About the Year-Long Manuscript Group Program

    The Year-Long Manuscript Group Program at PVWW is for writers in any genre who are serious and committed to completing (or revising) a book-length manuscript over the course of the year. The program is completely virtual, intensive and comprehensive, and was designed in the spirit of building a community of writers committed to supporting each other through the rigorous and sometimes lonely process of completing (or revising) a full manuscript. Each workshop group is limited to ten writers, meets (virtually) once a month for three hours, and also involves communication with the group between meetings via an easy-to-access online classroom space (Google Classrooms). At their core, the year-long workshops are  centered around giving and receiving feedback, craft instruction, building a supportive community, and the push toward completing a full-length manuscript. Over the course of the year, writers in the program will be guided to set active, clear goals that will help them both get to the finish line and better understand craft elements related to their genre. The program is open to writers at all stages of the process, in any genre, but it does require a rigorous commitment to your work, a clear project in mind that you plan to work on for the entire year, as well as a commitment to the writers in your cohort and the various aspects of the program. If you have not already, we highly recommend you review the complete information on the Year-Long Manuscript Program before applying, which also includes a month-by-month breakdown of what each year-long workshop will cover.

    About the Instructors

    ​The Novel (First Draft & Revision):
    KATE SENECAL is the Assistant Director of PVWW and the Director of PVWW's Year-Long Manuscript Group Program. She is the former fiction editor of Storychord, a fiction instructor at Grub Street, and a professor at UMass Amherst. She's received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s 2019 Short Fiction Contest, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and her fiction has been published in The Laurel Review, The Foundling Review, and in Storychord.com. 

    Memoir:
    ​DORIAN FOX is a writer and freelance editor in Boston, where he teaches courses at GrubStreet, a nonprofit creative writing center. His essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Gay Magazine, Atticus Review, Longridge Review, Under the Gum Tree, december and elsewhere, and received special mentions in the Anne C. Barnhill Prize and Curt Johnson Prose Awards contests, among others. More of his work can be found at dorianfox.com.

    Poetry Hybrid & Nonfiction: 
    ​CAROLYN ZAIKOWSKI is is the author of the hybrid novels In Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016) and A Child Is Being Killed (Aqueous Books, 2013). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, PANK, West Branch, DIAGRAM, Everyday Feminism, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and is currently an English professor and volunteer death doula. 

    ​Short Story:
    ​    SARA RAUCH is the author of What Shines from It: Stories, which won the Electric Book Award. Her prose has also appeared in Paper Darts, Meetinghouse, Hobart, Split Lip, and So to Speak. She holds an MFA from Pacific University, and lives with her family in Holyoke, MA. Find her online at www.sararauch.com.

    Application for the 2022 Year-Long Manuscript Program

    Before you begin: Please be aware that this application form does not autosave and should be completed in one sitting. We strongly recommend saving your answers to the short answer questions in a separate document. We also strongly recommend that you read through everything on the Year-Long Program page and understand fully what this program entails before submitting your application. All applications must be receive before or on January 9, 2022 to be considered for the 2022 - 2023 program year.

    Past Experience

    The Workshop Groups

    Your Manuscript

    Work Sample

    Guidelines:
    Please upload (or copy/paste below) a sample of your work, from the project you propose to work on during your year in the program, or from a work in a similar genre (though we do recommend sharing an excerpt from the project you'd be working on). 

    ​Please follow the formatting criteria below:
    • All work samples should be no longer than 1500 words, or 5 double-spaced pages.
    • Please make sure your submission follows standard formatting (Times New Roman, 12 pt font, double-spaced, etc.)
    • All files must be either a PDF or .doc/.docx. We will not be able to open any files other than these!
    • Include your name and email address on your work sample, as well as page numbers.
    • Applications without work samples will not be considered for admission.
    Max file size: 20MB

    Commitment to and Engagement with the Course

    Payment & Policies

    The cost of the Year-Long Manuscript Group Program is $1900 ($2300 for the Novel Revision workshop). Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop does not have the ability to offer financial aid or scholarships for participation in the year-long program, and with very few exceptions, we are not able to accommodate payment plans. Because of this, all participants in the program must be able to pay full tuition, which is due by the end of February 2022. Please let us know if this is possible for you.

    Thank you for your interest in PVWW's Year-Long Manuscript Program! We look forward to reviewing your application. All applicants will be notified of their status by the end of January 2022. Workshops begin in March.

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What People Are Saying About PVWW

"Can't say enough about PVWW, Joy, and her amazing team of teachers! Writing is very much about the ability to sit in your seat for hours and put pen to paper, but coming to PVWW has helped me build a community around my writing, breathe new life into my efforts, and get out of my own head a bit. And beyond that, I've learned lots of practical, nuts-and-bolts techniques that have vastly improved my work."
- Emily Everett, Editor at The Common

Contact Us

Email: joy@pioneervalleywriters.org
Phone: 518-645-1113 
Location: Northampton, MA

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