Professional Empowerment for writers:

Four Days of Revelations


New Online Conference For Writers in all Genres!

Check back for dates in 2022!



Let us provide you with dynamic alternatives to the unrelenting grind of submitting work over and over again, everywhere, with fingers crossed. Learn a new model for taking charge of your destiny as a writer. 

During each conference, faculty Jeffrey Levine and Kristina Marie Darling lead the craft talks using Zoom (no app need, just click a link) and meet as a group.

Your faculty are two of the most experienced editors, mentors, poets, publisher, and spirit guides in the country: Jeffrey Levine, Publisher & Artistic Director of Tupelo Press, Kristina Marie Darling, Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press and Tupelo Quarterly. (See bios below.)

You’ll come away from our weekend together with the skills, strategies, and techniques you need to leverage fuller access to the publishing universe and the community of writers. Learn how to open doors to grants, fellowships and residences. Get the secrets of revision for publication, and the keys to marketing and publicity for your published work.

By Monday afternoon, you will be poised to manage your personal plan for inclusivity, recognition, and writerly success.


Successful writers know that self-actualization leads to accomplishment, achievement, fruition, and fulfillment. Let us guide you, in the space of one generous weekend, through the following welcoming doorways:

(NOTE: All times are EST, geared toward accommodating most time zones; all meetings are synchronous, via Zoom):


Friday 3PM ET – 5:30PM ET

The Fine Art of Revision 

Learn what revision techniques make a substantive difference. Teach your poems to realize their fullest potential with a series of advanced revision models. We’ll take you & your poems through this process, step-by-step, laying out a user’s manual of methods and practices. 

Saturday 10AM ET – 1PM ET

How to Successfully Research and Submit to Independent and University Presses  

Learn how to know where your poems and stories, manuscripts of all genres should be directed to maximize the likelihood of being taken. Learn what to look for in a publication contract, and how to negotiate what’s coming to you.

Saturday 3PM ET to 5:30PM ET

Literary Citizenship:  Finding Your Community as a Writer

Good literary citizenship is a platinum pass to publishing success. Learn the why’s and how’s.

Sunday 10AM to 1PM ET 

Breaking Books:  How to Get Started as a Book Reviewer 

Hone your chops as a writer by honing your chops as a book reviewer. We’ll give you a step-by-step guide, AND, help you find homes for your reviews! Slip inside the “velvet rope,” while providing other writers with the recognition they most need. What goes around . . . 

Sunday 3PM ET to 5:30PM ET

Grants, Residencies and Fellowships:  A How-To for Writers of All Genres 

Who doesn’t want to know how to obtain grants, to apply for and be rewarded with residencies around the world, and career-affirming fellowships?! Do you have a suitcase and a pen? Your life as a writer can be defined by garnering fellowships, residencies and grants. You can do this. 

Monday 10AM ET to 1PM ET

Book Publicity and Promotion:  A Practical Workshop for Writers of All Genres

There’s a lot of noise, and a lot of competition out there for writers, but we can show you how to make a success of your book, even before you have one. A free copy of our guerilla marketing manual, “Open Secrets” to every participant.


Enrollment and Logistics 

Each four-day conference will:
Convene Friday at 3pm,
Meet daily Saturday and Sunday for workshops from10:00 to 1pm, and from 3pm to 5:30 pm.
Conclude Monday at 11:30am.

Who

Limited to 12 participants, divided into two, intimate groups.

When

Check back for dates in 2022!

Fee

$1,250

Editorial Reviews of Full-Length or Chapbook Manuscripts

Participants may sign up separately (in advance) with Jeffrey Levine for an intensive, poem by poem review and annotation of your full-length or chapbook manuscript. All manuscripts will be returned, fully edited, in advance of the conference. Those who opt for a manuscript review will have a half-hour, one on one, Zoom discussion of their work with Jeffrey Levine. Cost: $400 for chapbook-length manuscripts, (up to 26 pages) $800 for full-length manuscripts, (up to 54 pages) manuscripts.

First Responses to Empowerment Conference:

So thorough and well-researched – I was swimming in an ocean of ideas and have so much more work to do thanks to you – thank you  AZ 

Energizing & useful conference. Nice combination of rigorous presentations (KD) and friendly, relaxed, frank informal discussion (JL). EH

My dreams feel closer! So many ideas and possibilities were explored. Yes, more work ahead. Revision, community work, and residencies. JG

This conference has been very substantive and informative. Other assets: abundance of resources shared; knowledgeable, supportive, friendly, and approachable speakers/facilitators! I enjoyed the community of writers and their poetry readings, their queries and tit-bits of advice/suggestions! PP

I greatly appreciated that the information shared in the conference is practical and do-able. It will take time and focus, but would be worth the efforts. Both Kristina and Jeffrey speak clearly. Their organization and preparation elevated the experience both spritually and intellectually. It is also very encouraging to hear be committed to your work.THANK YOU! LF

Coming from a visual exhibiting background to the world of poetics and publishing is learning an additional language, stepping on new shores. This seminar has been very helpful. You at tupelo are “da bomb.” NG


Jeffrey Levine is the author of three books of poetry: At the Kinnegad Home for the Bewildered, (Salmon Press, 2019), Rumor of Cortez, nominated for a 2006 Los Angeles Times Literary Award in Poetry, Mortal, Everlasting, which won the 2002 Transcontinental Poetry Prize, and most recently,  Levine’s many poetry prizes include the Larry Levis Prize from the Missouri Review, the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the Ekphrasis Poetry Prize, and the American Literary Review poetry prize. His poems have garnered 21 Pushcart nominations. In addition to his own writing, he is principal translator of Canto General, Pablo Neruda’s epic work of poetry. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Levine is founder, Artistic Director and Publisher of Tupelo
Press, an award-winning independent literary press located in the historic Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, and he also serves as Director of the esteemed Tupelo Press Writing Conferences. Also an accomplished musician, Levine is a concert clarinetist, jazz guitarist and pianist.


Kristina Marie Darling is the author of thirty-nine books, which include Stylistic Innovation, Conscious Experience, and the Self in Modernist Womens Poetry, available from Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group; Daylight Has Already Come:  Selected Poems 2014 – 2020, which was published by Black Lawrence Press; Silent Refusal:  Essays on Contemporary Feminist Writing, newly available from Black Ocean; Angel of the North, which is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry; and X Marks the Dress: A Registry (co-written with Carol Guess), which was just launched by Persea Books in the United States.  Penguin Random House Canada has also published a Canadian edition.  An expert consultant with the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and a twice-awarded Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Darling’s work has also been recognized with three residencies at Yaddo, where she has held the Martha Walsh Pulver Residency for a Poet and the Howard Moss Residency in Poetry; eight residencies at the American Academy in Rome, where she has also served as an ambassador for recruitment; grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and Harvard University’s Kittredge Fund; a Fundación Valparaíso fellowship to live and work in Spain; a Hawthornden Castle Fellowship, funded by the Heinz Foundation; an artist-in-residence position at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris; two grants from the Whiting Foundation; a Faber Residency in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities; an artist-in-residence position with the Andorran Ministry of Culture; an artist-in-residence position at the Florence School of Fine Arts; and an appointment at Scuola Internazionale de Grafica in Venice, among many other awards and honors.  She has taught at Yale University, the American University in Rome, the New School, and elsewhere.  Dr. Darling serves as Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press & Tupelo Quarterly.  Born and raised in the American Midwest, she now divides her time between the United States, Greece, and the Amalfi Coast.