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 The site offers free profiles for writers to list their published and unpublished works, as well as paid options, for fiction writers with full-length manuscripts (novels) – to make their project available to industry professionals or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
Free Resources:
Read the Acknowledgments
Fiction Resources Journal
Formatting Guidelines
Blurbs:
“The Unpublished Novel Award truly changed the game for me. Before this award, I was an unagented writer who was braving the query trenches and hoping for a way to break into this highly competitive industry. I found the Black List through a Deadline article and decided to get my manuscript evaluated and also apply for a few programs, including the Unpublished Novel Award. When I was notified that I received this award I was completely blown away. The exposure of this award helped connect me to my now literary agent Jas Perry at Looking Glass Literary & Media, an absolute dream come true! Additionally, this award’s generous grant award has helped me to be able to participate in professional development opportunities, such as the virtual 2026 AWP Conference & Bookfair. Being based in Hawai’i, access to literary spaces can be geographically and financially difficult, so this support has been transformative. I am deeply grateful for the doors this award has opened for me. If you are someone with an unpublished book that you feel needs a place in this world, I highly recommend submitting.”
– Terah Summers, 2025 Unpublished Novel Award Recipients, Spotify x JED Impact Award Recipient
“Being out in the wilderness with a manuscript is tough. Winning the Black List’s 2025 Unpublished Novel Award for Crime & Mystery was a wonderful, unexpected boost in confidence. The publicity has put new eyes on the project, and the funds are allowing me to get to conferences, meet people face-to-face, and hopefully find this novel a home.”
– Roz Ray, 2025 Unpublished Novel Award Recipient
I was really delighted to discover that The Black List existed; it has already been a valuable resource for me as an acquiring editor. Imagine how excited I was when I found and read the manuscript of THEN HE WAS GONE, one of the best thrillers I’ve read in years. I suspect her work will be quickly snapped up by film producers as well. Move over, Harlan Coben.”
– Marcia Markland, Senior Editor-at-Large, Crooked Lane Books
“As an unknown author, I learned a lot about rejection from countless agents and publishers not interested in reading my work. But I believed that if I kept putting it out there, someday it would get noticed. I had heard about The Black List as a platform for writers to showcase their screenplays, pilots, and plays for industry professionals. Then, about a year ago, I saw an article announcing that The Black List was accepting novel manuscripts. I posted the manuscript for THEN HE WAS GONE, and three months later I was contacted by Marcia Markland, Senior Editor at Crooked Lane Books. It’s hard to describe how I felt when I got the email from Marcia telling me that Crooked Lane wanted to publish my novel. Euphoric? Yes. Euphoric. And grateful that a platform like The Black List exists to connect unknown authors like me with wonderful publishers.”
– Isabel Booth, author of THEN HE WAS GONE; manuscript discovered on The Black List
Full Bio:
Randy Winston is a curator at the intersection of literature and culture, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the Creative Director of Fiction at The Black List and former Director of Writing Programs at The Center for Fiction, where he managed, curated, and directed the production of all writing courses, the illustrious First Novel Prize, the famed Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowship, and the highly sought-after Writers Studio membership. Prior to his work at The Center, Winston served as Fiction Editor of Slice Literary Magazine for 6 years and has over 10 years of executive admin experience in higher education. He is a 2016 graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing (Fiction) at The New School. A former Orion Magazine trustee, Winston currently sits on the board for WriteOn NYC.
He’s appeared in Variety, The L.A. Times, Deadline, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, Book Riot, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Poets & Writers, and The Hollywood Reporter, among others. His interviews in print, online, and on stage have included Maggie Nelson, Mohsin Hamid, Yiyun Li, Mira Jacob, Aleksandar Hemon, Victor LaValle, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Tomi Adeyemi, Mateo Askaripour, A.E. Osworth, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Rumaan Alam, Deesha Philyaw, Megha Majumdar, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Szilvia Molnar, Robert Jones Jr., Lauren Wilkinson, Morgan Jerkins, Lisa Hsiao Chen, Denne Michele Norris, Alcy Leyva, Benjamin Lazar Davis, and Hugo McCloud, among others. Winston is currently at work on his first novel. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Winston will deliver the 2026 Commencement Address at The New School’s Parsons Paris graduation ceremony in Paris, France.
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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 withe schedule.
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