Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book
Allison K. Williams
Seven Drafts divides writing and revision into distinct stages, with a new focus in each draft. Allison’s frank, funny voice encourages writers to tackle even big editing tasks with a sense of humor and a feeling that someone who understands is on their side. After sections on story, elements of writing craft and structure, seeking and using feedback, and the publication process, Seven Drafts goes beyond the technical and into the mindset of a writer. How can envy be employed to fuel your own work? Where do you find a writing community? How will literary citizenship influence personal process?
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About the Author
Allison K Williams has edited and coached writers to publishing deals with Penguin Random House, Knopf, Mantle, Spencer Hill, St. Martin’s Press and Black Rose as well as hybrid and independent presses. She’s guided essayists and humorists to publication in media including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Refinery29, Brevity, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks.
A popular and lively speaker, Allison has appeared at writing conferences, literary festivals, and workshops around the world. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with weekly blogs on craft and the writing life. As a memoirist, essayist, playwright and travel journalist, Allison has written craft, culture and comedy essays for National Public Radio, Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Creative Nonfiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Kenyon Review Online, the Prairie Schooner blog, the Drum and Brevity. Allison’s fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, Smokelong Quarterly and Deep South, and her travel stories in Travelers’ Tales and Flash Nonfiction Funny. Her plays include the Heidemann Award finalist Miss Kentucky and the London Fringe Best Of Fringe winner, TRUE STORY as well as several scripts widely produced in high schools. Her radio trilogy, Dead Men Don’t Carry Handbags, Dead Men Don’t Jaywalk, and Dead Men Don’t Catch Bouquets aired on National Public Radio’s All Ears Theatre.
Allison holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. She has taught as a guest artist and/or faculty at Kalamazoo College, Rollins College, Writer’s Wing (Mumbai, India) and the University of South Florida.
