What is a Manuscript Class?

By Liz Matthews

Have you ever perused our website and noticed the initials “MS” next to some of our workshop
titles, and wondered what does that stand for? We are proud to offer workshops for writers of all
levels and all genres throughout the year.

In many of our introductory workshops, our writers write to prompts or bring in a few pages to share with the group. As our writers become more experienced and start to apply for more intermediate or advanced classes, they may crave the opportunity to submit additional pages outside of class time for the instructor and classmates to read ahead of time. These are our manuscript classes, which we indicate with “MS” to let our
writers know that they will have this opportunity. And because this offering requires additional
prep for our instructors, our manuscript workshops are priced at a higher rate.

Writers are permitted submit a range of pages for each class, so please be sure to carefully read
each workshop’s description. For example, in Upper Level Memoir, writers submit 1500 words a
week, while our Writing Historical Fiction that Matters and Advanced Fiction both allow each
writer to submit 15 additional pages once a session. In our new upcoming Middle Grade & YA:
First Chapters workshop, each student will have one opportunity to submit their first chapter (up
to 2500 words) to the instructor and class members. The group will read the work at home, write
constructive comments on the pages, and provide feedback to the chapter in class.

To be clear, the “MS” does not require that you have a completed “manuscript”. We hope this
explanation provides some clarity on the shorthand we use around here.