It's an irony of the writing life: the better you get at writing, the harder it is to improve. Work that seemed solid a year ago might suddenly feel full of cracks. After publishing a few stories or essays, you might wonder if you have stalled out. How do you level up? How do you reach beyond your present capacity to get where you want to go? Whether you are looking to break into publishing in literary journals or have your sights set on more commercial markets, this class offers practical strategies and support for getting there. Through mini-lectures, reading, conversation, and writing exercises, we will make an honest assessment of where we are in our writing lives and what it is we really want from them. We will take inventory of what might be holding us back and what our next steps might look like. 

Steve Edwards is the author of the memoir Breaking into the Backcountry, the story of his seven months as caretaker of a remote Oregon homestead. His essays appear regularly in The Sun, as well as Orion Magazine, Literary Hub, Longreads, and elsewhere. An Associate Professor of English Studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts, he lives outside of Boston with his wife and son.