The Quill and Ink Group Coaching Pilot Program

Hi, there! And thank you so much for stopping by this Eventbrite page.

My name is Karen A. Parker (they/them), and I'm a Black, queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent Secular Buddhist.

I also happen to be an anti-racist speculative fiction author, an Author Accelerator-trained fiction book coach, and an ethically-minded entrepreneur who wants to change the publishing industry for the better and who is dedicated to the preservation, creation, and dissemination of stories.

As it stands, historically marginalized and strategically undervalued storytellers are at several disadvantages outright. Their stories are solicited, but they're rarely given the marketing budgets and attention they deserve once their novels are acquired.

And, when they are acquired, underrepresented writers rarely know how to navigate negotiations that come up and advocate for themselves. They might sacrifice their integrity to get a bigger advance or be urged to choose a different title or cover design than the one they want even if it might perpetuate covert racism, as Tajja Isen describes in her article for The Walrus.

Most of all, they'll feel at a loss when they're supposed to be celebrating one of the biggest achievements in their lives.

To that end, I've crafted a holistic group coaching pilot program that empowers marginalized storytellers at every step of the process.

And that's where you come in.

Good question! There's a lot going on in that event title, so let's break it down by its components.

As an Author Accelerator-trained book coach in fiction, I've designed three coaching packages for the three different stages of the book project process: planning, polishing, and pitching. However, as someone who's gone through training and is currently waiting for my certification results, I'm looking for help to refine my packages even more and am therefore looking for test pilots like you!

The Pencil and Eraser Coaching Package is a four-month package for writers who hate writing multiple drafts of their novel and want to have a (nearly) indestructible outline before they even start to write. It's a fourteen-step process based on Jennie Nash's Blueprint for a Book with an optional fifteenth step for world-building that's great for all genres--not just speculative fiction writers.

The Pen and Paper Coaching Package includes everything in the Pencil and Eraser Coaching Package and lasts for four additional months for a total of eight months. This package offers basic instructions on revision, editing, and style as well as other fiction fundamentals to help you write a cohesive first draft. With it, I'll be evaluating a few brave participants' entire manuscripts and their first twenty pages.

Lastly, the namesake Quill and Ink Coaching Package includes everything in the prior two packages plus an additional four months dedicated to learning about literary agencies, synopses, query letters, and pitch strategies. This is an approximately twelve-month or 48-week-long coaching program designed to help you plan, polish, and pitch your entire novel in just under a year, and it's not for the faint of heart!

Because as the late, great Toni Morrison wrote in The Source of Self-Regard: "Certain kinds of trauma visited on peoples are so deep, so cruel, that unlike money, unlike vengeance, even unlike justice, or rights, or the goodwill of others, only writers can translate such trauma and turn sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination. A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity."

And as for that "certain kind of trauma," I think you know exactly the kind that I'm talking about.

The kind that perpetuates marginalization and oppresses its people day in and day out.

The kind that insists upon banning books and keep writers in the dark.

But the beautiful thing is that you are an artist, and so am I.

We are preservers of legacies, creators of worlds, and tellers of tales.

And we must be this if, as a collective, we want to get through this alive.

So, if this all sounds good to you, please reserve your spot in the program on Eventbrite. The first session starts on January 1, 2025, and each weekly session is $25 a week. That’s a total of $100 per month, or $1,200 for the whole thing—all done in manageable weekly sessions with me as your guide and with hopefully some other wonderful participants along the way.

Oh, and it’s on Zoom, too! Every Wednesday at 11 AM Pacific Standard Time for about an hour, I’ll be there.

Thank you, and I hope to see you soon.

Host or Publisher Karen A. Parker