One-of-a-Kind Workshops
Sponsored by Woodstock Bookfest-to-Go
“I can’t imagine a more skilled, experienced, and brilliant writing coach than Susan Brown. She is intuitive! She climbed inside my project and saw exactly what it needed, picking up nuances that had passed me by. I learned more in her intensive workshop than by reading several “how to” books on writing.”
Susan Page, Founder and Director of San Miguel Writers’ Conference, the largest and most prestigious co-cultural, bi-lingual literary gathering in the Americas where Susan will be teaching in 2025.
Secrets of the Greatest Writers Workshop
Five-Week Intensive Masterclass on Zoom​
Monday evenings, March 3 to March 31, 2025
Class is limited to 14
$450 (registration information below)
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With James Joyce scholar, editor, and writing coach, Susan Brown, PhD., study the subliminal, often undiscernable devices used by the great writers, and bring your fiction and memoir writing to the next level.
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Class from 6:00 to 8:00 PM EST on Zoom
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Reading Session on zoom (optional) from 8:00 to 9:30 PM
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Optional individual introductory meeting with Susan (before workshop)
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Optional one-hour individual consultation with Susan (during workshop)
In this market, your memoir and novel have to read like the classics. In a five-day intensive workshop with master teacher Susan Brown, PhD, take your writing project to the next level by applying the literary secrets of Western culture’s greatest authors. Dr. Brown brings decades as a college creative writing professor, writing coach, and book editor to her workshops.
What will we study?
Workshop participants will be encouraged to raise the bar on their own writing by studying the techniques of the masters for: composing and drafting; creating a compelling narrative voice using internal monologue; building unity with narrative threads, literary allusion, and leitmotif; creating magical and symbolic imagery; constructing a viable literary two-plot structure; achieving a seamless sophisticated style (that reads like butter); and accessing the most meaningful, complex, and original themes beating at the heart of your project.
Who are our Models?
We’ll be learning the secret handshakes from, among others, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Daniel Woodrell, Ernest Hemingway, Gustave Flaubert, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, Mark Twain, Colum McCann, Hunter S. Thompson, Dennis Lehane, Louise Erdrich, and Jeanette Walls.
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Registration
Please contact me at susansutliffbrown@gmail.com with your name and email address, or call me to confirm there’s a space and schedule an introductory meeting so I can learn about your goals and your project. The price for the workshop is $450. To reserve a space there is a non-refundable deposit of $75. Balance is due 4 weeks before the first date of the workshop.
Write a Literary BLOCKBUSTER:
James Joyce Meets Judith Krantz
Where's the deep and meaningful novel that’s also an addictive page-turner? With James Joyce scholar Susan Brown, PhD--who's also a lover of trash lit--turn your idea for a slick beach read into a novel that also has profound thematic significance or transform your deep and meaningful manuscript into a hybrid that can also be a commercial winner. It's been 70 years. The world is ready.
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Meets
​8-Week Literary Blockbuster Zoom Workshop
Monday evenings October 6th to November 24th, 2025
$650 (registration information below)
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Class from 6:00 to 8:00 PM EST on Zoom
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Reading Session on zoom (optional) from 8:00 to 9:30 PM
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Are you the writer the world is waiting for who can merge the metaphysics of Moby Dick with the page-turning power of Jaws? Do you have a novel that explores universal philosophical questions while also grabbing and holding a reader's attention? Have you written a book that can replicate the emotional depth of The Scarlet Letter and inspire the record profits of Valley of the Dolls? Or a book that joins the psycho-sociological themes of Mrs. Dalloway with the page-turning suspense of The Godfather? How about merging James Joyce's psychologically complex characterization with a Stephen King plot?
This workshop will show you why you want to be that writer and how to begin. We will open by answering the question, why aren’t contemporary prize-winning, critically acclaimed, literary novels also mega-blockbusters (i.e. selling 20 million copies plus)? Then we answer the question, is it possible? The answer is yes, but the last time it happened was seventy years ago when two canonized literary novels each sold more than 20 million copies — Catcher in the Rye and Lolita, both published in the 1950s. Both writers achieved what Dr. Brown will guide you to attempt in this workshop: transcendence of the artificial and fathomless polarity between commercial writing and profound and stunning literary fiction. With master teacher and editor Susan Brown, study the secret handshakes of the masters and the money-makers and learn to combine the best qualities of both literary and commercial writing without sacrificing quality.
Take the challenge: write a thought-provoking literary novel that’s also a page-turner. Combine the goals of serious literature (thematic depth and high level craft) with the bestselling formulas of the mega-blockbusters and commercial genres (romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, horror, fantasy, etc.). For many of you this may mean revising an existing project. With models, prompts, exercises, and feedback sessions, James Joyce scholar Susan Brown — who is also a lover of trash lit — will guide you to begin a new project or revise your existing novel into what readers really want: a prize-winning and meaningful novel that’s also an addictive read.​​
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Concepts and Techniques Addressed in the Workshop
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How to construct any project in layers–scene by scene—not beginning to end–saving months, even years
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How to integrate both sides of your brain for writing
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How to draft using Hemingway’s “one true sentence”
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How to unify your book with narrative threads and a leitmotif
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How to create charismatic characters using internal dialogue
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How to find the universal theme beating at the heart of your story
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How to construct utilitarian but engaging 3-part dialogue
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How to make each paragraph read like butter
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How to brushstroke a minor character
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How to write a sex scene that won’t make a reader gag or yawn
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How to craft an opening with eight essential moving parts
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How to keep the reader glued to a narrative with cliff-hangers
​ and that's in the first hour!
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Optional Reading and Feedback Sessions
​The goal of a workshop is to form a community where every writer feels safe to take risks, where all efforts are respected, and where each writer’s stunning growth and success represent the group’s collective achievement.
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Choosing from a list of assignments, workshop members will share up to three pages of a workshop assignment or three pages of new (or substantially revised) material from their larger work-in-progress. Polish is not possible in the time frame. We all recognize these pieces as experiments and drafts as students practice applying the literary and commercial techniques discussed in the workshop session.
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To insure a safe reading environment and encourage risk-taking, feedback will be limited to Dr. Brown’s constructive commentary.
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With teaching as the goal, Susan will explain what and why elements of piece are successful and–where useful as a learning tool for the group–offer an analysis of how to increase the depth and improve the quality of a draft. Students learn from observing what does and doesn’t work and hearing an instructor’s solutions. Other writers will recognize, for example, that the narrative voice isn’t consistent. Using the student’s sample, a professional teacher can explain–with care and encouragement–how to resolve that gap.
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Register for the Literary BLOCKBUSTER Zoom Workshop
Please contact me at susansutliffbrown@gmail.com with your name and email address, or call me to confirm there’s a space and schedule an introductory meeting so I can learn about your goals and your project. The price for the workshop is $650. To reserve a space there is a non-refundable deposit of $75. Balance is due 4 weeks before the first date of the workshop.
PREPARING A NON-FICTION BOOK PROJECT FOR SUBMISSION
WRITING EFFECTIVE QUERY LETTERS AND BOOK PROPOSALS
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You know you need a query to submit to an agent. But if you have a non-fiction project or a memoir, you are going to need a magnetic and well-organized book proposal as well. It's similar to a business plan and the document agents and publishers look at to decide whether they will make an offer. A good proposal is one that answers the questions an agent or an acquisition editor will be asking. In a five-week intensive master class, Susan S. Brown, PhD (who writes proposals) and literary agent Andy Ross (who evaluates them) will guide writers through the query letter and non-fiction book proposal process.
Monday evenings, June 2 to June 30, 2025
Class is limited to 20
$750 (registration information below)
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Class from 6:00 to 8:00 PM EST on Zoom
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Feedback Session from 8:15 to 9:30 PM
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Join Susan and Andy in this five-week intensive zoom writing workshop for fiction and creative non-fiction writers who hope to eventually submit their project for publication. We'll focus on the crucial elements for attracting an agent and/or publisher with a killer proposal that has a contemporary concept, a mesmerizing narrative voice, a compelling pitch, and many other secret ingredients that can save your project from the slush pile. Using prompts and models, we will encourage writers to prepare drafts of the overview, marketing materials, comps section, chapter outline, and sample chapter. We will also offer tips on the perfect query letter. ​​With Andy, we will be learning what book publishers and literary agents really want, the steps to getting published, how agents evaluate submissions, researching the right agent for your project, elements of the book contract, and self-publishing. The workshop will include a one-hour private consultation with both Andy and Susan (separately) during the workshop.
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Andy Ross opened his literary agency in 2008. Prior to that, he was the owner of the legendary Cody’s Books in Berkeley for 30 years. His agency represents books in a wide range of non-fiction genres including: narrative non-fiction, science, journalism, history, popular culture, memoir, and current events. He also represents literary, commercial, historical, and upmarket women’s fiction, and YA and middle grade fiction and non-fiction. Andy has participated and taught classes in numerous writers’ conferences including San Francisco Writers Conference, Kauai Writers Conference, San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference, Nebraska Writers Conference, and organized and conducted writing intensive workshops with Linda Watanabe McFerrin in Santa Fe, Provence, Kauai and in Scotland. Andy is also the author of The Literary Agent’s Guide to Writing a Non-Fiction Book Proposal and the popular blog, “Ask the Agent: Night Thoughts About Books and Publishing,” which has received over 600,000 unique views.
The authors Andy represents include: Daniel Ellsberg, Fritjof Capra, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Susan Griffin, Leonard Shlain, Gwen Strauss, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Anjanette Delgado, Mark Goldblatt, Tawni Waters, Randall Platt, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Mary Jo McConahay, Gerald Nachman, Michael Parenti, Paul Krassner, Milton Viorst, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Michele Anna Jordan, and Scott Ostler.
​website: https://www.andyrossagency.com
contact: andyrossagency@hotmail.com
510-238-8965
blog: www.andyrossagency.wordpress.com
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Susan Brown began her career preparing successful non-fiction book proposals for authors represented by two New York City literary agencies. She has also developed an intensive master class entitled, Begin Your Memoir by Drafting a Book Proposal. Based on Susan's 35 years as a sought-after teacher, book editor, and writing coach, she will now guide writers to produce their own proposals, including writing a winning overview (pitch), well-constructed chapter outline, and mesmerizing sample chapter. All of Susan’s clients and students are quick to note her warmth, honesty, and sense of humor as well as her ability to help writers clearly “see” their book.
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Registration for the Workshop with Susan and Andy
Please contact Susan at susansutliffbrown@gmail.com with your name and email address or call her (941-855-0444) to confirm there’s a space. The price for the workshop is $750. To reserve a spot there is a non-refundable deposit of $75. Balance is due May 2, 2025.
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