This week StoryStudio Chicago kicked off its third annual Pub Crawl, a month-long online publishing intensive, or program, of classes and panels demystifying the publishing world. The intensive includes advice from established authors, agents, and editors. The local literary nonprofit has supported writers on their publishing journeys for much longer: the organization celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.
StoryStudio’s ongoing classes include a series of advanced writing programs. Since its first Novel in a Year program launched in 2012, nearly 600 students (including the author of this story) have come through these year-long book programs, which now span fiction, memoir, and short story and essay collections. Over the past decade, more than 25 alumni of the In a Year program have published books, many of them debuts by Chicago-area writers.
Author Rowan Beaird, photo credit Faith Kelsey Photography
Novel in a Year alum Rowan Beaird’s debut novel The Divorcées is forthcoming from Flatiron Books this March. She said the program gave her the support and structure she needed to revise her first draft and move the book forward.
“The Divorcées was the second novel I wrote. The first, I finished a draft and it came to a point where I needed to revise it and I just couldn’t see a path forward,” Beaird said. “Why I wanted to take this StoryStudio class, and what felt so unique to me, was that it takes place over the course of a full year and so you have the time to evolve alongside a cohort—to take lessons on craft but also reflect on those lessons with the same group, with the same amazing instructor.”
Some students find the In a Year program so helpful, they enroll multiple times. A.D. Nauman finished her second book Down the Steep, published by Regal House in October, over the course of two years in Novel in a Year: Revise and Launch with Abby Geni (The Body Farm). Nauman then joined Beaird’s In a Year cohort, where she worked on a new project with StoryStudio Artistic Director Rebecca Makkai (I Have Some Questions for You).
“The writing community I had in graduate school dispersed and went their separate ways. I wanted to reconnect to a literary community and update my knowledge , and that's what led me to StoryStudio,” Nauman said. “Also the quality of the teaching really impresses me. It's not enough just to hire a successful writer to teach in a program, they have to have an interest in teaching and an interest in their students.”
Author A.D. Nauman, photo credit Kristen Hazelton
One of the reasons Abby Geni returns to teach the In a Year programs again and again is “the joy of teaching.” She noted most other writing workshops, including MFA programs, are not tailored to the novel specifically.
“Writing a novel is an incredibly lonely pursuit and it requires a huge amount of faith that this mess that you're making will eventually be something beautiful and finished and polished,” Geni continued. “People who are not writing a novel don't really understand what that process is like. So there's something about the community of people who really understand what you're doing. And I think there's something about having a teacher that can be really wonderful if you're a newer writer. You can never have too much craft talk.”
Rebecca Makkai noted that when she and StoryStudio Founder Jill Pollack decided to create the In a Year programs, one of main considerations was creating a course structure to meet the specific needs of writers working on book-length projects while juggling other life demands.
“A lot of my thinking around the original design of the Novel in a Year course was: what do I wish I had when I was writing my first novel?” Makkai said. “Because when I was writing my first novel, I was teaching elementary school full time and towards the end of that I had a baby. I didn't have a writing community, I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have feedback. Obviously it worked out—but how could I have made that easier for myself and in a dream world, what would I have had?”
She stressed that all the students in StoryStudio’s advanced book programs are talented, dedicated writers who want structure, community, and critical feedback. The In a Year programs are unique in Chicago and offer both in-person and virtual options, enabling participation from writers from across the country and even internationally.
Recent virtual cohorts of Short Story Collection in a Year with Cyn Vargas (Nothing’s Ever the Same) have included students from Singapore and Malaysia, who logged online at whatever hour was necessary to join their classmates in the U.S.
“I like being virtual. Times are off, but people are waking up and they really inspire each other, it makes me so proud how committed they become,” Vargas said. “The unique thing about short story collections is that as the cohort writes short stories, they can send them out to be submitted as they continue to work on their collections. Several of my students have already published. I encourage them to finish their pieces: let's get it submitted and work on the next one!”
Author Jeremy T. Wilson, photo credit Sam Wilson
Jeremy T. Wilson had already finished writing his first novel The Quail Who Wears the Shirt (published by Tortoise Books in November) when he joined Novel in a Year in 2021, but appreciated that the program brought him into community with other writers at a time when everyone was feeling isolated from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It was one of the first in-person classes that started again. We were all masking, but it was great to be in a room with people talking about novels,” Wilson said. “We’re still in touch, we see each other at readings and when people publish, we’re all supportive. One of the readings that I did in November, a bunch of them showed up and we had a mini-reunion. I can’t wait to read some of the things I know people are still working on.”
Beaird and Nauman still meet with other members of their StoryStudio cohort as well.
“I know other books are going to come out—there were so many great novels in that class,” Beaird said. “I think it's just a matter of time.”
More information abut the In-a-Year Book Programs can be found here.