Want to enhance your trip with extra literary days? Choose from our add-on offerings.

Literary London (April 25-28)

A pre-voyage tour with hotel and transfer to the ship, limited to ten participants.

Join Allison for a 3-day tour of Literary London. We’ll tour the British Library and the haunts and neighborhoods of noted London writers old and new. Take in a West End show and the astonishing Daunt’s bookstore, see Postman’s Park, and discover Allison’s secret corners of Covent Garden.

$1850

See the London tab for more info!

Literary New York (May 5-8)

A post-voyage tour with hotel and transfer from the ship, limited to ten participants.

Join Allison for a 3-day tour of Literary New York. We'll take an insider's tour of the New York Public Library, visit storied neighborhoods of writers past and see an incredible immersive show. Plus, meet noted literary agents and practice your pitch.

$2150

See the New York tab for more info!

One-on-one meetings

Add a personal meeting with Jane to discuss your writing or writing career ($165). Limited availability.

Each morning, some or all of our teachers present a panel or talk on elements of writing craft and publication. Topics will be tailored to the group’s needs, and may include:

Negotiation Smarts:

Understanding publication conventions and contracts—how to protect yourself, and how to be a good partner in your career.

Write Faster:

Craft, technique and productivity hacks for getting out of your own way to get words on the page.

Fabulous First Pages:

The elements of voice, theme, quest and character must clearly show in your opening pages—learn what engages readers and pulls them into your world.

Writing Online:

Best practices for social media, Substack, blogging and newsletters—and how writing online deepens and improves your writing craft.

Pitch, Publish, Get Paid:

Getting your words into the world in literary journals and mass media. What makes a great pitch, who to pitch, and how to share published work to grow your profile.

An expert in the business of publishing, Jane will show you how to tailor your self-presentation to be ready for the world to take notice, build your writing career beyond books, and find, grow and nurture the audience of readers who need your work.

Strengthen your author website

Learn the 5 key elements for your homepage, plus the other pages you'll need either prior to, or after, publication. We'll look at some of the biggest design disasters that can happen (and how to remedy), plus what details really matter. Get guidance on first steps with your author website if you don't yet have one.

Better and more effective email newsletters

An email newsletter is an author's most powerful sales tool, yet too many writers aren't consistent with their newsletter or believe they have nothing to say until their book's on the market. Learn to develop a content schedule or structure that makes sense for you, plus how to start if you haven't yet.

Platform audit: identifying strengths and opportunities

Even if you don't think you have a platform, you do! We'll do a platform audit together, looking at your online and offline assets, then discuss your strengths and opportunities. Sure, there might be weaknesses, but your platform grows out of your natural skills and existing networks—not something you hate doing or are afraid to do! Introverts and extroverts alike can excel in platform building.

Build your business model

Book sales alone rarely pay the bills, and most well-established authors earn the bulk of their income from something else: freelancing, teaching, affiliate marketing, subscription newsletters and more. Learn what it means to develop your own unique business model and how to build a marketing funnel that supports it. (Don't be intimidated by "marketing funnel”—there's a cute diagram!)

Your book marketing copy

Whether it's for your back cover, online retailers, or your website: let's make your marketing copy better. Even if you have a traditional publisher who's responsible for your marketing copy, you'll need to condense it, expand it, and customize it in countless ways when you're actively marketing and promoting. Learn how to adapt your copy for the intended recipient, especially people in the media. We'll critique your copy together and discuss templates you can use for pitching.

As “the Unkind Editor,” Allison’s sharp line edits and knowledge of dramatic structure in story and scene have guided authors to success in traditional and indie publishing. She’ll focus on writing craft as it leads to publication—clearly showing your ideas, your voice and your story, while getting the work done and into the world.

Write Better Right Now: Voice & Paragraph

You’ve structured your story and know your facts—but how do you make your narrative sing on the page? Develop and refine your voice to take your writing to the next level. We’ll examine how to break rules to fulfill your own unique narrative style, how to create “high-context” communication with your reader, and how mimicking favorite writers improves our own work. Includes short in-class exercises.

Write Better Right Now: Sentence Craft

Go beyond grammar to discover how words and sentence structures deliver comedy, drama and meaning. Discover the difference between long sentences and run-ons, why metaphors beat similes, what the heck a modal verb is (and why they muddy prose), and 4 things to do NOW to improve your manuscript 25%—no matter how good a writer you already are. Includes short in-class exercises.

Queries, Pages & Getting an Agent

Querying an agent is intimidating—and yet they work for you! Sharpen your pitch, learn what belongs in your query (and what absolutely doesn't!) and where and how to find agents to share it with. We’ll also look at the elements of fabulous first pages, and what makes agents, editors (and readers!) read on.

Live-Editing: First Pages

We’ll project pages on the screen, giving writers a chance to see their work edited in real time. You’ll better understand the purpose and experience of editing, and become more able to identify issues in your own writing. We'll give feedback and suggested edits on volunteers' first pages, and add tips for everyone's writing.

Live-Editing: Synopses

Writing a synopsis is tough, but we need one to query agents and publishers—and the process of writing helps us reverse-engineer our story, fix plot holes, raise the stakes and strengthen beginnings and endings. With pages projected on the screen, we’ll examine structure and plot in synopses, revising our own work as we go.

A direct, honest and supportive teacher known for his ability to draw out meaning in memoir, Dinty W. Moore is known for inspiring teaching and his ability to teach craft with clarity. Focusing on story, characters and revision, Dinty’s sessions include prompts, exercises, and/or generative writing time. Each session stands alone; you can choose as many as you wish.

The Invisible Magnetic River: The Secret to Writing Compelling Fiction and Memoir

What is it that makes a fiction or memoir more than just a collection of scenes or observations, a compelling whole greater than the sum of its many parts? How do we allow our writing to open into something wide and powerful, reflecting a truth that is, as Langston Hughes writes, “older than the flow of human blood in human veins”? The answer is the Invisible Magnetic River of story. Locating the Invisible Magnetic River in your fiction or memoir is the best way of insuring that something primal and powerful is at stake behind the words. It is also a vital tool for revision. Bring your work-in-progress.

They Walk! They Talk! Secrets to Writing Engaging Characters & Vivid Dialogue

Characterization is always a challenge: How can we make the people we know feel as real and alive for readers as they do to us? We will examine the many ways in which people come to know other people and make judgments about them in real life, and how that translates directly to the page. We’ll also examine dialogue as a tool for creating lively and believable characters. Prompts and brief writing exercises will be included.

Write What You Don’t Know: How Curiosity Fuels Craft

The tired maxim “Write what you know” is familiar to anyone who has ever lifted a pencil. But that advice is far too limiting. The fuel that runs the engine of good writing is the curiosity of the writer, the process of thinking aloud on the page, uncovering what we didn’t know the morning we sat down to begin our memoir or novel. We will have prompts and writing exercises.

The Art of Revision: Knowing When to Revise, What to Revise, and How to Make Your Revisions Matter

Once we’ve given the story our best shot, once we’ve powered our way through an early draft or two, how do we take what we have created and use the powerful tools of revision to make the storytelling shine? Revision, many have said, is where the hardest part of writing begins, but this stage can also be the most rewarding and pleasurable. Successful revision means taking a step back and determining where to intervene. And when? And in what fashion? Bring your work-in-progress.

INCLUDED as one of your on-board options for small-group sessions, this workshop series will take you through expressing and articulating the idea in your head so that your book can be made real. Part 1 and Part 2 will both be offered twice in our week together; the information is sequential.

Whether you’re at the very beginning stage of a "great idea”—or several!—and don’t know where or how to start; in the drafting stage but have hit a block or don’t know what to do next; or have a complete, revised, and edited manuscript and are ready to seek agents or publishers, these sessions will get your work focused and ready to move forward.

Idea to Outline Part 1

• Acquire a deep understanding of the Idea to Outline tool, leveraging it for your current and future book projects.
• Develop the foundational pieces that will make your book resonate with readers and make you proud.
• Receive next-day written feedback on your first draft of your Idea to Outline.

Idea to Outline Part 2

• Dig deeper into the foundational pieces of your book
• Revise your Idea to Outline
• Receive written feedback on the second draft
• Discuss “best next steps” for your writing and publishing process, to keep going with confidence
• For nonfiction writers, discuss whether you need to write a book proposal sooner or later and how to use this tool as the foundation.

Literary London includes three nights of accomodation & transfer from London to Southampton on Embarkation Day.

Radisson Blu Edwardian Grafton

In London's buzzing district of Fitzrovia, Radisson Blu Edwardian, Grafton offers luxury, boutique accommodation on Tottenham Court Road. The stylish hotel has a modern restaurant and free WiFi. The sumptuous rooms are furnished with custom-made wall coverings and designer Italian chairs. All rooms have a Sicilian marble bathroom with complimentary premium skincare brand REN toiletries, Egyptian cotton bed linen and each features air conditioning. A buffet style breakfast (included) is available in the morning.

Before 1930 Fitzrovia was a nameless section of the West End, until a bright spark named the area after the iconic Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street. Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, and George Orwell are just a few of the literary giants that ordered their favourite tipple in the historic pub, forever giving this area a touch of the bohemian.

Our Literary London adventure includes...

London Literary Tour

There’s no better way to combine our passions than a guided tour of London’s bookshops, reading rooms, and haunts of authors old and new. Our private tour will suit our tastes, and finish with afternoon tea.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Explore Shakespeare's work and the playhouse for which he wrote. We'll see half a performance, and you'll understand why!

London's West End

The vibrant cultural hub of spectacular shopping streets, top-notch restaurants and the world-famous theatre district. We'll take in Allison's favorite West End Show--you'll leave laughing.

On Your Own

Not up for a group tour? We recommend these literary landmarks:

• Daunt Books in Marylebone.
• 221B Baker Street
• The Wellcome Collection Reading Room
• The British Library
• The Word On The Water Canal Boat Bookshop
• Bloomsbury & The Charles Dickens Museum
• The London Review Bookshop
• Foyles
• Cecil Court
• Hatchards

Literary London includes daily breakfast, one afternoon tea and two dinners.

Welcome Dinner

Enjoy traditional cooking techniques and contemporary flavours in our private dining room.

Afternoon Tea @ Mariage Freres, Covent Garden.

The Mariage Frères flagship houses the largest tea wall in the world where you can shop from a selection of 1,000 teas and tea accessories, a tea museum bursting with history, refinement and heritage and afternoon tea served with an assortment of decadent French tea-infused pastries all made in-house.

Brasserie Zédel

Our Theatre Night Dinner takes place at the iconic Brasserie Zedel, located in the heart of Piccadilly. Step down the secret corridor to this lively underground brasserie with traditional French food and Art Noveau decor.

April 25-28, experience Literary London (limit 10 participants):

• Three nights accomodation at the Radisson Blu Edwardian, Grafton in Fitzrovia
• Our immersive London Literary Tour
• Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
• A West End Show
• Welcome Dinner
• Afternoon Tea @ Mariage Freres, Covent Garden
• Theatre Night Dinner in the West End

All for just...

$1850

Literary New York includes three nights of accomodation & transfer from Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to our hotel on Disembarkation Day.

Four-Star Hotel

We'll stay in Greenwich Village, storied literary haunt of writers of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Relax in the well-appointed lobby or enjoy a nightcap at the bar.

Our Literary New York adventure includes...

New York Literary Tour

Enjoy a private tour of the hidden corners of Greenwich Village, with tales from authors gone and still present. We'll finish with a light lunch.

Agent Advice

Meet noted literary agents who'll give the inside scoop on what it really takes to get published, and practice your pitch. We'll have a leisurely Q&A with three top agents. You'll also get to practice your pitch with Allison in advance!

Off-Broadway Show

Discover the wild world of immersive theatre. Thick with literary references and Hitchcockian twists, this choose-your-own-adventure experience is like no other show. Allison's seen it four times from inside and out, and can't wait to share it with you!

Literary New York includes daily breakfasts and two dinners.

Welcome Dinner

Fresh off the ship, enjoy a casual dinner with publishing talk in our private dining room.

Farewell Dinner

Our last night together, we'll share conversation and plans for our books.

May 5-8, experience Literary New York (limit 10 participants):

• Accomodation at a 4-Star Hotel in Greenwich Village
• Our immersive New York Literary Tour
• Meet-Ups with Literary Agents
• An Off-Broadway Show
• Welcome & Farewell Dinners

All for just...

$2150