The Gateless Writing Summer Academy
where the magic of creativity meets the power of productivity
One hot steamy season
with bestselling authors and industry insiders
Every Wednesday
Starting July 13
7 PM ET
listen on any device
(all sessions will be recorded)
Register here, it's completely free!
Tara Nicholle-Kirke is the Founder and CEO of SoulTour, the School of Spiritual Strategy. She is a three-time author, Metaphysician, Master Self-Actualization Coach, and Spiritual Strategist to smart, successful people.
In this beautiful session with Tara, she teaches us why the inner critic blocks our most powerful creative endeavors, and how to recognize the subtle toxicity of our sneakiest saboteur. She reveals why many authors never reach the pinnacle of productivity and the secret to moving through critical thought with staying power. A not to be missed.
Deepa Purushothoman is one of the most influential voices in our world today. She is an author, speaker, and leader in practice at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the author of the highly acclaimed non-fiction debut, THE FIRST, THE FEW, THE ONLY: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America. In this session, Deepa will share proposal-writing do's and don'ts, how to choose the best agent for your book, if you can really sell without a platform, how not to get sued when writing about real people and when to quit your day job.
Mary Gauthier is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and the author of SAVED BY A SONG: A memoir.
How to structure your memoir, whether you should actually keep going when you aren't sure yet what you want to say, choosing the indie publisher vs. the big house and what to do when the publishing deal goes south.
Ken Schneck is the author of SERIOUSLY… WHAT AM I DOING HERE? He's a highly-sought speaker who regularly presents on the topics of LGBTQ identity, community change, racial justice, and how you can use your voice to create actual change. In this session, Ken teaches us how to become an award-winning journalist without writing a single pitch letter, journalism jobs you never want to take, writing truthfully about people you don't like, strange platform builders (including burlesque), whether or not you should ever say no to the New York agent, and how to use your mom to get famous.
Jodi Paloni is the author of the award-winning collection of short stories, They Could Live with Themselves (press 53, 2014), Short Story America Prize for Short Fiction 2nd place in the 2012 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, and a "Leaving the Land" Finalist. Her short form fiction and nonfiction have been published widely online and in print. She is extremely generous in this high content call where Jodi shows us how to talk to editors to get accepted, where to send your short form work, how to get a book deal from writing essays or short stories, building a beautiful author platform without selling your soul, and the "right" way to query the editors. If you listen to this call, a very helpful handout is available.
Bren McClain the author of the award winning debut novel: One Good Mama Bone, published with Pat Conroy's prestigious indie press, Story River Books. She has won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, the William-Faulkner-William Wisdom Prize, the Patricia Winn Award for Southern Literature, and the Crook's Corner Book Prize. In this power-packed session, she tells how to keep your day job while writing the runaway bestseller, when to go with the indie rather than the big-name publisher, the secret to creating page-turning characters, how to become a book club favorite, and how to sell your speaking services to huge corporations.
Terri Trespicio is the critically-acclaimed author of Unfollow Your Passion (Atria, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, 2022). A former magazine editor and radio host at Martha Stewart, she has appeared on the Today Show, Dr. Oz, The Early Show, The Martha Stewart Show, and The Anderson Cooper Show. Her work has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Prevention, Business Insider, Forbes.com, and Inc.com. In this session, Terri takes us step-by-step through the process of creating the how-to that gets you on the Today Show, how to gain 7 million followers from one TedX, why writing retreats are essential to your success as an author, what kind of feedback you really need on your writing, and how to start writing the book before you are sure what it wants to be.
Daisy Alpert Florin is the author of the forthcoming debut novel: My Last Innocent Year (Holt, 2022). Her work has appeared in Full Grown People; Motherwell; Brain, Child; Kveller; and Under the Gum Tree, among other publications, and she was a recipient of the 2016 Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship in her first appearance as a debut novelist. She tells us how to structure, rewrite, and sell your novel for a top agent, how long you should work on your rough draft, when you know when you are really done, and how to start writing your second novel when your first has just sold.
Alicia Boyes is a Rapid Transformational Therapy hypnotist, she is trained in this hybrid practice, based in neuroscience, that steps beyond traditional hypnotherapy and incorporates the most beneficial principles of Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Neuron Linguistic Patterning. In this session, she teaches us the most profound truths about how the critical mind works and how to get past your most persistent blocks (you may not even know that they are blocks!) and how hypnotherapy can help you create mind-blowing writing.
Johanna Castillo is a Senior Agent at Writers House Literary Agency. A seasoned professional in the publishing industry, Johanna was formerly Vice President & Executive Editor at Atria Books/Simon and Schuster and Editorial Director of Atria Español for nearly fifteen years. In this session, she tells us all about the secrets most would-be authors never hear: how to query, when to pitch, what sells, and the trends in publishing since COVID. Don't miss this session; it is full of gold nuggets for getting that big fat book deal.
Suzanne Kingsbury is the award-winning author of two critically-acclaimed novels, The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me and The Gospel According to Gracey, both published by Scribner, translated widely abroad, and optioned for film by Will Akers and Anne Hathaway.
In 2007 after graduating from Bennington College with a Masters of Fine Arts in Literature and Creative Writing, Suzanne founded Gateless Writing, a nationwide organization based on creative brain science and ancient Zen that supports writers to the point of publication and beyond.