In this six-week online workshop, open to all genres and levels of writers, we will move from drafting a piece of writing to revising it until it is ready to send out for publication. We will look intently at the mechanics of what we hope to accomplish in our writing, using a workshop model to help with our revisions. We will supplement our investigation by a discussion of different editing techniques and advice from writers running the gamut from ancient India to the New York School. We will look closely at what various kinds of editors are looking for and how to craft a successful query letter, taking into view the large landscape of the contemporary publishing world. Our goal will not be airy and abstract, but very pragmatic: by the end of our time together, we will learn how to write and publish our work. The course is entirely ONLINE. It goes live Monday evening, Oct 21, 2019. Six individual modules go live on consecutive Mondays. The course concludes on Dec 2, 2019.
Ravi Shankar is the author most recently of Durable Transit: New and Selected Poems (Poetrywala, 2018), and co-translator with Priya Sarukkai Chabria, of the award-winning Autobiography of a Goddess (Zubaan Books/University of Chicago Press, 2016). His other books include Deepening Groove (The National Poetry Review Press, 2011), What Else Could It Be: Ekphrastics and Collaborations (Carolina Wren Press, 2015), and, as co-editor with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond (Norton, 2008). He founded and edited one of the oldest electronic arts journals on the web, the legendary Drunken Boat. He is a celebrated speaker and educator on several continents, including Asia, Australia, and the US. Contact: newyorkwritersworkshop@gmail.com
