FINISH YOUR BOOK IN 2026
Energize your writing and plan your publishing path with live craft classes, expert guidance and literary community.
January 17-18-19, 2026
GET FOCUSED. GET FINISHED.
You know you can do the work...if you can just determine what "the work" is. Spend a weekend with high-level craft advice to identify your manuscript's needs, and goal-setting guidance to get it done. Build a framework for accountability and start your successful writing year.
Live on Zoom Jan 17-18-19
with Allison K Williams and Dinty W. Moore
Got Questions?Three days of craft, live-editing, and straightforward publishing info.
- Get clarity on your story and structure with the Invisible Magnetic River
- Learn your audience and the right publishing path for your book
- Kick off your 2026 your writing practice, whether you're drafting, revising or polishing for publication
- Expand your literary network of fellow authors who understand the journey
- Level up your writing craft
MORE THAN A WEBINAR.
Experience all the benefits of a physical event replicated online, with casual chat, Q&A time, breakout rooms and 100% interactive sessions. Build your writing career—and grow your literary community.
REGISTER NOW
"Extraordinary." "Magical." "Actionable."
YOUR GUIDES
Allison K Williams
Writer - Editor - Speaker - Coach
Allison K Williams brings deep understanding of dramatic structure, sensitivity to voice and theme, technical expertise, and contagious enthusiasm for your work.
She is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book and the Social Media Editor of Brevity.
She has edited and coached writers to deals with Big Five, literary and independent presses and publication in the New Yorker, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s and TED Talks.
Allison herself has written for NPR, CBC, the New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review and Travelers’ Tales. Her plays, including London Fringe Best of Fringe Winner TRUE STORY have been produced worldwide.
Dinty W. Moore
Writer - Editor - Speaker - Coach
A direct and supportive teacher known for drawing out meaning in memoir, Dinty W. Moore is author of The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir, the pop-culture/ enlightenment mash-up To Hell with It, and many other books.
Dinty has published in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Arts & Letters, The Normal School and elsewhere.
A former professor of nonfiction at Ohio University, he serves as Editor-in-Chief for Brevity and consults regularly with authors and publishers on book proposals and revisions, many going on to publish with Big Five houses and university presses.
Big Five. Literary. Indie.
Find the path that's right for YOUR book.
Allison & Dinty have worked with...
You want it done! Focused time and a commitment to “show up” helps you plow through revisions and refine your manuscript to publication-ready.
The Ultimate Revision Weekend combines education, networking, and writing career growth. You’ll leave with better pages, new ideas, and renewed commitment to your craft.
Dive deep into specific writing craft, with examples, exercises, and guided revision to apply your learning immediately to your manuscript.
Crafting Great Opening Sentences: Not just the first page, but how to start every chapter and every scene with powerful, reader-hooking moments.
Where Your Story Begins: Are you starting your book at the right place, too early or too late? How much backstory do you need and where do you put it? Learn the elements of a strong start.
Crafting Great Final Sentences: Make the reader turn the page–and make them glad they read the book.
Finding Your Invisible Magnetic River: After zooming in for intense revision, come back to the big picture. What’s holding your book together and why does it matter?
Revise faster with tools, tricks and techniques to build stronger sentences, remove excess words, and stay true to your own writing voice. Each Quick & Dirty session includes guided revision to apply the skills immediately to your manuscript.
- Strong Sentences
- Strong Paragraphs
- Words and How to Love Them
- The Power of the Synopsis–how writing the synopsis solves plot problems!
Unlike the traditional “workshop,” you’ll be using craft tools in your own writing as we go. Discoveries made in live-editing, and techniques taught in craft lessons, will be immediately applied to your work.
Check-ins may include sharing short sections, but writers won’t read each others’ work in advance or in full. Allison & Dinty provide individual guidance as needed. It’s like writing at your favorite cafe—with peer and editorial support.
In live-editing, instructors share volunteer pages on the screen, reading aloud and discussing suggested edits.
Transform your prose to focused, energetic, and reader-centered–and discover where it’s already powerful.
Throughout live-editing time, you’ll apply specific techniques to your own work-in-progress.
Need personal feedback? Add an edit of your synopsis or opening pages when you register (additional cost).
Need to get your manuscript out there? Combine Ultimate Revision Weekend with Query Bootcamp, June 27-28-29.
FINISH YOUR BOOK SCHEDULE
ALL TIMES USA EASTERN
| TAKE A MOMENT & BREATHE | |||
| MORNING | 0930-1000 | CAFÉ TIME | Zoom Room open for casual chat & questions with Allison & Dinty |
| 1000-1100 | PUBLISHING SEMINAR: What Is a Book? | Though we all love a traditional book — “a printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together and bound in covers”— authors now have so many more options. Let’s discuss possibilities beyond “bound and printed,” exploring What Is Your Project? What Do You Have to Share? Who Is Your Audience? How Best To Reach Them? We’ll consider innovative technologies, new platforms, audio books, essays and op eds, podcasts, one-woman shows, as well as traditional printed forms. | |
| 1100-1230 | CRAFT LESSON: Dramatic Structure and the Invisible Magnetic River | Your book can be guided by theme, structure, or a fundamental underlying question. Choosing one of those options shapes your process as well as your story. Dinty shares his legendary Invisible Magnetic River, the underlying emotional current or meaning that pulls the reader through the narrative, guiding everything in the story toward a specific, though often unseen, destination. Allison brings classic dramatic structure–and some modern twists–to the fore, with five key scenes and how they anchor your book. | |
| 1230-1400 | LUNCH | Zoom Room re-opens at 1345 | |
| AFTERNOON | 1400-1530 | CRAFT LESSON: The Art of Revision | Don’t jump into rewrites without considering which stage of revision is needed and in what order. The tendency to begin polishing the first page is all-too-tempting, and though polishing our sentences and paragraphs is a good practice, doing it too soon can “lock us in” to decisions we made in our early drafts, decisions that we were simply auditioning, and may not serve the work. Successful revision requires taking a step back and determining where to intervene. |
| 1530-1600 | CLOSING WORDS | Day ends 4PM Eastern | Discussion, inspiration & next steps | |
| TAKE A MOMENT & BREATHE | |||
| MORNING | 0930-1000 | CAFÉ TIME | Zoom Room open for casual chat & questions with Allison & Dinty |
| 1000-1100 | CRAFT LESSON: The Fine Art of Layering | Details are most powerful when they go beyond static factual description, beyond just “painting a scene.” Details work best when they interact with your story’s central emotional thread, layering bits of Context, Movement, and Desire. We’ll explore how this works, along with examples and live editing of participant work. | |
| 1100-1230 | PUBLISHING SEMINAR: Building Audience and Community | Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, it helps to have readers in mind. We’ll explore the power of writing without gatekeepers through social media, newsletters and blogs; how to publish essays and short pieces for other publications; and how to share your work widely and effectively. We’ll also explore how regular, public writing is a practice that improves our craft. Includes live-editing time and platform assessments. | |
| 1230-1400 | LUNCH | Zoom Room re-opens at 1345 | |
| AFTERNOON | 1400-1530 | CRAFT LESSON: Readers are Smart–Trust Them! | Readers are curious people with active, agile minds. Too often—out of insecurity—we overexplain, providing too much information, robbing our readers of one of the key pleasures of reading: putting two and two together for themselves. Where exactly is the line between leaving readers in the dark versus offering delicious suspense? Can nuance and suggestion be more effective than perfect clarity? We’ll explore what novelist Jeffrey Eugenides means when he advises writers to “pretend you’re writing the best letter you ever wrote to the smartest friend you have.” |
| 1530-1600 | CLOSING WORDS | Day ends 4PM Eastern | Discussion, inspiration & next steps | |
| TAKE A MOMENT & BREATHE | |||
| MORNING | 0930-1000 | CAFÉ TIME | Zoom Room open for casual chat & questions with Allison & Dinty |
| 1000-1100 | PUBLISHING SEMINAR: Planning Your Writing Year | What will truly get you to the finish line, and how can you create accountability and recognize achievement, even in sub-optimal calendar conditions? We’ll look at balancing writing and audience connection time, how to focus on what really moves the needle, and a realistic plan to finish your book. | |
| 1100-1230 | CRAFT LESSON TBA | Live editing, your questions, and the craft lesson topic you most need, based on our time together. | |
| 1230-1400 | LUNCH | Zoom Room re-opens at 1345 | |
| AFTERNOON | 1400-1500 | PUBLISHING SEMINAR: Your Publishing Path | Big Five isn’t the only way to go–and publishing doesn’t have to take forever. We’ll examine traditional publishing paths including literary and university presses, self-publishing without tearing your hair out, and how to find the “good ones” in the tricky, scam-filled world of hybrid publishing. |
| 1500-1530 | CLOSING WORDS | Day ends 3:30PM Eastern | Discussion, inspiration & next steps | |
FINISH YOUR BOOK IN 2026
- 5 deep-dive Craft Lessons
- 2 Publishing Path seminars
- Recordings & Slides from all sessions
- Live-Editing time
- Daily Live Q&A with Allison & Dinty
- Self-Editing Checklist
- Planning Your Writing Year workbook
- Literary connections & community
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Joining The Intensive
Nope! What matters is that you’re committed to writing better.
- You can be working on a novel, memoir, creative nonfiction, essays, or a playscript.
- You’re writing in English, because Allison & Dinty aren’t fluent enough to edit in any other language. (English need not be your mother tongue.)
- You DON’T need a degree in writing (or anything else!).
- You DON’T need previous publication credits.
Writers don’t critique each others’ pages, so the experience level of your fellow writers isn’t a big factor in the intensive.
Yes! You’ll get a tip sheet to help you strategize your intensive weekend around children, partners and pets.
If resources allow, consider local lodging or a friend’s guest room to create a personal retreat experience.
Dinty and Allison love teaching, and we do quite a bit of it throughout the year. Very often, students ask to be added to the waitlist for the next retreat or intensive, sometimes regardless of location! When a new event is announced, we tell the waitlist first, and events often sell out before they’re publicly announced.
Sign up for The A-List to get first notice of waitlists and open registrations for upcoming retreats.
If the button at the top of the page says “Sold Out,” there’s a waitlist and we’re happy to add you to it. Email us through the contact form, and we’ll confirm your spot on the list. Most intensives have included waitlisters; we usually know 2-3 weeks in advance.
Intensive Days
Allison and Dinty share volunteer pages on the screen. We read aloud, discussing the edits we’d suggest and why. We also explain how to apply the suggestions to everyone’s work.
We edit as we go, and the pages are returned to the writer with Tracked Changes.
Not this time, sorry!
You can check out Allison’s regular coaching and editorial offerings here.
You can also find out about upcoming webinars and events by visiting her linktree, or joining the A-List monthly events email.
If you have accessibility concerns, let us know. We’ll work with whatever technology you need to make the virtual intensive work for you.
Allison and Dinty have (between them) worked with writers who are d/Deaf, hearing-impaired, blind, visually-impaired, neuro-atypical and with physical disabilities.
We want to work with you—let’s discuss how to make it an excellent experience.
Bookings & Payments
Rebirth Your Writing accepts Venmo, Zelle, Canadian e-transfers, PayPal and credit cards via PayPal.
If you’d like to pay in two installments, email us through the contact form.
We have two tuition-free places reserved for writers from underrepresented communities, including but not limited to LGBTQ+, BIPOC, working-class, neurodivergent and emerging writers. To apply, please use the contact form; share a brief statement of how this intensive will help you as a writer, and any literary citizenship activities you already do.
If you are unable to attend and we can fill your place from the waitlist, we will refund your tuition minus a $75 administrative fee. Refunds will be sent within 30 days of receipt of notice of cancellation.
If we can’t fill your place from the waitlist, there is no refund, but you still receive the Self-Editing Checklist, the contact list and all slides and session recordings. We encourage you to enjoy the session recordings when you can. You may also want to contact other writers from the intensive to spend time working on the exercises together.
Rebirth Your Book reserves the right to cancel the intensive in the event of civil unrest, natural disaster or Act of God. In the event of cancellation of the intensive in its entirety, you will receive a full refund of any fees paid. You agree to release Rebirth Your Book and its agents and/or representatives from any liability, including consequential expenses you may have incurred in planning to attend.