Whale Rock FAQs
How is Whale Rock Workshops Different Than Other Workshop Companies?
MFA-quality seminars without the long-term commitment or costs
Whale Rock Workshops’ programming is designed to be on par with MFA-level seminars and is geared towards authors who want to dive deep into craft and literary analysis. Many of our students are published and/or agented authors who are seeking to elevate their skills and take their writing practice to the next level. Our classes go well beyond the basics.
Our company is SMALL and our workshops are intimate.
We believe great teachers change lives, and we believe that the personalized attention our students receive dramatically impacts the quality of their work. How can you become a better writer when you are one of 60 people in a workshop? One of 500 in a webinar? One of a 1000 at a conference? Unless otherwise specified, our advanced workshops maintain excellent student to teacher ratios. Our mentorship workshops have a 1:3 ratio faculty to students, and our Master skills weeklong workshop have a 2:15 ratio, with each student receiving four, one-on-one meetings over the course of the week. A Whale Rock Master workshop promises you the opportunity to really connect with instructors and one another.
Our Instructors are Top Notch
We vet our instructors carefully. Our instructors are award-winning AND critically acclaimed, and many have taught at the MFA level. It is vital to us that our instructors have more published works and publishing experience than our intermediate students. In other words, our bar is VERY high.
Can You Explain the Different Kinds of Workshops you Offer?
Our classes are divided into four categories. This allows you to mix and match based on your specific needs throughout the year. As you progress with one project or start a new project, you might face different needs or identify new skills you want to hone.
Weeklong Master Skills & Mentorships
Designed for intermediate writers looking for more intense one-on-one experiences, these classes are given at an MFA level in terms of skill and craft. Our weeklong workshops are well, seven-days, while our mentorships extend over three months with about eight, 90-minute workshops scheduled over the course of the session.
Master Classes
Our signature master classes are designed to dive deep into one specific area or project. While these are offered at an intermediate level, taught by award-winning, acclaimed instructors, they are accessible to beginning writers who want to be pushed out of their comfort zone. Each of our Master Classes is between four-to-six weeks in length, will have weekly assignments, and culminates with a tangible project (or projects).
Close Read & Write Classes
These 90-minute workshops are designed to connect our students with our master instructors either between workshops or as a way for new students to get to know our faculty. All profits from this series go towards our scholarships and diversity grants.
Learn How To Classes
New to our programming for 2023, these 90-minute classes are designed to be accessible to everyone at a reasonable price. We don’t want to run webinars so large that you cannot connect with your instructors, so we view these as large Zoom classrooms, where questions can still be answered. We are choosing topics appropriate for both novice and intermediate authors, but our goal is to create a curriculum that is still unique while challenging our students at whatever stage they are.
All Whale Rock community members and newsletter subscribers are invited to join our free writing accountability group, Write Now!, which takes place four times a week. This quiet writing space is designed to build a cozy, supportive writing practice into your week.
What if I’m thinking about an MFA? How do you compare to those programs?
We wrote a whole blog on this, if you’re looking to dig deep into this MFA question.
Top level though, if you really want to get an MFA because you want the degree for teaching and/or you want to write critical essays and a thesis, then absolutely pursue an MFA degree. It is the only path to accomplish those goals.
But if you are looking for the craft-building, mentorship and community, (and you do not have US $50,000 +) Whale Rock is your alternative. Our mentorships cost a fraction of the price, and most of our instructors are or have been MFA instructors at the very programs you are likely exploring!
Why do Your Workshops Cost What They Cost?
Our classes cost what they do because they are in keeping with our philosophy about learning craft: We hire top-notch instructors, and we keep our student to teacher ratio small for most offerings.
Better student to teacher ratio
The majority of our small classes have 12-15 students while our competitors have more like 30-60. Our ratios are simply better. As such, our students get more instructor connection than they would in any other program outside of an MFA.
We only hire the best instructors
Unless they are subject-area experts, our faculty members are critically acclaimed and/or award-winning and/or MFA bearing, and/or MFA-teaching, multi-published authors and editors. And frankly, those instructors come at a higher cost. We won’t settle for anything less. We know that too many workshops don’t deliver for intermediate writers.
Where do I start if I’ve never taken a Whale Rock Workshops Program?
If you are totally new to Whale Rock, we encourage you to start with a Learn How To … class or a Close Read and Write class. These lower cost offerings will give you a taste of our instructors and our community.
If you are looking to dive deep on your project, but you aren’t ready to commit to a weeklong intensive or a three-month program, we encourage you to check out our Master Classes, which will enhance your writing in either your picture book writing or will help you take your novel to the next level. These classes are also ideal for a student who has taken one of our more intensive classes, but who would like to go deep in one specific area.
If you have been working on a project intensely or you have been contemplating an MFA or you wish to develop advanced craft skills, we encourage you to look at our Weeklong Workshop or our Mentorship Program.
How did you get your name?
My husband's family has a cottage on Lake Huron in Michigan, and there is a massive boulder in the lake just a few fee from the shore that the family has called Whale Rock for over 50 years. My husband and his sisters and then all our/their kids played on that rock. It has been a ship, a mermaid, a castle, an island, a planet, and yes, a whale. When I needed a company name, my husband encouraged me to come up with something totally unique that I could ascribe meaning to. Whale Rock is a place of imagination. It seemed like a perfect name for a company that focuses on writing for children.
Mentorship FAQs
Each session runs about 12 weeks. Each month, students submit a 40-page packet to their mentor. Their mentor returns the packet with editorial notes and has a phone or Zoom call with the mentee. Concurrently, our mentorship group comes together every few weeks for a discussion around craft, literature, and/or work-in-progress readings. Our final session is a reading.
What does a session look like?
That’s totally fine. This mentorship is designed for you to work at your own pace with your mentor. All our sessions are recorded. The ongoing meetings are designed to help you feel a part of a writing community, but they are not mandatory.
What if I can’t make all the meetings?
While we do our best, it is not always possible to work with your first-choice mentor. Sometimes mentors will have more requests than spaces, and sometimes a student will request a mentor who is not the best fit for a variety of reasons. You really don’t want a mentor reading a zombie story if they hate zombie stories, for example. Each of our mentors has been chosen because of the incredible insight and skills they bring to this program. That said, if you have your heart set on a specific mentor, we encourage you to register as early as possible.
Am I guaranteed my first-choice mentor?
Yes, each student is guaranteed one return spot with their mentor, especially if they wish to continue working on the same project in the next or the following semester. If you wish to return for a third session, our faculty will expect you to come with a new project, and you must register afresh with a new, ranked list of mentors. If you have specific needs regarding your project, please reach out to discuss it with us.
Can I register for a second or third session with my mentor?
Of course! As long as that mentor is appropriate for your genre and has availability. We encourage you to return and try a new faculty member in the same way you would have different advisors in each of your semesters at a residential MFA program.
Can I do another session with a new mentor?
Your mentorship packet comes with 160 pages, but you can purchase additional packets to cover your entire manuscript. Writers who complete on of our multi-month programs can purchase a second reread of their entire project.
Can my mentor read my whole book?
Our program is designed to help you grow as a writer, and our focus is on craft and skills. While our mentors will share any insights they may have into the current market, a mentorship is not designed to prepare your book for submission. A mentorship doesn’t guarantee a book acquisition or an agent signing, but it will improve your skills and the quality of your manuscript.
Will my mentor help get my book ready for submission?
Whale Rock Workshops is committed to bringing you top-tier instructors who have either taught at MFA programs, have MFAs of their own, and/or who are major award-winners. We carefully vet our instructors, and we make sure that they have published more books than our students. Check out our blogs about the decision to get an MFA and how to create your own MFA-like curriculum.
What does MFA-level mean?
Our grant and scholarship availability varies year to year. We will announce current offerings and details on our scholarship page here. You can always use Klarna to pay for your mentorship. Klarna allows you to set up payment plans. If you are Canadian, be sure to look into Access Copyright, Canadian Council for the Arts, and provincial granting bodies such as the Ontario Arts Council. A number of Canadian authors have used those programs to participate in our workshops.
Do you offer any scholarships or grants for the Mentorship?
Unfortunately, no. While we know the exchange rates are high, the bulk of our instructors are US-based, and we need to pay them in US dollars. We encourage our Canadian friends to look into Canadian grant programs to help offset the costs of our workshops. Our prices are competitive with other US workshop companies, AND we are significantly cheaper than a US-based MFA program.