Finding Your People: Community, Craft, and the Business of Books – How the Black List is supporting Fiction Writers
A 90-minute MASTER CLASS with Randy Winston
Community Gallery
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201

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Registration is required.

Please register here:
https://bit.ly/masterclass-theblacklist

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The Black List is a renowned platform dedicated to nurturing written storytelling and empowering writers to maximize their professional potential. First established in 2005 as an annual survey of Hollywood’s most-liked unproduced screenplays, the Black List has since grown into a comprehensive resource for the creative industries, serving tens of thousands of writers, agents, managers, showrunners, producers, financiers, directors, actors, theater directors, and book editors. Our virtual marketplace, blcklst.com, caters to the film, television, theater, and book publishing industries. Writers can also benefit from high-quality, transparent, and accountable feedback for a fee, with a fast turnaround time from our experienced and vetted readers.

The Black List expanded to fiction in September 2024. Since 2005, the site has served screenwriters and the entertainment industry with a platform to provide critical feedback on works in progress and an annual showcase of the best unproduced screenplays (many of which have gone on to critical and commercial success).

Join Creative Director of Fiction Randy Winston, who will discuss traditional and nontraditional entry points to publishing, why studying the industry is essential to building a sustainable career, and resources writers can gather on the business of publishing education journey. Randy will also explain The Black List’s new tools, writing programs, and resources for fiction writers, as well as how the platform could help you strengthen your work for better visibility. The site offers free profiles for writers to list their published and unpublished works, as well as paid options, for fiction writers with full-length manuscripts (novels) – to make their project available to industry professionals or purchase feedback from fiction readers with book publishing industry experience. Winston is a curator at the intersection of literature and culture who oversees the Fiction division of The Black List, and hosts and produces the Read the Acknowledgments podcast. The former Director of Writing Programs at The Center for Fiction, Winston will deliver the 2026 Spring Commencement Address at The New School’s Parsons Paris graduation ceremony in Paris, France.

As part of The Black List’s expansion into Fiction, the platform has collaborated with established and emerging stakeholders in the creative writing and book publishing industry, as well as industries adjacent:

LeVar Burton, Jennifer Baker, Roxane Gay, Eric Simonoff, Mollie Glick among others for the 2025 Unpublished Novel Award, Jason Reynolds, Julia Phillips, Michael La Ronn, for the Spotify x JED Impact Award; Read the Acknowledgments which includes episodes with Zakiya Dalila Harris, Yahdon Israel, Nicole Dennis Benn, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Stephanie Delman, Ali Hanna Habib, Robert Jones Jr., Mateo Askaripour, Denne Michele Norris, among others; sponsored programs with Chiwoniso Kaitano and D. Watkins for AWP Writers Conference; webinars with the Authors Guild; and conversations with Book Riot, The Sh*t No One Tells You About Writing, Bookum Nook Show, among many other media platforms.

blcklst.com
Instagram: @theblcklst
Threads: @theblcklst

Visit the News Section for detailed information.

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CityLit Project in partnership with Maryland Center for History and Culture present Bearing Witness: Literature as a Revolutionary Act. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 11, 2026. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.

Download the CityLit Festival: Bearing Witness flyer with the schedule.

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