Winter Session: January - July, 2026

WHERE: ONLINE
WHEN: Students meet with their own mentors on their own schedules.

New for winter 2026, we’re introducing a build-your-own mentorship to meet your unique needs.

Some of you have sought the opportunity to have a mentor read your entire novel. Others of you hoped for a mentorship where your mentor could read your work, offer feedback and then re-read your work with revisions. This winter we’re experimenting with a mentorship model designed to meet you exactly where you are, to meet your individual needs, on your schedule.

Whether you’re working on picture book, middle grade, or young adult, our mentors are here to help you reach your goals.

With award-winning authors, editors, professors and former professors from Hamline University and Vermont College of Fine Arts, students receive one-on-one guidance and stewardship. For authors contemplating an MFA program, this is a wonderful opportunity to grow your skills without the steep price tag. For authors who have an MFA or never considered one, this is your opportunity to get pages read and critiqued by master instructors.

Liz Bicknell

Liz Bicknell has worked as a children's book editor for more than 25 years. Most recently, she was Executive Editorial Director at Candlewick Press, working with such luminaries as M.T. Anderson, Ekua Holmes, Gregory Maguire, Jon Klassen, Laura Amy Schlitz, and Carole Boston Weatherford. Books she has edited have won the National Book Award, the Caldecott Medal, the Coretta Scott King Medal, and many other awards. Her tastes are eclectic, with a strong interest in literary fiction for middle-grade and YA readers; poetry; humor; and all kinds of picture books. She lives in Vermont.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

I love anything unusual or quirky and innovative. Think I Want My Hat Back for picture books or Feed for fiction. I work best with fairly experienced writers: those who want direction and can make revisions on their own. I can speak to the current publishing scene in addition to the literary merit of a work, so my mentoring could include solid revision suggestions alongside market readiness. I’m excited to work on picture books and middle-grade and YA manuscripts, but I’m not your best editor for genre fiction, like romance, horror, and science fiction.

PLEASE NOTE: Liz works with authors who have a completed draft of a novel or completed drafts of picture books. For novels, she may approach your mentorship from a whole novel perspective outside of the packet model. Liz is also ideal for a writer who is working to get their manuscript(s) ready for submission.

Kathryn Erskine

Kathryn Erskine is the author of seven novels for young people, including National Book Award winner Mockingbird, and Jane Addams Peace Award honor book Seeing Red. She has also authored several picture books. Her latest works are My Dad is a DJ with artist Keith Henry Brown as well as a middle grade biography of Abraham Lincoln.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

You are the pilot of your craft and I am here to help you navigate. Our time together will be spent shaping your story into what you want it to be. I take an analytical approach to reading and editing. I will explain what I feel works and what doesn’t, what could be cut, and what should be revised, always with the goal of helping you make your story tighter, stronger, and more engaging. I will ask questions to ensure I fully understand your story and your desired direction. And I will provide the best possible suggestions to help you get there. I know the editing process can be tough, but together we will forge on with a next draft that you can be proud of.

As to what I’d love to see, I’m a fan of a good story for any age – though I would stay away from violence or zombies (unless they’re funny zombies).

Leah Henderson

Leah Henderson is the author of many critically-acclaimed books for young readers including The Courage of the Little Hummingbird, Your Voice, Your Vote, The Magic in Changing Your Stars, A Day for Rememberin’, and Together We March. She holds an MFA in Writing and is on faculty in Spalding University’s graduate writing program. Because she has serious wanderlust, when she isn’t creating stories, she’s off someplace in the world getting lost, then found, discovering new ones.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

My goal as a mentor is to understand the story you are trying to tell and help you figure out how to achieve that. I’m open to brainstorming at any stage, and ask lots of questions in order to get a better sense of your characters, their voice, motivations, feelings, and intentions. I’m very flexible in my approach to mentoring and am open to what will give you the most confidence to create the story world and characters you envision. While I will be a huge cheerleader for your work, I will also challenge you to challenge yourself. And together, we will work to get to the heart of your story. 

I’m open to working on picture books—fiction or nonfiction—middle grade and YA prose. 

Karen Krossing

Karen Krossing is a critically acclaimed author of books for kids and teens, including picture books such as My Street Remembers and One Tiny Bubble, and novels such as Monster vs. Boy and Punch Like a Girl. She has won two SCBWI Crystal Kite Awards and has been a finalist for the Ontario Library Association White Pine Award and the Joan F. Kaywell Books Save Lives Award. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

My approach is writer-centered. I want to support you in expressing your stories in your way. I see you as the expert of your story, and my role as a writing coach who will share my reading responses and apply my craft knowledge and experience. My goal is to help you to write the best book you can and to leave you with skills you can apply to a lifetime of writing.

Along with your manuscript, I’ll ask for a letter that outlines the history of your project(s), your writing history, what type of feedback you’re seeking and what questions you have for me. This helps me position my feedback in a way that’s useful for you. My feedback will include my observations as a reader, analytical comments on craft elements, questions and writing tools that apply to your manuscript, and a discussion of process. My strengths include structure and plot (both classic and alternative), emotional resonance and character development, world-building, pacing, and voice. I’m best suited to offer feedback on fiction and nonfiction picture books, middle-grade and young-adult novels in prose or verse, and short stories. I welcome a wide range of manuscripts: fantasy and realistic fiction, science-based and historical works, genre-bending and graphic formats. Quirky is my jam.

Phyllis Root

Phyllis Root is the award-winning author of over 50 fiction and non-fiction picture books, including Big Momma Makes the World and One Duck Stuck. She taught at the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program for 10 years and has been teaching at Hamline University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults program for the past 13 years.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

I want to help you become the best writer you can be. I work primarily with picture books and will read your work, ask questions, make suggestions which you are free to follow or not, and suggest books that can serve as mentor texts. I will explain what I consider principles of good picture book writing, but my focus is always on your work and your writing, how to find the heart of that writing, how to strengthen that heart, and how to give voice to the stories you have to tell.

Liz Garton Scanlon

Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of numerous books for young people, including picture books Frances in the Country; Kate, Who Tamed the Wind; One Dark Bird; the Caldecott-honored All the World, and many others. She's also co-authored several books with her pal Audrey Vernick, including the hilarious Bob, Not Bob, and the upcoming World’s Best Class Plant. Scanlon’s middle-grade novels are The Great Good Summer and Lolo's Light, and her chapter book series Bibsy Cross debuts in 2024. Liz serves on the faculty of the Writing for Children and Young Adults program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

I’m interested in ideas and emotions emerging through story and via character rather than being imposed upon them. On a more granular level, I love looking at opportunities to use language in clearer, more lyrical, more potent ways to enrich the storytelling and the reader’s experience. So, my feedback includes big picture commentary around narrative throughlines, character development and motivation, scene-summary balance, etc., along with particular, line- and language-oriented observations. You’ll also see lots of question marks in my responses as I think writing is an intuitive exercise, and the best solutions are often your own.

I want you to think about what to do with my feedback rather than just accepting it wholesale. I’m honest about what is not yet fully realized, but my overall approach is supportive of you as an evolving artist and working peer. It’s worth noting that my own focus and expertise is in picture books, chapter books, poetry, and middle-grade fiction, but I’m open to working across ages and forms.

Gary D. Schmidt

Author of more than a dozen books for children and young adults, Gary Schmidt is a two-time Newbery Honor winner, a Printz Honor and Children's Choice winner, and a National Book Award finalist. He taught writing, children's literature, and medieval literature at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, and he is a former instructor at Hamline University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

As a writer, my principal focus is on middle grade fiction, and I particularly enjoy working on realism and historical fiction; I have also worked on non-fiction for middle grade readers.  I do tend to hyper-edit, meaning that there's going to be a lot of ink on your pages if you work with me.  This will not mean that I think it stinks; it means that I want to give you lots of options to think about.  We will work together on global issues in your writing, and sentence level issues in your writing--since often these are more closely linked than one might expect at first blush.  And in our work, I hope to always be pointing you toward revisions that will make the work more shapely, more aware, and more truly yours.

Shelley Tanaka

Shelley Tanaka is an editor, writer, and teacher. She is the longtime fiction editor at Groundwood Books, where she has edited more than a dozen Governor General’s Award-winning titles. She is the author of 30 books for young readers and is faculty emerita of Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

What It’s Like To Work With Me:

Over the years I have seen, at close hand, how many, many writers (at all stages of their careers) develop a manuscript from conception through multiple drafts. I encourage writers to stay in control of their own stories by helping them figure out what they are trying to say and then bridging the gap between writer intention and reader reception, both at the line level and by tracking the characters’ and story’s throughlines. Every writer is different, so I will take my cue from you. We will pinpoint your “tendencies” and identify self-editing strategies to deal with them, but just as important is to recognize and build on your writerly strengths – for your current project and future ones.

 While I’m comfortable working with all genres, I am not well read in high fantasy. I like smart, character-driven stories with strong voices. If you’re inclined to the quirky and/or subversive, so much the better.

Available Fall 2025

Cost, Deposit, & Refunds

The tuition for Whale Rock’s Mentorship Build-Your-Own Program starts at $3000. Students may pay by credit card or use Klarna for payment plans.

See our scholarship page if you are seeking financial support.

Refund Policy:

• There are no refunds once the session begins

• There is a $500 non-refundable deposit for this workshop. However, you may put $250 towards another program if you choose to withdraw. If we cannot offer you a spot you will receive a full refund.

• All tuition balances must be paid in full by the start date of our session.

Please read our policies section before you register for our programs.

Writing Samples

Students must submit either one picture book manuscript or a 1000 word excerpt from the novel they would like to work on to be considered for this program. You do not need to be published; we are looking for committed, experienced writers. Submissions should be sent to: submissions@whalerockworkshops.com

Each mentor will accept between two and four students.

Mentor Selection

Students must select three mentors in order of preference. While we do our best to match students with their preferred mentors, a student’s first choice is not always the best choice for their project. As well, a student’s first choice mentor may no longer have availability.