & Gun, Storytelling Magazine, West Branch, Yankee, Wildlife in North Carolina, American Land Forum, and many more.
A Few Past and Present Clients and Workshoppers
I’m so proud of you all!
Rebecca Duncan – Secrets of Gray Lake, a novel
Michele Berger, fiction, poetry, blogger – multiple awards
Anne Anthony – NC Literary Review and other journals
Judith Lessler – memoir published in The Sun
Charles Higgins – finalist Doris Betts Prize for Fiction
Maria Rouphail – poetry book, Main Street Rag
Al Capehart – Behind Santa’s Smile, memoir
Liz McGuffey – nonfiction in NC Literary Review
Jane Andrews – Glint, Rose Post Finalist, other journals
Mary Mienelt – The Sun and other journals, for memoir
Kathyrn Milam – Flash Fiction journal
Janet Moore – Fish journal third place award (Ireland) for fiction
Fill out contact form below for more information.
Kitchen Table Writers 
Marjorie: Know you are busy, but slightly concerned that I did not hear from you regarding poetry coaching/reading. Would still be interested.