upcoming workshops & events

last call for tomorrow's! plus new intensive, free stuff & goth book club

FUCK, MARRY, KILL: Writing Female Rage | Applications Open Sunday, 6 April

This six-month writing class will explore the psychology of killing and the net between desire and the grotesque. You will learn how to craft nuanced characters with vivid intensity by examining their emotional wounds as the starting points for development, and learn how to think vertically within your fiction to create emotional, psychological and physical depth.

Will feature lecture, assigned readings, and monthly workshops, as well as one-on-one mentorship. Starts in summer. Rather than first come first served, applicants will be selected based on a writing sample. Sign up here to be alerted when applications open on Sunday, 6 April (or just stay tuned :~))

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LAST CALL / PAY WHAT YOU CAN: 27 March at 5pm EST / 9pm UK time

been putting off your book because you’re waiting for the “perfect time”? this is your sign to start. evenings & weekends is a virtual workshop for writers who are ready to make real progress on their manuscripts, no matter how busy life gets. this class is designed for anyone balancing creative goals with work, family, and everything else. this workshop offers practical strategies to help you build momentum and stay on track. you’ll learn how to:

• create a sustainable writing schedule that fits your life
• stay disciplined and protect your creative boundaries
• find (and build) the motivation to keep going
• follow a step-by-step process from draft zero to final edits
• navigate the querying process and understand what to expect
• overcome the fear of rejection and confidently share your work

the workshop will be recorded, so you can revisit the material at your own pace. tickets are donate what you can, with a $15 suggested minimum. sign up here.

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FREE: 4 April at 3pm UK / 11am EST

Social Media for Writers event as part of Scotland's BlueSky Writers' Pitch 2025

I started out as an unagented writer, finding my way into the literary world through platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, FB and Instagram over a decade ago—I quite literally had no idea how to get published and discovered my first literary magazine through a Tumblr post. I would even say that my publishing career would not exist as it does now without it, in part because of the community and connections I’ve made online.

On 4 April, myself and writer

Lindsay Johnstone

will be speaking to Emergent Digital as part of Bsky Pitch about how writers can harness the fluctuating landscape of social media to leverage publishing opportunities and reach new audiences. Lindsay is an award winning writer whose work focuses on breaking intergenerational trauma, motherhood, midlife and the conversation between mental health and nature — she’s also a Substack bestseller at

What Now? with Lindsay Johnstone

who charts top 40 in the parenting category, with recent pieces achieving global #1 read post! I feel like I could learn a lot from her and between the two of us I think it will be an enlightening and productive chat, with a Q&A at the end to answer all your burning questions. This online event is FREE but ticketed so sign up here.

Emergent Digital is hosting this even as part of its tenth ‘Tweet Pitch’ (now Bsky Pitch) which features a series of events offering the opportunity for writers to connect with agents and publishers as well as gain insights on the kind of work they’re looking for in 2025. The official Bsky Pitch is this Friday, 28 March (how to participate can be found here).

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GOTH BOOK CLUB: Dracula, 6 April

The next meet-up for Goth Book Club will be Sunday, April 6 at 8pm UK / 4pm EST. With the release of Egger’s remake of Nosferatu, we will be reading…. DRACULA.

You can of course find this book anywhere in the world, or on Project Gutenberg in many different e-formats.

Our last chat was about Aileen Wuornos’ collection of letters, Dear Dawn. After her arrest and all through her incarceration, Wuornos wrote to her childhood friend Dawn (both Pisces <3), sending letters to her several times a week until her execution in 2002. This book collates many but not all of them — some million pages of text were gleaned from her letters with Dawn, though the ones in the book reveal a frank generosity of character and also show the mental and spiritual effects that living life in the extreme isolation of death row can have on a person: alone in a room for 23 hours a day. She was the second woman in Florida and the tenth only in the US to be excited since the 1976 Supreme Court decision to restore capital punishment. Her last meal was a cup of coffee. Catch the replay below.