How To Apply to This Year's Academy:
Email us at gatelessacademy@gmail.com and include:
A letter of intent of 100-200 words on how you heard about the Academy and what you are working on.
Up to 10 pages of your writing (by attachment).
Please see below for costs and payment options.
The Gateless Advisory Board offers generous scholarships and has underwritten the program for emerging and establishing writers since the fall of 2020.
If you are applying for a scholarship, please include this in your letter of intent.
Special preferences to writers of color, LGBQTA+, single mothers and writers with an affiliation to the Gateless community.
See the syllabus HERE
A sample of your faculty are HERE.
What Will Happen to Your Writing Life As a Result?
- The Gateless Academy is a 10-month book building program for writers with work in progress. Our intimate group of writers come together to share work, create their manuscripts and craft writing that moves a crowd and sells big on the world stage.
- Gateless Academy Writers have been repped by agents at Park and Fine, Writer's House, Inkwell, William Morris, Aevitas, Defiore, Carol Mann, and more.
- Alumni have signed book deals with Harpers, Simon and Schuster, Penguin Random House, St. Martin's Press and many others.
- Gateless Writers of all genres have won and been shortlisted for prestigious literary awards including The Wigleaf, William Van Dyke, the William Faulkner Wisdom Award, The Annie Dillard Award for Creative non-fiction, the Baltimore Review's Short Fiction prize, Pushcart Prizes, The Gershwin Prize and more.
- Gateless Writers have been profiled in top media outlets, including the New York Times, Business Insider, O Magazine, the Today Show, Rolling Stone Magazine and many others.
What Will I Experience?
- A 10-month online literary experience, The Gateless Academy is one of the most comprehensive online book-writing programs in the world. With an intimate hive of 35 writers, you will immerse yourself in what it means to create work that rises above the industry standard and stands out in the upper echelons of the publishing world. You will be hobnobbing with the movers and shakers of the literary world. This is the journey of a lifetime, and one of the fastest ways to a completed manuscript.
- The Gateless methodology combines creative neuroscience, craft tools and a spiritual approach to writing that gives you an unprecedented advantage to creating your manuscript. Gateless busts the myth of the struggling artist and brings you into a landscape of fluid productivity and quality content that will astound you.
- A lifeline of over 100 hours of potent craft tools will help you harness your innate talent, and buoy your singular voice.
- A group of 10 industry luminaries, mentor you on your path, helping you finish the manuscript, create the platform, build the proposal and find the agent and publisher to move into the world.
- A pod of genre-specific writers share work-in-progress, provide on-page support, agents' and editors' names, and encouragement that lasts throughout your career.
The Academy Is For You If:
- You are a writer of fiction, memoir, non-fiction and/or the narrative how-to.
- You are drawn to the written word as a powerful vehicle for changing the existing domain, diving deeply into writing as a path to self exploration and bridge the cognitive with divine connection.
- You long for that trusted mentor who can give you insider industry knowledge and introduce you to authorial icons further ahead on the path.
- You have completed an MFA and want a post-grad, book-writing program.
- You never went to the MFA and feel like you need a professional program that helps to craft your book, introduces you to industry insiders and gives you a network you can rely on o compete in the literary world.
- You are previously unpublished and want an intensive, intimate path to understanding craft and publication.
- You are a mid-career writer who wants to elevate your career and move higher up in the industry.
- You want to climb inside the magic of language and make mad crazy beautiful love to the page.
Writing really can be:
doubled over laughter,
a hit of the divine,
a wild uncovering of untold stories,
a daring ride into the singular genius you hold inside.
Literary success is right at your fingertips,
let’s have a ball …
The Principal Elements of the Gateless Academy
Accountability and Direction:
For 10 months, you will be meeting with Suzanne and a small group of high-achieving writers who are moving their manuscripts to the point of publication, and beyond. You will be sharing work in a genre-specific pod and receiving Gateless feedback that draws out your innate talent and singular genius. Over 100 hours of cutting edge craft will help you build, hone, and sell work that can change the global conversation. The Academy is built to facilitate creative risk- taking, elevate your craft and create writing that will change your life. See Past Academy Alumni HERE.
Mentoring:
We meet regularly to reach the highest vision of what you know you can achieve on the page. In the event that you cannot attend every session, they are recorded and sent directly to your inbox. Here is your opportunity to receive specific and supportive feedback. These meetings draw out your strength and power on the page. Whenever you have challenges related to theme, structure, character development, byline, publications, this is where you find the answers. This is a transformational experience, where you will manifest the vision of what you want to move into the world.
The Writing Salon:
The internationally-acclaimed Gateless writing salon is an excursion into creating fantastic writing from the theta/beta brain state. Neuroscience has shown that when we create from the unconditioned mind, rich rooms in the self are opened and the creative potency of the writing is unparalleled. A prompt, immediate feedback and a party on the page, this is the literary massage of the writing world.
Creative Neuroscience:
In the Academy, you will learn inside a method of teaching writing (and many other mediums) created from cutting-edge scientific brain research at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and the National Institute of Health. The Gateless methodology is built to cease activity in the area of your brain associated with judgement and criticism. Using elements of neuro-plasticity and techniques of Zen Buddhist meditation, you are dropped into your most powerful creative potential. Once you have worked with the Gateless methodology you will understand where to focus your work so that you can achieve mastery on the page and in the world. Gateless alumni typically meet with unprecedented success in the industry.
Luminaries:
Luminaries from the creative and the business side of publishing will arrive in our midst to massage your journey to the completed manuscript. The faculty includes multi-genre authors who have hit bestseller lists, comedic writers who have graced some of the nation's largest stages, literary agents who can tell you how to land a contract, and authors who have scored major media attention. These folks are daring, accessible and open to answering all your questions. You can ask everything from how to stay motivated to how to find an agent. See Sample of Our Luminaries HERE.
Over 100 Seminar Hours of Extensive Craft Tools:
The Gateless seminars are only available through the Academy portal. These seminars include over 100 hours of private intensives with Suzanne, one of the top development editors in the country. These seminars are extremely comprehensive and built from some of the highest literary minds in the world. The intel you will learn inside these seminars has led Gateless writers from first drafts to 6-figure offers from Penguin, Simon and Schuster, Harpers Business, Holt, Little Brown, St. Martins Press and more. They have the power to move you through critical blocks and to guide you through building a page-turning book that gains agent, publisher and media attention. They also contain not-to-miss information about building a query, proposal and a platform that brings you to the biggest sale. See Your Full Syllabus of Gateless Seminars HERE
The result? Astonishingly beautiful work that wows agents, publishers and an audience of readers.
A Sampling of What Writers Are Saying
For a more complete look at what past writers experience, please watch the video at the top of the page.
To understand who comes to the Academy, you can visit our alumni page HERE
Nothing in my life has ever come close to The Academy. My novel had been stalled for over a year. Gateless stoked a fire in me. The Academy is a safe haven for the creative genius to run free and wild without inhibition. Acquiring invaluable tools for the craft, reading other writers' work, and getting unbelievably insightful feedback has moved me forward in profound ways. I am in the homestretch with my novel, and I have everything I need to succeed as an author. My only regret? Not doing it sooner!!! -Kim Griffin, novelist, finalist for the William-Faulkner-William award, TX.
The Academy ranks as one of the most important gifts I have ever given my work. Suzanne Kingsbury was truly sent here by the gods. The Academy lasts a lifetime. The seminars hold wisdom for the ages. Gateless buoys you forever.
--Bren McClain, TN, winner of the William Faulkner - William Wisdom Writing Award and Author of the critically acclaimed, One Good Mama Bone, Nashville, TN
The Academy was life-changing. When I started, I was filled with doubts. Through massive Gateless love, Suzanne's unbelievably insightful words to me during the writer's showcase, her amazing seminars, I felt a huge paradigm shift. The Academy is about transformation and alchemy. Other writing programs give you the mundane, Gateless has the magic. I was transformed as an artist because of it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.--Daintry Jensen, MA, author of the critically acclaimed, The Hidden Forest, Brooklyn, NY.
The Gateless Academy is one of the most vital, enriching, freaking-beautiful things I've ever done for my writing and for me. I felt tentative when I signed up, lacking confidence. Through The Academy, I gained a team of cheerleaders and felt very close to the online risktakers and shakers.The insights from The Academy have gotten inside me, they are in my blood. There are many approaches to writing and teaching writing, the Gateless approach blends science and spirit and integrates the best part of ourselves, so we can connect to the best part of others.--Kate Gray, Pushcart Prize nominee and author of the critically-acclaimed novel, Carry the Sky, Portland, OR.
The Academy was magic. When I signed up, I was experimenting with a new book, and I wasn't sure if it would work. My work got better every week, the seminars were so packed with information, I didn't want to miss anything, and there was so much love pouring forth, the weekly salon was a high. When I read aloud during my showcase and heard everyone's feedback, I felt lifted on a cushion of support. I was literally high for days. It was a gift from everyone there. I write more freely now. The work comes from a place deep inside me. Gateless taps into the place where your writing might be stuck and frees it up to flow on the page. It almost bypasses the intellect. You find a direct path.--Sheena Cook, MFA, award-winning Author of A Month in the Country, repped by Curtis Brown, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Before the Gateless Academy, I was getting conflicting feedback on my work, I wasn't quite sure how competent I was. The Academy gave me the tools to understand how to craft great writing. I wrote my manuscript from the inspiration I got from the seminars. The first word to the last polished draft was written in the Academy. It was solicited for publication right after that and will be published this October. I've never experienced that before. Suzanne's feedback, and everyone else's, showed me that there is a powerful force to be reckoned with inside me. And it's nothing to be afraid of. It's something wild I can ride.--Stanley Dankoski, award-winning short-fiction writer, NC
The Academy was designed to give you absolutely everything you will ever need to succeed as a writer. Out of all the things I’ve done for my writing, I can’t rank it high enough, it’s infinite. When I entered The Academy, I wanted to belong to a community of great writers and feel equal among the giants. By the end, I didn’t want the Academy to stop. I wanted to mingle longer with the other writers, to soak in their writing and hear how much they love mine, to examine how I treat a story and learn from the experts about process and craft. I feel confident now in my talent, I return to Gateless whenever I’m in doubt. .--Paula Diaco, corporate writing coach and novelist, VT.The Q and A:
How Many Writers Are in the Academy? The Gateless Academy was developed as a post-graduate program. Its mission has since grown to include new writers with exemplary talent. It is curated for the select writers who are accepted (about 25-30 a year + alumni from previous years).
Will I Be Sharing My Work with Others? A private Drive folder will be assigned as soon the program begins. Every month you will be sharing from your work-in-progress, you will comment and receive feedback in the Gateless method, which his the fastest way to move your book to sale.
I Have Heard About Gateless Writing Salons, Will I Experience These? Yes, each month we either meet on Zoom for a live salon or in our pods for a written salon. You will experience the Gateless meditative prompts and move into writing from a Theta/Beta State. Gateless feedback fires neurotransmitters that spur on the creative process and shows you the powerful genius you hold inside.
What Kind of Time Commitment Is This? The Academy time commitment depends on how much work you are creating, how much you decide to show up to calls, how engaged you are with your Pod, how often you listen to the seminars. The Academy is designed with your busy life in mind. You can come to every session or listen to the calls and seminars at your leisure.
Will I Get a Book Deal? Academy writers go on to create a career in the written word. They have been picked up by the Carol Mann Agency, Writers House, ICM, Parker and Fine, the Bent Agency, Inkwell Management and many of the most prestigious literary agencies in the world. Their work has been optioned for film, translated abroad and won the most coveted literary awards. The amount you use the Academy defines how potent it is for accelerating your work to the point of publication.
Acceptance is on a rolling admissions basis, by application only.
Send a letter of intent (about 250-500 words) to gatelessacademy@gmail.com profiling the following:
*How you heard about Gateless.
*Where you are with your writing now.
*What you most need from the Writer's Academy in terms of your work.
*Your greatest goals for your work (these can be small or large, they only have to be integrated with a personal vision).
AND: A sample of your work-in-progress (up to 10 pages).
Please send your letter of intent and your writing sample via attachment as a Word document or as a Google Doc to gatelessacademy@gmail.com.
How Much Does It Cost?
Board Advisory Scholarships are available for partial tuition wavers.
Gateless typically gives priority to single parents, bipoc, LGBQTA and anyone else who has extenuated circumstances.
If you are interested in a scholarship, please email gatelessacademy@gmail.com and write Scholarship Needed in the subject line. Thank you!
Cost for the Gateless Writing Academy includes:
- Live calls every week at a time curated to your schedule.
- Over 100+ hours of in-depth craft seminars.
- Participation in a genre specific writing pod to share your work.
- Live, virtual Gateless writing salons.
- Craft specific sessions with Suzanne to adapt what you are learning to the specifics of your writing.
- Luminary calls with agents, publishers and award-winning authors.
Cost of the program: $500 a month for 10 months after an initial deposit of $1500.
Gateless Board Advisory Scholarships are available.
We offer up to 25% off and focus priority on single parents, bipoc, LGBQTA and anyone else who has extenuating circumstances.
If you are interested in a scholarship, please email gatelessacademy@gmail.com and write Scholarship Needed in the subject line. Thank you!
Cancellation policy can be found HERE.
We are so excited to write with you...