Crafting Your Scholarly Book

An 8-week online workshop to help you
identify a strong argument and structure for your book
and develop a writing practice
that will sustain you through your revision process

Workshop Runs May 20–July 12, 2024 and Costs $700

Many of my clients want some help solidifying their books’ foundations before they get deep into their revisions.

Whether you’re revising your dissertation or working on a second or third book, I’ve designed this 8-week online workshop to provide editorial guidance, a supportive community, and accountability to you as you focus intensively on your book’s argument and structure. Our primary curriculum will be the brilliant new Dissertation-to-Book Workbook by Katelyn Knox and Allison Van Deventer. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have created a 2-page book narrative to guide your future revisions (which you’ll also be able to draw on when you write your book proposal). This narrative will be based on the careful thought you’ve put into your book’s evidence base, scope, organizing principle, narrative arc, argument, and claim to significance.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll also have refined and expanded your “toolbox” of strategies for making meaningful progress on your book revisions on a week-to-week basis. Through reflective exercises, coaching, and video lessons, the workshop will support you in developing a writing practice that works for your life and that will help keep you on track with your goals.

You’ll need to have drafted material corresponding to at least 50% of a rough draft to be able to work through the Dissertation-to-Book Workbook exercises effectively, so that you have a substantial body of concrete material to work with. This “draft” could be your dissertation; it could be a series of journal articles and conference papers; it could be a very messy preliminary manuscript draft; or it could be a fairly polished manuscript draft, if you aren’t yet confident about your book’s overarching argument, chapter arguments, or organization.

You can schedule a 15-minute call with Ellen to learn more about whether the workshop would be a good fit for your needs. And keep reading this page for information about the weekly meetings and course topics.

Each section of the workshop will be capped at 8 participants. The weekly Zoom meetings (except for the coaching and co-writing sessions) will be recorded and shared on a private forum, so you can watch the replay if you can’t attend live.

Weekly Zoom Meetings (Meeting Times for Each Section Here)

  • Mondays: A 60-minute meeting in which I introduce the Dissertation-to-Book Workbook exercises for the week, and where we share challenges and discoveries from the previous week’s exercises.

  • Wednesdays: Drop-in Q&A session (“office hours”).

  • Fridays: Every other week: I’ll lead a 60-minute group coaching session focused on the “writing process” topics for that two-week period. On the weeks without the coaching session, I’ll facilitate a 60-minute co-writing session. (During the co-writing sessions, I will be available to answer questions in the chat or in a breakout room.)

Video Lessons, Coaching Exercises, & Discussion Forum

Additionally, I’ll provide:

  • Video lessons each week with strategies, reflections, and resources pertinent to the week’s “writing process” topic.

  • A mini-workbook with exercises that we’ll use during the group coaching sessions

  • An online forum with discussion threads where you can check in, ask questions, or share thoughts about the Dissertation-to-Book exercises or the “writing process” topics.

Ideally you might devote at least 7 hours (and up to 14 hours) per week to this course (5–10 hours per week for the exercises and an additional 2–4 hours per week for workshop meetings, coaching sessions, Q&A, and participation in discussion threads). But you can always circle back to the lessons & workshop materials if things come up.

Tentative Outline for Workshop

Your core tasks each week (outside of the group meetings) will be to work through the assigned chapters in The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook and listen to my short video lessons on the writing process topics.

WEEK 1

Book Development: “Considering Your Book on Its Own Terms” (workbook chapter 1) and “Reviewing Your Book’s Organizing Principle” (chapter 2)
Writing Process: Cultivating strong BASE writing habits (behavioral, artisanal, social, and emotional habits) and bringing pleasure into the writing process. Using easing-into-writing and end-of-session rituals to make it easier to get started each day.

WEEK 2

Book Development: “Drafting Your First Book Question” (chapter 3), “Drafting Your Remaining Book Questions” (chapter 4), and “Revising Your Book Questions” (chapter 5)
Writing Process: Managing your inner critic. Overcoming procrastination and easing any tension you feel about writing.

WEEK 3

Book Development: “Assessing Your Chapters on Their Own Terms” (chapter 6), “Checking Your Chapters for Parallelism” (chapter 7), and “Crafting Your Book’s Narrative Arc” (chapter 8)
Writing Process: Setting effective goals. Breaking your project into small tasks and setting up a system to manage those tasks. Realistically estimating how long various tasks will take so you can create a plan and timeline for your revisions.

WEEK 4

Book Development: Second week on “Assessing Your Chapters on Their Own Terms” (chapter 6), “Checking Your Chapters for Parallelism” (chapter 7), and “Crafting Your Book’s Narrative Arc” (chapter 8)
Writing Process: Figuring out a good structure and rhythm for your workweek. Maintaining motivation.

WEEK 5

Book Development: “Producing Your Chapter Answers” (chapter 9) and “Revising Your Chapter Answers as a Group and Refining Your Book Questions” (chapter 10)
Writing Process: Protecting writing time in your schedule and setting boundaries.

WEEK 6

Book Development: Second week on “Producing Your Chapter Answers” (chapter 9) and “Revising Your Chapter Answers as a Group and Refining Your Book Questions” (chapter 10)
Writing Process: Protecting your focus. Managing your email efficiently and minimizing distraction in your workday.

WEEK 7

Book Development: “Reviewing Your Book’s Changes and Tying Up Loose Ends” (chapter 11) and “Assembling Your Book Argument” (chapter 12)
Writing Process: Getting unstuck at various stages of the writing process.

WEEK 8

Book Development: “Assembling Your Two-Page Book Narrative” (chapter 13). Drawing on your book narrative to revise your chapters or draft a book proposal. Making your book approachable for a broader audience.
Writing Process: Handling both constructive and less-than-constructive criticism. Asking for the feedback you need for the writing stage you are in.