Writing that gets read, week by week
Our flagship cohort: six weeks, twelve live sessions, six drafts with line edits and one published piece. This is exactly what happens in each week.
Week 1
Know your reader
Who reads your work, what they already know and what they need from you in the first two lines.
Tuesday: who reads your work. Thursday: live teardown of three real emails.
Collect five pieces you wrote this quarter and mark where a reader would stop.
A one-page reader profile
Week 2
Lead with the ask
Openings that put the decision first and the context after it, in emails, docs and updates.
Tuesday: why openings fail. Thursday: rewrite clinic with your own openings.
Rewrite the opening of one real email or doc so the ask comes first.
An opening pattern you can reuse
Week 3
One idea per paragraph
Paragraphs that each do one job, so a reader can skim the first lines and still follow.
Tuesday: paragraph surgery on a volunteer draft. Thursday: rewrite clinic.
Write a 600-word memo. Your group of six reads it by Friday.
Line edits and five readers
Week 4
Cut it by a third
The cutting pass: warm-up sentences, repeated context and hedges, in that order.
Tuesday: the cutting pass, word by word. Thursday: group read-through.
Cut last week’s memo by a third without losing a fact.
A checklist for your own edits
Week 5
Structure for skimmers
Headings, lists and summaries that carry a busy reader through a long document.
Tuesday: structure that skims. Thursday: office hours.
Turn one long doc from work into something readable in a minute.
A template your team can copy
Week 6
Publish one piece
A final round of edits in small groups, then publishing at work or in public.
Tuesday: final edits in groups. Thursday: showcase, everyone reads a paragraph aloud.
Publish one finished piece and share the link with your group.
A published piece and a certificate
A typical week takes four to five hours
Two evening sessions, one draft due Sunday night and a group read-through by Friday. Everything is recorded, so a work trip does not mean falling behind.
You finish with one piece you would put your name on
Every student publishes a final piece in week six: a memo that went out at work, a post on the company blog or an essay in public. You keep the recordings, your drafts and a year in the alumni library.
The next cohort of Writing that gets read starts October 20
Forty seats, a group of six, line edits on every draft. Applications take five minutes and most students expense it.
Live cohort courses in writing and speaking for people who do it at work. Small groups, line edits, six weeks at a time.
Taught live from Chicago, Austin, Portland and Seattle
Lyceum