Introducing the Ninja Writers Academy

You’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time. You dream about it. You have stories bubbling up and big plans. But you never seem to finish anything. Or if you do, things just don’t come together the way you want them to.

What’s keeping your writing career from taking shape the way you want it to?

What Does it Mean to Have the Support You Need?

Oh, it means so much. It means everything.

The Ninja Writers Academy is a year-long program that’s designed to give you what you need to meet your writing goals for the next twelve months. When you join you get access to:

• Four seasons of small-group workshops. Each season is eight-weeks long. Our seasons for 2020 are: January/February, April/May, July/August, and October/November. Each workshop has a limit of eight writers and one mentor. Each writer is guaranteed the opportunity to read from their work and receive feedback from the other writers and mentor at least every other week. There are also drop-in sessions available. ($1200 value)
• A full year of the Ninja Writers Club. This is our membership community. The club offers weekly live chats that will give you access to me and sometimes other guests to answer your questions about fiction writing, blogging, and the business of writing. You’ll also have access to every course I’ve created, including A Novel Idea (my year-long course in how to write a novel), which we work through as a group January through June during a write-a-long when I write a novel with you right along with you. And any digital product that I create while you’re a member. ($300 value)
• A full year of the Ninja Writers Guild. This is our mid-tier membership. It includes more targeted classes and workshops to help you become the writer you really want to be.
• Quarterly one-on-one calls with me. During the off months, when we’re not workshopping (in March, June, September, and December), you’ll have the opportunity to set up a one-on-one zoom call with me. The first call, in March, will be longer and more intense. You’ll have the chance to fill out an editorial planning worksheet and return it to me ahead of time and we’ll make a plan for you for the rest of the year during our call. ($500 value)
• Access to a private Slack group. Your membership will give you access to a Ninja Writers Academy Slack group designated to keep you in touch with other academy students, Ninja Writers mentors, and your workshop groups.

When you join the Ninja Writers Academy, you get lots of access to me. Including those one-on-one calls, the opportunity to sign up for a workshop with me, and all of the live co-working calls I host in the Ninja Writers Club (plus everything else the Club has to offer, including a six-month group write-a-long that runs from January through June where we all work on writing our novels together.)

You also have other mentors to help you. Including:

Adrienne Grimes, who is a lover of art, pop culture, and books. Her artistic and literary favorites are Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Susan Sontag, and J.K. Rowling. She lives in Portland, OR, where she is a graduate student, edits for a school run annual magazine, and interns with an art gallery.

Zach J. Payne, who is a poet, novelist, essayist, and thespian. He developed his love of writing early on, roleplaying Harry Potter in online forums and writing terrible poetry. His contemporary YA novel Somehow You're Sitting Here was chosen for the Nevada SCBWI 2015-16 mentor program, where he worked with author Heather Petty. He is a former query intern for Pam Andersen at D4EO Literary Agency. A SoCal native, he currently lives in Warren, PA.

Rachel Thompson, who is the author of the award-winning, best-selling Broken Places and Broken Pieces. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Feminine Collective, Indie Reader Medium, OnMogul, Transformation Is Real, Blue Ink Review, and Book Machine.

Want to Join the Academy?

The Nitty Gritty: The Academy is hosted here on Teachable.

Live workshops will take place via Zoom.

When you join, you’re committing to a year. Because of the nature of the program--the intensity and smallness of the groups--we have to limit the number of enrollments to 100. As a result, making that commitment is essential.

My hope is that you’ll find value in it and you’ll want to stay with the Academy next year and the year after--as you build your career.

Here’s our schedule so far:

(All times are listed in PACIFIC STANDARD TIME. Don’t forget get to adjust for your time zone.)

Monday: 5 p.m. Book Marketing with Rachel.

Tuesday: 11 a.m. Kidlit with Shaunta. 11 a.m. Blogging with Shannon. 5 p.m. General Fiction with Shaunta.

Wednesday: 5 p.m. Sci-fi/Fantasy with Shaunta.

Thursday: 11 a.m. Blogging with Shaunta. 5 p.m. Blogging with Shannon.

Friday: 10 a.m. Creative Non-Fiction with Rachel.

Saturday: 10 a.m. General Fiction with Adrienne.