One-on-One 30-minute Editorial Critiques with Bret McCabe, Rebekah Kirkman, Chelsea Fetzer, and Christine Grillo
Counting Room
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201
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Bret McCabe – creative nonfiction
Rebekah Kirkman – creative nonfiction
Chelsea Lemon Fetzer – poetry, fiction
Christine Grillo – fiction, memoir, sci-fi, romance/fantasy
Four editors. 16 30-minute opportunities. One chance for One-on-One, 30-minute editorial critique sessions with esteemed editors who donate their time and expertise in service to you. For those who want to up the ante on their work and need that extra, critical eye on their manuscript, we encourage you to take advantage of this moment. For $10, (payable by clicking the donate page on-site), these editors provide their expertise on your five pages. Editors will read it once you arrive. First come, first served, arrive early, and preferably have your $10 in cash or submit $10 through the CityLit website to donate on site. Sessions begin at 10:00 am and run through 12:00 pm. Each editor will have and honor a sign-up sheet. Writers, if you need encouragement to get published, just do the dang thing. Dust off those pages. Get fed in a different way. Bret McCabe is a Baltimore-based arts writer and editor. Rebekah Kirkman is a writer and editor in Baltimore whose work focuses on art, work, and community. Chelsea Lemon Fetzer is a multi-genre writer who teaches literature and creative writing at Goucher, serves on the board of CityLit Project, and is a contributing editor at BmoreArt Magazine. Christine Grillo is a Baltimore-based novelist whose debut novel, Hestia Strikes a Match, was included in NPR’s Books We Love 2023.“Good editors are really the third eye.” ~Toni Morrison
Guidelines:
Five pages of poetry OR Five pages of prose
- Double-spaced
- 12 pt. font
- 1 inch margin
Numbered pages
Name must be included
Note: If you are feeling ambitious, stop. Only the first five pages will be critiqued!
Bret McCabe first moved to Baltimore in 1988 to study biomedical engineering, graduated with an anthropology degree, and spent the next 21 years paying off his significant college loans as an arts journalist. In addition to freelance writing and editing, he currently works in higher education and fondly appreciates the Chicago Manual of Style.
Instagram: @bretmcbret
Rebekah Kirkman is a freelance writer, editor, and fact-checker in Baltimore whose work focuses on art, work, and community. Her writing has been published in the Baltimore Beat, Johns Hopkins Magazine, the Real News Network, and elsewhere. She has done freelance/contract editing for Texas Monthly, Seven Stories Press, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, A Blade of Grass, various universities, and other outlets and organizations. She was previously the managing editor at BmoreArt and the visual arts editor at the Baltimore City Paper.
rebekahkirkman.com
Chelsea Lemon Fetzer earned her MFA in Fiction at Syracuse University in 2008. She is a 2019 Rubys recipient for the Literary Arts and a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s 2022 Independent Artist Award. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and Minnesota Review. Her essay “Speck” appears in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about being Mixed Race in the 21st Century. Fetzer teaches creative writing at Goucher, serves on the board of CityLit Project, and is a contributing editor at BmoreArt Magazine.
Christine Grillo is a Baltimore-based novelist and science writer. Her debut novel, Hestia Strikes a Match (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2023), was included in NPR’s Books We Love 2023. “Grillo pulls off a clever satire of life in a divided country … Bridget Jones’s Diary for the post-MAGA era,” says Publishers Weekly about her debut work. Her short fiction has appeared in The New England Review, StoryQuarterly, The Southern Review, LIT, and more. Her nonfiction covers science, public health, food systems, agriculture, and climate change, and has been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic: CityLab, Audubon, NextTribe, and Real Simple. Christine earned degrees at Columbia University and The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and she has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
christinegrillo.us
Instagram: @christine.grillo