Work with Me
“Sarah Stone is among the most insightful and generous readers I’ve ever encountered. From the level of the sentence to the manuscript as a whole, she articulates exactly what a writer most needs to hear. I can’t imagine publishing anything without first showing it to her and receiving her brilliant feedback.”
Coaching and Manuscript Consultations
If you want help with a book in process, or need an experienced reader for a complete (or nearly complete) novel, story collection, or book of essays, I work with writers one on one, both coaching people and reading and responding to full manuscripts (overviews and full developmental editing). Please get in touch with me for details.
Classes
I teach classes through the Stanford Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program, including the Online Certificate Program in Novel Writing. In the fall, I’ll be teaching Novel III in the certificate program, open to second-year OWC students.
I also have an upcoming generative fiction-writing Image Intensive class open to all writers, “Retelling and Reinventing the Great Stories.” It’s live online via Zoom, from October 30 through November 22, eight 90-minute sessions. Here’s the course description:
Why do we feel compelled to read and write reinventions of stories from Torah, the Bible, folktales, myths, and other central sacred and secular texts? How does our current moment affect the way we understand and (re)write these stories? How do we navigate the tensions between sacred and worldly, craft and free invention, writing for ourselves and writing for readers? Together, we will find inspiration from a variety of traditions and selections from contemporary fiction. We will combine craft study with processes for freeing our writing as we explore our complex relationships with the holy, the numinous, and the unknowable.
Week One | Lineages: How do we retell, reinvent, and allow ourselves to be inspired by the stories of our own traditions? How do we free ourselves from old ideas and archetypes in re-addressing what’s most familiar to us?
Week Two | Voyages: How do we ethically and respectfully interact with the stories and ideas of other traditions? How can we learn to read and write across all kinds of differences?
Week Three | Our Own Lives: How do the great stories intertwine with our own? Where and how do we incorporate elements from our lives or the histories of those we know? How do we decide what we want to share, with those we’re writing about and with the world?
Week Four | The More than Human World: How might we write angels, demons, ghosts, animals, trees, golems, dybbuks, or any other beings from the more than human world, whether realistically or fantastically, as central or peripheral figures?
Here’s the link for more information and registration: https://imagejournal.org/image-intensive-stone-2024/
“I came to Sarah with a strong sense of what I wanted from my stories. Sarah read them on their own terms and highlighted where the craft could be improved so that the writing elicited the right emotional responses from my readers. Through her guidance I learned to refine my craft techniques and sharpen my sentences; she allowed my stories to breathe and flourish. My scenes and dialogue became more complex and the tension in those moments rose. In a sense Sarah taught me to make my stories into the journey I wanted them to be for my readers.”
“Sarah is probably the best teacher I’ve ever had, for anything ever. She’s incredibly knowledgeable, generous with her time and expertise, and very astute with her critiques, immediately sizing up what the manuscript might need and what the writer might need. I really enjoyed this class and learned a lot.”
“Sarah Stone is an astute, alert, compassionate, and talented writer and teacher who is exquisitely sensitive to the ever-changing needs and challenges of her students. She went out of her way to provide original, insightful feedback to each and every student post and work-in-progress sample. I feel privileged to have been her student.”
“I have had the great fortune to get Sarah Stone’s feedback on my writing for many years, and I always come away from her reading with brilliant notes that give me enthusiasm to dig in to the work again. Sarah is that rare editor: someone who gets inside another writer’s project, really trying to see it for what it is, for what it wants to be, without trying to change its peculiar essence. Her reading is always ‘for’ the work, but it’s also very rigorous. Anyone who is lucky enough to get her editorial input will be sure that she will not ignore failures of nerve or missed chances for complexity and depth. Nevertheless, she delivers her opinions in a way that makes the problems seem clear and solvable. She is widely read—from mainstream to experimental fiction, from literary to genre novels—and she brings her knowledge to the discussion to suggest works that might inspire or inform the project. Sarah is a trusted, sensitive, experienced reader. You would be lucky to have her in your corner.”
“Sarah Stone is an extraordinarily accomplished author, as anyone who’s read her novel, The True Sources of the Nile, can attest. She is also a brilliant, experienced teacher, with the ability to suggest a variety of approaches to the development of character, plot and structure as well as language and style. I’ve been fortunate to have her read and respond to most of the stories included in my first book, and she read my second book, a novel, in at least three different drafts, providing me the feedback and encouragement to press on with new perspective. I enthusiastically recommend Sarah to beginning, intermediate and advanced writers at any stage of their novels or short stories.”
“Working with Sarah Stone transformed my writing. I always felt as though Sarah, an incredibly generous reader, cared about my characters as if they were her next-door neighbors. Deeply curious, she would go to the depths in thinking about their lives within the story, what this moment meant for them, and what motivated them. My stories returned with margin notes that praised interesting moments, phrases, suggested compression, and the kinds of questions that pushed my writing to the next level. In a way that I hadn’t experienced for some time, I saw that Sarah believed deeply in my writing and that she would challenge me to come closer to and explore those truths that fueled it.”
“As a new writer of a debut novel, the idea of having an editor parse through my work was daunting. Sarah made the process as painless as possible, always emphasizing the positive while still ensuring that the manuscript was as good as it could be. She has that rare ability to inspire confidence through what can be a difficult process. At the same time, she taught be how to be a better writer. My manuscript was much improved by her contribution.”
“Sarah Stone is a wonderful writer and a generous reader of other people’s work. She reads thoughtfully, with insight, and I always understand my work better after hearing from her.”
“Sarah approaches your work with a combination of great intellect and open heart. She is a thorough, thoughtful reader whose suggestions for revision are never heavy-handed. Rather, she gives the kind of direction that allows you to find your own path, always respecting the integrity of your voice and your story. Genius!”
“Sarah Stone provided me with a wealth of specific information on how I could improve the novel I am working on. She also provided a nurturing and positive environment in which I felt encouraged to go forward with writing my novel, which is no easy task. This was the best workshop experience I have ever had, and I’ve been in several others that have produced the opposite reaction. In short, she is an amazing teacher, extremely knowledgeable about the craft of writing, and willing to go that mile to impart that information to us, her students. I always felt nurtured and encouraged by her instructive hand in the learning process.”
“Sarah Stone was fantastic. She was informative, enthusiastic, encouraging, inspiring. She guided gently while encouraging us to think about beginnings, characters, plot, voice, settings. She gave us valuable information that will be extremely useful, and she lit a fire under all of us to write and express in our own voices. I would take another course from her in a minute and hope to do so in the near future. This was an excellent course with an exceptional instructor.”
“I’ve taken numerous courses through Stanford online and they have all been good. But Sarah was by far my favorite instructor to date. She was brilliant, inspiring, full of great suggestions resources and feedback, amazingly attuned to each student and their writing, and always kind.”
“A truly great teacher—informed, sensitive, respectful, present, available, incredibly knowledgeable, generous, kind and a terrific communicator.”
“This was the very first class I have ever taken online, and I was a bit unsure of what to expect in beginning the class. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about as Sarah was absolutely the most amazing instructor. Unbelievable amounts of thoughtful, diplomatic, intelligent feedback that was both kind and warmly presented- but at the same time she saw ways for every single writer to improve their work. Each of her suggestions, book recommendations, workshop responses, and comments were individually tailored to each writer’s needs/writing, and she opened my eyes to the possibilities of my work (and of literature in general) more than any writing instructor I have had in the past. Not only would I take another course taught by this instructor, but I plan to actively seek out the classes that she is teaching in the next term! I cannot thank her enough.”
“This is my second online Stanford class with Sarah Stone (and my fifth through the Stanford Continuing Studies program). Sarah is an exceptional instructor; she is a standout with your program and across my lifetime of learning, creatively or academically. Her generosity creates an exceptional online community for writers to celebrate their gifts and directly face areas for improvement. Her quick mind and unique perspective open doors about that are both fascinating and compelling. She is able to offer guidance and constructive suggestions that truly add depth to all of her students’ work. Her experience - as a fantastic writer, teacher and reader - are evident in every single one of her communications. It is a true privilege to learn from her, in all ways. I would sign up for literally any class she taught, sight unseen, because I know that any class she taught would be valuable, enriching and enjoyable.”
“Sarah Stone is both a gifted and dedicated instructor—her class was everything I’d hoped for and more. One of her greatest strengths is that she listens to her students—their work and their words, then zeros in on the level at which she should pitch her comments, lessons, exercises, and class discussions. In this particular class we had a group of smart, talented writers, so Sarah challenged us with more nuanced discussions and critiques, allowing us to take our writing to the next level. She also created a warm and friendly environment—both in the online and Zoom discussions. She stressed the fact that the scenes and chapters we posted were in-progress, freeing us to experiment without worrying about being perfect—both I and others made discoveries and breakthroughs with our characters and stories. I learned so much about the craft of writing from Sarah—from general craft elements (such as leaving a bit of suspense or mystery unresolved at the chapter’s end to entice a reader to turn the page) to specific ones that came up only in my manuscript…. And the impact of her class will reach beyond this fall: she provided such rich and multi-layered lectures and exercises, I plan to work through them all again as I move forward. Sarah also provided a wealth of resources for further study—enough to keep me busy for a year. For these ten weeks, Sarah was our champion—she read every post, answered every question, and made sure every student was heard and encouraged by the whole group.”
“Sarah was amazing. Incredibly knowledgeable, generous in her time and attention to everyone’s assignments, her feedback an amazing combination of detailed suggestions/areas to keep developing and hugely supportive mirroring and comments. One of the best teachers I have ever had, for anything.”