Coming up September 6: Spalding’s Business of Writing Seminars

elichvar
Aug 4
6 min read

Updated: 18 hours ago

The fall 2025 edition of Spalding’s Business of Writing Seminars takes place 10:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET Saturday, September 6, for students, faculty, and alumni of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. Three virtual sessions offer extracurricular instruction in the world of publishing and production.

The seminars are free to School of Writing students and faculty.

Alums register by making a donation in any amount at www.spalding.edu/mfa-payments. (On the donation page, use the email address where you want the Zoom links sent.) The registration deadline for alumni is Friday, September 5. Your donation helps make possible these educational events for our community. For students, faculty, and registered alums who can’t attend on the day of the event, recordings of the sessions will be available until October 6, 2025.

Here’s the program for the event:

Saturday, September 6, 2025

Literary Agents Discuss Author Platforms and More

with Kate Moody and Joyce Sweeney

(scriptwriters see entry for 3:30 p.m.)

10:30 – 11:30 a.m. ET / 9:30 – 10:30 a.m. CT / 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. MT / 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. PT

Even before they have a book contract, authors need to prepare for the day they see their work out in the world. In this panel, literary agents who represent adult fiction, adult nonfiction, and kid lit discuss the importance of author platforms, social media, an author’s website, podcasts, blogs, and e-newsletters. At the end of the session, they'll answer attendees' questions during a Q&A.

Kate Moody is an Assistant Agent at Transatlantic Agency, representing authors in both adult fiction and nonfiction. She is seeking authors with strong platforms in nonfiction, including true crime, narrative, journalism, memoir, sports, current affairs, and pop culture. In fiction, she is particularly interested in thrillers, psychological thrillers, family sagas, and stories that are dark, twisty, and complex. Kate is also drawn to authors whose exceptional writing can stand above a platform, as well as those who skillfully bend genres and execute multi-POV narratives with precision. Driven by her passion for books, literacy, and education, Kate founded the Moody Family Foundation in 2023, which provides charitable grants to support education and literacy programs in Ontario’s York Region. She has degrees in Criminology and Sociology from Western University, complemented by a diploma in Special Events Management from George Brown College. Apart from reading, she enjoys being active, cooking, traveling, and spending time with her friends, family, and two doodles. Kate says, “I believe everyone has a story to tell, and I’m always looking for fresh, compelling voices. If you think we’d be a good fit, I’d love to hear from you!”

Joyce Sweeney is an author and Director of Kidlit for The Seymour Agency. They have written fourteen young adult novels, many of which have won awards. They are also the author of two chapbooks of poetry. Most recently, they have been writing historical novels.

Joyce was a creative writing teacher, mentor and coach for over 25 years. They also published a plotting how-to book, Plotting Your Novel With The Plot Clock (Giantess Press, 2019). At this writing, they have successfully mentored 86 authors to traditional publishing contracts. In 2020 they joined The Seymour Agency, where they represent picture books, middle grades and young adult novels. Their hobbies are astrology, collecting illustration art, and animal causes of all kinds. They live in Coral Springs with their husband, Jay, and two giant rescue cats, Willow and Captain Jack.

Crowdfunding Your Work: From Passion to the Public

with Charles Maynard

Noon – 1:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. – Noon CT / 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. MT / 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. PT

In this session, Charles Maynard, creator of ten successful crowdfunding campaigns over the last decade, explores how writers and other creatives can use crowdfunding as a tool to release their work to the public without relying on more traditional publishing routes. For writers interested in producing a movie or play, creating a poetry video, funding a book tour, or otherwise putting their work into the world, this session provides a primer on using a crowdfunding approach to funding, marketing, and community engagement. It will focus on practical approaches and insights to building community around your work, crafting compelling marketing campaigns, and using crowdfunding platforms to generate lasting interest in your work.

Charles Maynard is the author of seven books in the Far Away Land Role-Playing Game series (under the pseudonym Dirk Stanley) and several card games. His most recent book is Far Away Land: Adventures in the Materiosphere (2021). His first novel, The Way Things End, was published in 2019. He is working on a middle-grade fantasy series as well as a new novel about consciousness and Appalachia. He is obsessed with emergent group storytelling. He is the Director of Undergraduate Writing Programs in the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding. He holds an MFA from Spalding University.

Always Be Pitching: How to Get an Agent, Publisher, or Producer to Sign You

with Jeffrey Fischer-Smith and Carolyn Dawn Flynn

1:30 – 3:00 p.m. ET / 12:30 – 2:00 p.m. CT / 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. MT / 10:30 a.m. – Noon PT

An elevator pitch is the first step in capturing the right person’s attention and getting your work out into the world. Whether your nugget of gold is a book, a screenplay, a stage play, or journalistic writing, the pitch is everything. But the clock is ticking. How do you make your words count? How do you make the gatekeeper care? Remember you forever?

Spalding alums Jeffrey Fischer-Smith and Carolyn Dawn Flynn will introduce you to the essentials of pitching to producers, publishers, literary agents, and editors so you can get in the door that gets you to the next door. This workshop covers the stages of pitching and the materials you need to pitch, from the elevator pitch to the query letter, from logline to the pitch deck. By the end of this session, you’ll be thinking in billboards.

Attend to listen and learn—or better yet answer three questions that will prepare you for practicing your own pitches. Carolyn and Jeffrey will critique your practice pitches on the spot and give you immediate expert feedback, as time allows.

Why this book/this play/this movie/this reported essay, and why now?
Why are you the one to write it?
Who are you pitching to — a literary agent, a stage play producer, a film producer, an editor at a media outlet?

Memoirist, novelist, essayist and journalist Carolyn Dawn Flynn is the author of the memoir Boundless and seven books of transformational nonfiction. Boundless was longlisted for the 2021 Mslexia International Memoir Prize and the 2022 First Pages Prize. Book reviewers have called Boundless “an emotionally charged, beauty-filled memoir” about becoming someone new. Her work has been published in Fourth Genre, Under the Gum Tree, Arts and Letters, Hunger Mountain, The Colorado Sun, The Tampa Review, The Whitefish Review (Montana Prize for Fiction), Albuquerque Journal, Sage Magazine, Albuquerque the Magazine, and Wilde Frauen, as well as Next Avenue and AARP Magazine. She graduated with an MFA in Writing, fiction and creative nonfiction, from Spalding University in 2012. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Jeffrey Fischer-Smith is a New York-based writer originally from Riverhead, New York. He works in theatre, film, and television. Jeffrey’s stage plays have been produced in New York, around the USA, and in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, and the Philippines. His play Reservations was produced at Stella Adler Theatre (Los Angeles), Samsung Hall (Manila), Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center, The Playhouse Theatre (Hobart, Tasmania), Nuyorican Poets Café (New York), Factory Theatre (Sydney), Pegasus Theatre Company (Guerneville), and Doris Harper White Playhouse (Flagstaff), amongst many others, and was taught in the Colorado Prison System. Jeffrey’s play A Dog Dreams has been produced at Concordia University (Irvine), Theatre Rhinoceros (San Francisco), Longwood University, The Road Theatre Company (Los Angeles), Players Workshop (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), Boston Playwright’s Theatre, Alex Theatre (Melbourne), West Side YMCA (New York), among many others, and was a featured play in The Grief Dialogues, which toured the USA.

Both plays were made into short films which have been Official Selections at numerous festivals and have won multiple awards. Reservations was co-written by Spalding alum Julie Nichols. His play When the Son Is Shining was produced at Cincinnati LAB Theatre and The Road Theatre Company. As a poet, he has been published in Three Line Poetry and The Risley Review. Jeffrey is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and The Playwrights’ Center. He received his MFA in Writing (playwriting) and Post-Graduate Certificate in Writing Enrichment (television writing) from Spalding University.

What Scriptwriters Need to Know about the TV/Film Business

with literary agent Roberto Larios

3:30 – 4:30 p.m. ET / 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. CT / 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. MT / 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. PT

Literary Agent Robert Larios (of Verve, LA) talks about the business side of the TV/film industry. This session will answer such questions as what a literary agent does, how to get a literary agent, and how an agent helps you find jobs and sell your material.

Check back for more information about Roberto Larios.