Final MiniMFA Class of 2023-2024 year: MASTERING STRUCTURE AND FLOW (April 24)
It’s not too late to join us for MASTERING STRUCTURE AND FLOW, an intensive exploration of organizing a manuscript so it’s a page turner, whatever genre you write in.
Final Mini-MFA Class for 2024: Managing Structure and Flow
Writers who take their writing seriously know that mastery is possible and effective strategies can make a manuscript shine! Join us on Zoom for our last Mini-MFA workshop in 2024: Mastering Structure and Flow! Find out more….
Science of Mind Magazine Column Published: Exploring The Spirit of Leadership
Learn more about my columns for Science of Mind Magazine….
BALANCING FACT AND FICTION: New Mini-MFA class coming March 12
So many of my clients come to me struggling with challenges that are easily solved, with practice and clarity. Tried and true strategies for planning and revision can work for any genre. And with writers crossing genres looking for new readers, effective strategies can open up new opportunities and ease the stress of revision, editing, and writing first drafts. Join us on March 12 for our next Zoom Mini-MFA class….
New Publications of Note
Three new publications by Storyweaving clients — diverse gifts, creative success!
Up Your Game! Mini-MFA Classes 2023-2024
Learn core techniques to lift your work to the next level, whatever you write. Five Mini-MFA workshops offer examples from multiple genres (poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction, fiction, plays) with emphasis on the way techniques can be adapted for your writing. Easily take on complex themes, hybrid projects, and focused revision.Raise the bar on your writing and creative practice, learning MFA tools in compact, practical sessions. Bring a writing sample for the last thirty minutes of our 2-hour workshop, where volunteers can share an example for comments and questions.
Storyweaving Writer Publishes New Business Book
Announcing an exciting new business book by Jean Wright: Selling Your Confidence! Learn to be confident, authentic, and successful in sales. Especially for ambitious women eager to learn best practices from a pro…
Thinking About Self-Publishing? Find Out Pros & Cons On May 8
There are so many vanity presses and expensive or low-quality “opportunities” both in self-publishing, hybrid presses, and traditional small press offerings. How do you choose which path to take? Should you get an agent? How do you find the right one? How much marketing should you plan to do? What should you expect from traditional and self-publishing process? Find out May 8 in a dynamic Storyweaving Class!
Lead With Your Best Story
We limit ourselves unconsciously and consciously, from our own expectations and internal reactions to the stories we are living and the ways we lead from those stories. Culture, relationships and workplace politics combine to incentivize us to conform to certain kinds of leadership. If you’re not giving your whole self the freedom to lead, you need to dig deep and find the one quality that makes every leader thrive: the courage to define your own story and gifts, and lead from your best being….
Intimidated by Publishing Options? Join Me in May and June 2022 to Explore Strategies for Traditional and Self Publishing
These classes will include worksheets/handouts, and participants will get discounts on Storyweaving services for 1 month after the training. There will be time to ask questions and strategize around your particular goals. You'll clarify what to do to best present yourself and your work, how to set up timelines, and other keys to success.
The Stories That Shape Us: Waking Up Your Discernment and Increasing Your Impact
When you meet someone for the first time, how do you get to know them? Isn’t it through shared stories, about your lives, about what matters to you, about your experiences and beliefs? Stories connect us deeply and naturally. They are the human patterns that tell us who we are and who we might become. The stories we’re living are key drivers of personality, choice, and expectation. Human communities create collective stories. That’s why Jung’s concept of archetypes is so useful.
MYTH, MYSTICISM & STORY Starts March 15: An Online Workshop with Carol Pearson and Me
Myth, Mysticism, and Story, is a workshop based on Carol Pearson’s system of 12 archetypes in human development and evolution. Archetypes are universal patterns in thought, creativity, nature and human designed things. She and I have been writing and teaching together around archetypes and stories for the past 20 years. Her system, described in What Stories Are You Living? Discover Your Archetypes – Transform Your Life, focuses on archetypal characters and story patterns. These characters are the Idealist, Realist, Warrior, Caregiver, Seeker, Lover, Creator, Revolutionary, Ruler, Jester, Sage, and Magician, and these describe patterns in our minds, that affect what we do, believe, and expect. Come wake up your primal archetypal consciousness and step more deeply into your life and dreams.
Announcing (Online and In-Person!) Mini-MFA Writing Workshops, March 2022
These workshops, one in person and one online, will share the writing and revision skills that make MFAs so useful! The class is limited to a select few of fiction and non-fiction prose writers. (Poets, you’ll get your turn soon.) If you want to hone your skills in a dedicated group of focused and evolving writers who want to build their strengths and reduce bad writing habits, join us! All feedback will be facilitated, supportive, focused and honest, and you will come out with a clearer sense of the writing process, adapted to your own writing practice.
Choose the Better Story: Don’t be a Victim of the Polarizing Dracula Syndrome!
This shift from being controlled to being in control takes some discipline. Believing in monsters protects us from self-knowledge. That’s why myths make such good propaganda tools! We want to believe. But most monstrous acts come from human actors who think of themselves as saviors. We are all capable of destruction, as we are all capable of constructive acts. Blinded by the Dracula Syndrome, we unintentionally support Evil in our daily choices, all the while believing we are embodying Good.
Sandra McKay 2022 Booklaunch: Storyweaving Press Novel Shines a Spotlight on Orphan Train, Canton, IL Scandal
Irish child Dora is torn from her family after her father’s tragic death, transported on the Orphan Train to Canton, IL, and adopted by a scion of Canton, IL society, only to find herself at the center of a shocking scandal.
Forget resolutions in 2022: Welcome a surprising year with a great question!
I’ve found a better way to transform my year creatively: ask a question that will guide me in exploring possibility all year long! One of my students years ago told me I asked impossible questions – and that’s what she loved about working with me, because she found amazing and unexpected answers as she explored. I’ve always pushed my writing forward with open-ended, challenging questions. But it wasn’t until two years ago that I opened up my life with them.
Just to let you know, these questions can open up your life without burdening you with excessive seriousness! I’ve found that when I ask an open-ended question (like the one that led to my year of photographing dinosaurs!), it recharges me whether it leads me to a year of play or to a year of diving into serious writing.
Creative Strategies for Individuals to Manage Change in Challenging Times: The Power of Story, Part II
Creatives are people willing to imagine a better world, and work towards their vision, building on a foundation of practice, discipline, and solid values. I work with creatives both in my writing mentoring and in my organizational consulting, and have learned a great deal about the courage it takes to commit to innovation and invention. I’ve also learned a lot about ways to minimize the stress of being brave and creative in a world that doesn’t always seem to reward us for choosing to thrive and innovate. Above all, we need to learn how to make fight or flight work for us, not against us!
Harvesting the Light in Winter Darkness: Storyweaving Tips Featured in Pathways Magazine
Always remember, when you aren’t sure what to do, embracing your purpose will ease your fear and fuel your next steps. Honor your calling as you know it now, and in a sleepless night, know you’re not alone. We are all asking hard questions and facing challenging truths. But in the dark before the dawn, there is always a spark to lead you through. Take a deep dive into that darkness, knowing that the light you need pulses in its creative center.
Organizational Change Management: The Power of Story
The stories we live in our organizations can make us or break us. The key is to co-create stories based on real and present situations. In the process, we get to be fully present, rather than projecting our assumptions and fears unconsciously onto others, reinforcing oppositions that comfort us only temporarily and cause problems for all.
Got the Winter Shivers? Stoke Your Creative Fire!
Who says chilling out is a good thing? Few of us love the layered winter's cold. From November's early sunset to February's quickening light, keep the home fires burning in your creative work, no matter the weather.