12-week ONLINE Virtual Manuscript Generator (open to fiction & nonfiction writers) – begins 9.14.26
Dates: begins Sept 14, 2026
Instructor: Amy Shearn
Location: Meetings via video every OTHER wk on MON 7-9pm ET
Fee: $1250 | $1150 for returning Sackett writers
This is a virtual class & video meetings are held every other week.
This generative class open to novelists, memoirists, and writers working on story and essay collections.
A writing sample is not required but recommended for this class.
The Manuscript Generator is our most productive class. Every other week you will submit up to 5,000 words of your manuscript to the instructor and she will provide you with notes. You’ll also have the opportunity to receive feedback from your fellow writers on your project synopsis or outline, scene exercises, and your manuscript’s opening pages. The two-hour bi-weekly meetings will be the chance for you to discuss your projects and engage with writing prompts in shared group writing time. The instructor also offers a one-on-one consultation at the end of the course to discuss your manuscript in depth.
Class meets six times over a period of twelve weeks.
The workshop is open to writers who have completed one or more chapters of a novel or memoir, as well as writers working on short story and/or essay collections. Writers participating in this course will learn how to recognize the successful techniques in their writing – what engages the reader, and how that success is achieved. Carefully planned lessons and online discussions will focus on analyzing the many choices (point-of-view, tone, characterizing details, pacing, story shape, order of information, beginnings and endings, etc.) a writer must make concerning structure, character and language. This course is intended for writers who have some experience writing and workshopping.
A private conference with the instructor is included.
Amy Shearn is the award-winning author of the novels Animal Instinct, Dear Edna Sloane, Unseen City, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and How Far Is the Ocean From Here. She teaches creative writing at the Yale Writers' Workshop, Sackett Street Writers Workshop, and Writing Co-Lab, an experimental cooperative she co-founded.Amy's work has appeared in many publications including TheNew York Times Modern Love column, Slate, Poets & Writers, and O: The Oprah Magazine. Amy lives in Brooklyn and, alongside her own writing, she works with writers as a developmental editor, book coach, and retreat-leader.