Free Scrivener Workshop with Natasha Yim
If you’ve been too intimidated to move from Word to Scrivener, or you’ve made the move but feel like you’re using less than 10% of its power, here’s a great opportunity: a free Scrivener workshop taught by author Natasha Yim, who has given this workshop several times before to members of the SCBWI.
The workshop is designed to help writers master Scrivener, a powerful tool for organizing and structuring writing projects. Whether you’re working on fiction or nonfiction, this session will guide you through Scrivener’s key features to improve your workflow and efficiency.
If you are not using Scrivener yet, you can download a free 30-day trial and have it ready to test drive during this session.
What You’ll Learn:
• Navigating the Interface – Understanding the Binder, Editor, and Inspector
• Organizing Your Writing – Using folders, and subdocuments
• Distraction-Free Writing – Customizing the editor for focus
• Managing Research – Storing notes, images, and references within your project
• Outlining & Structuring – Using the Corkboard and Outliner views
• Compiling & Exporting – Formatting your work for different publishing needs
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have hands-on experience and practical techniques to make Scrivener a seamless part of your writing process.
I hope you will join us, and rest assured I own no shares in the company! I can just say with complete conviction, both as an author and editor, that you are probably not writing—or at least, not rewriting—at your best if you are using Word or Pages and not Scrivener. Come put my assertion to the test. Save your seat here, and we will see you on the 27th with Scrivener on your laptop, loaded and ready.
In the meantime, if you missed my interview with non-celebrity (yet) memoirist Hyeseung Song, you will find a recording of the interview here. It was a frank and uplifting discussion, and I know it gave many memoirists in attendance new determination and hope.
Also, a few more accolades and opportunities:
Congratulations to our own Lynn Rankin-Esquer for the successful launch of her self-published cozy mystery, MURDER, MESS, AND THE TANGERINE DRESS. In her first month Lynn has garnered more than 6,000 downloads and over 50,000 Kindle Unlimited page-reads!
Congratulations also to our 2025 Doug Fortier Retreat Fellowship recipient, Camille Wanliss. Camille will be joining us at the upcoming October 30-November 3 Stone River Retreat. We look forward to welcoming her and her work into our community.
And…Caitlin Quinn. We only just congratulated her in our EOY Round Up, but in the first two months of this year, Caitlin’s short story "In Enemy Territory" has won the 58th New Millennium Award for Fiction; and her Irish ghost story, “The Western Reaches,” won 10th place In Writer’s Digest’s 25th Short Short Story Contest and received an honorable mention in the 2024 Supernatural Short Story contest run by The Ghost Story.
OK, so finally back to me! (Well, us.) In view of the great success we had this January with our one-day First Pages retreat, Heather Lazare, Lisa Manterfield, and I are putting together another one-day retreat in the same great location in Half Moon Bay, CA, this time workshopping your Query Letters.
The date will be Saturday, September 6th. Attendance is juried in and limited to 12 participants. If you think you might like to join us, you can register here to receive a submissions package when full details become available. (Soon, I promise!)
Until then, happy writing!
Shirin