How to Edit Your Work Like a Reader, Writing About Bodies and Speculative Nonfiction 🪐
Plus workshops on tension in poetry and infinite essay ideas | Write or Die Weekly #74
Hi friends — you may notice things look a little different. I’ve combined both of our newsletters into one to avoid confusion and so you don’t miss a thing. From now on, all Write or Die updates will land right here on Substack — including new workshops, submission calls, and monthly writing inspiration.
Let’s dive into what’s happening this week…
✂️ Editing Your Work Like a Reader: Tangible Tactics to Tackle Plot and Strengthen Language
with Michelle Kicherer | TONIGHT, June 12 | 7 - 8:30 PM (EST)
Zadie Smith once said that the secret to editing your work is to “become its reader instead of its writer.” So how does one do that?
For each drafting stage, we’ll look at applicable tactics for editing, and look at some before and after examples of scenes and entire plots that were edited.
First drafts: we’ll talk about writing style and how/if/when to edit yourself along the way
With early drafts: we’ll look at how to take an assessment of plot and look for areas to cut and areas to expand, as well as how to use language most effectively to tell your story
With final drafts, we’ll look at applicable tools to tweak language for both better storytelling and more exciting prose
*If you can't attend this class live, it will be recorded! Students will receive a recording the day after the class, and it will be available for 30 days.
💌 Are you looking for help with your query letter? Or maybe you are overwhelmed by the prospect of finding literary agents to query?
Look no further!
is providing Query Support & Personalized Agent Lists! These offerings are handpicked with love and built to help you query with confidence. Whether you need expert eyes on your query letter or a list of agents curated just for your book, there's an option for you:✨ Query Letter Edit Only
Get detailed margin notes to strengthen structure, tone, and clarity—perfect before you hit send.
✨ Edit + 5 Handpicked Agents
Includes a full query edit plus a curated list of 5 agents, why they’re a fit, and custom suggestions to tailor your pitch.
✨ Edit + 10 Handpicked Agents
Includes everything above, with 10 agents thoughtfully matched to your manuscript, plus phrasing tips and personalized feedback.
🫶 It's Giving Body: Writing About the Bodies We Call Home
with Mathangi Subramanian | Sunday, June 15| 12:00 - 2:30 PM (EST)
Bodies are WILD. In this class, we'll craft experimental pieces as nuanced and unpredictable as the bodies we inhabit.
Whether they're surprising us, disappointing us, or driving us bonkers, bodies are rich sources of literary inspiration. Drawing on mentor texts from Black civil rights poet Lucille Clifton and neurodiverse Dine memoirist Danielle Geller, we'll create poems and outline personal essays about the ways our bodies affect us and our relationships. Students will leave with the outlines of two pieces, and will have time to share.
🪐 6-Week Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Speculative Nonfiction
with Haley Swanson | July 9 - August 13 | 8:00 - 10:00 PM (EST)
What if you’d left earlier, spoken louder, known your parents before they were parents—or your adult self as a child? In this six-week speculative nonfiction workshop, we’ll explore how impossibilities and imagined alternatives can deepen personal narrative. Through readings from Jo Ann Beard, Carmen Maria Machado, and others, we’ll examine how writers speculate ethically and powerfully within memoir and essay. Writers will workshop one essay and leave with sharpened tools for weaving speculation into nonfiction. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Deadline is June 25!
😮💨 Crafting Hold-Your-Breath Tension
with Kelly Grace Thomas | Saturday, June 21 | 1- 4 PM (EST)
Every great poem is a tug of war. Join award-winning poet Kelly Grace Thomas for a generative workshop that examines and explores the effectiveness and impact of tension in poetry.
💕 You've Finished Writing It...Now What?!
with Najya Williams | Sunday, June 22 | 12 - 3 PM (EST)
This workshop is an interactive experience that will teach you the ins and outs of pitching vs. querying your project, strategies for contests, building an online presence, and solidifying your consumer base before your project actually hits the shelves.
💡 How to Never Run Out of Essay Ideas
with Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya | Tuesday, July 8 | 6- 9 PM (EST)
Have a biweekly newsletter that's losing steam? Itching to pitch but fresh out of exciting ideas? This workshop is designed to give you the tools to find inspiration for creative nonfiction even when you think the well is dry (spoiler alert: the well is never dry). Through readings of unconventional essays and prompts designed to help you pull inspiration from unexpected places, I'll give you the tools, confidence, and discipline to keep finding things to meaningfully write about from your everyday life, memories, and environment.
Have you submitted to our contest yet?! ↓↓↓
RE: "speculative nonfiction" - - I had been my terminally ill mother's caregiver. But when I wrote memoir poetry for "Cancer Courts My Mother" [Prolific Pulse Press, Nov. 2025], cancer was not a disease in my WIP. In my speculative transformation he became a casanova, my mother's lover - - constantly in bed with her, urging her to leave her family and come with him. My memoir in verse was accepted by seven publishers including a California university press - - before I made my decision. * * * * Final word: speculative nonfiction resonates with publishers. Learn all you can about it.