Free Downloads · For Student Writers
Craft handouts, submission guides, and literary-analysis workbooks, drawn from three decades in the classroom and from The Art of Telling. Every PDF below is free to download.
Structure, scene, voice, and revision — for fiction and for memoir.
Memoir principles, ethics and privacy, scene and structure work, a revision ladder, guided exercises, and a 14-day practice plan.
“It does not ask you to tell your entire life story; it asks you to choose, shape, and reflect on a set of lived experiences that matter to you now.”
Download the PDFTen memoir types — coming-of-age, grief, journey, identity, and more — each with published models and a tailored outline.
“The outline is a map of the territory, not a form to complete.”
Download the PDFA six-lesson fiction bundle on character, scene, dialogue, voice, structure, and revision — each lesson paired with a public-domain model, exercises, and a rubric.
Download the PDFA full twelve-week workshop curriculum — weekly readings, craft principles, exercises, workshop protocol, and a closing reflection.
Download the PDFWhat to send, where to send it, and what quietly gets a manuscript rejected — one guide per form.
Nonfiction journals and contests, tracking tools, and a personal note on persistence, plus an artistic creed and two sample introductions.
“The writers who make it are rarely the most gifted… they are the ones who keep sending, who let each no be a comma and never a period.”
Download the PDFVenue research, cover-letter and manuscript format, and craft-level advice for placing short fiction in literary journals.
Download the PDFA poet’s guide to journals and contests, written from decades of reading — and judging — poetry submissions.
Download the PDFA practical, genre-general guide to literary-journal submission — what to send, where to send it, and why submissions get rejected.
Download the PDFGuided literary-analysis practice, and a scholarly essay to use as a model of the form.
Twenty-five guided exercises — each with a public-domain passage, close-reading questions, and space to write.
Download the PDFA short companion text built entirely from public-domain examples — useful alongside the workbook above or on its own.
Download the PDFA scholarly reading of “Assumptions” against the Catholic dogma of the Assumption — a model of close, doctrinally literate literary interpretation.
Read the essay →