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Leslie Ullman Freelance Manuscript Consultant & Writing Mentor
My work at VCFA has been most sustaining, giving me the chance to work intensively with five poetry students each semester, seeing them through their creative theses, critical theses, translation projects, and the juicy, more process-related issues such as gaining comfort and even pleasure in the task of revision, handling occasional lapses in confidence, and finding a firm place for their writing in the midst of busy lives. What I love about this job is that allows me to work with the whole person, and I have been able to parlay this kind of focus into my more recent activities as a freelance manuscript consultant and even as a ski instructor at Taos Ski Valley As a manuscript consultant, I help to edit and polish prose pieces as well as poetry, though most of my work has been with book length poetry manuscripts and smaller batches of poems. And more often than not, my dialogue with writers goes beyond what a manuscript needs or doesn't need, to include how they might expand on their craft through additional reading, access to other writers, and experimentation. I have learned from my own experience that we can't control how the world will receive our work, but we can manage to be richly sustained by the act of engaging in it and of pushing ourselves into new territory. The fact that many of my students and freelance clients have published their books is often a byproduct of this other, more personal, and more sustaining gift.
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Leslie Ullman Author, Artist and Writing Consultant LeslieUllman.com Terms of Use: All rights reserved. Books, or sections of books, may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission from the author. |