Finishing Your Poetry Manuscript: Theme, Revision, & Marketing
Judith assists authors with in-depth revision to create a manuscript that is more than the sum of its parts. She has provided this service to authors who subsequently published their books. To query, please email Judith at jskillman54@gmail.com with a ten page sample of your work (ten pages may include up to ten poems). Please include a brief bio, your goals and expectations, and a working title for your collection.
Manuscript Consulting Service
Before participating in a manuscript consultation with Judith, let her know what kind of feed back you’re interested in. Often a re-organization of poems in the manuscript is desirable, so that the theme of the collection becomes stronger and more accessible to potential readers. You may also want comments on individual poems, suggestions for part breaks and overall organization, and/or advice on how to winnow your manuscript down. The service is designed to meet your individual needs.
What distinguishes Judith’s manuscript service is her passion for writing and critiquing poetry, her knowledge of how to put together a successful book of poems, and twenty-five years of teaching experience in the field of humanities. In addition, Skillman knows the “poebiz,” and can give marketing advice and recommend specific markets for an extra fee. This service is optional. If you elect to receive it, a marketing plan will be tailored for your work. No guarantees for publication accompany this aspect of the manuscript service.
Payment is broken into one half when you send in your manuscript, and the other half when you are fully satisfied with overall comments and suggestions for revision, line by line edits on individual poems, and after have had a private consultation by phone or in-person. A full-length manuscript review is $700; a chapbook length mss review is $350. The fee includes an essay on the work’s strengths, areas for improvement, and other requested feedback. Logistics are negotiable—you may send a word.doc or a hard copy.
Here are a few endorsements:
“Thank you so much! It is exactly what I needed and more than I could hope for. Your ordering, sections, and themes make so much sense to me, and I also feel like they change the manuscript to reflect more what I wanted to emphasize and come through for the reader. I got very excited reading through it!” — Marilyn Moody, Flat Land
*Marjorie Power’s book Seven Parts Woman was published by WordTech Communications in 2016. Here is what she said after reading Judith’s overall comments:
“The mss. is here. I read the stuff you typed up and put at the beginning, and feel very excited. It’s as if a big wind has blown through the poems and the sky is showing through in new ways. I haven’t looked at anything more yet because that was enough to take in at one time. I am thankful and relieved you have such a positive take on this mss."
Bonny Sander’s manuscript October House was published by WordTech Communications, under their Cherry Grove imprint, in 2016:
“The proposed re-arrangement was done so skillfully and tactfully. In critiquing individual poems, the suggestions to cut certain ones to avoid diluting the strength of the whole and to avoid unnecessary repetition was right on. In addition, your suggestions to strengthen certain poems by compacting them (i.e. to delete introductory lines and place the reader in the middle of the action) helped many pieces. I am relieved you find my work to be strong, and I’m grateful for your kind, positive, and supportive manner. I knew I needed an insightful editor and that’s what I got! Many thanks for your help."
Manuscript clients whose books have been published include:
In her posthumous collection, Marilyn Moody’s Gothic sensibility delivers mystery as it brings the reader into a complex and dangerous Midwestern landscape. Unique to this work is the way the author treats the child’s point of view. Flat Land is a construct of harsh landscapes and seasons, in which the trauma of the family looms despite its numerous caregivers: mother, father, siblings, friends, uncles, and aunts. Filled with organic imagery—mourning doves, quail, corn fields, lady bugs, wind, and snow—the world of these poems holds a child at the mercy of forces greater than herself: “I smell the sweet tobacco from where I sit alone on the old swing set.” (Red Metal Lawn Chairs). Ultimately, Flat Land asks the reader to redefine the meaning of home long after she’s left it.
--Judith Skillman
Julia McConnell was one of my students in The Sequence, a 2021 online course offered by Hugo House. She won the 2022 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize, Michigan State University.
Congratulations, Julia!
https://poetry.rcah.msu.edu/news/mcconnell-wins-2022wbp.html
Sigrun Susan Lane - Salt - Goldfish Press - 2020
Winner of the Penn Oakland Josephine Miles Award, 2020
Bonny Barry Sanders: October House - Cherry Grove, 2015
Marjorie Power: Seven Parts Woman - Wordtech Communications, 2016
Joannie Stangeland: In Both Hands, Ravenna Press
Barbara's Thomas: Quiescence-- Inkwater Press, 2015
Larry Matsuda: A Cold Wind from Idaho, University of Washington Northwest Writer's Series
Carol White Kelly: Out of Deep, Unordered Water, Third Place Books, 2015
Christianne Balk: The Holding Hours - University of Washington Northwest Writers series, 2016
Sharon Scholl: Summer's Child -- Finishing Line Press, 2015
Kurt Olsson: Burning Down Disneyland--Winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize; 2017
Lynn Knapp: Giving Ground - The Poetry Box, 2017
Susan Morse's first chapbook, In the Hush, published by Finishing Line Press and is available. The author currently lives in the Willamette Valley, having recently moved from Maine. The poems in this chapbook explore family relationships
The Hinterlands by Stanley Niamatali, 2014, is in four sections:
Lightwood poems introduce a vision of romance and the lost romantic period in contemporary culture.
The Pomegranate are poems revolving around Persephone, women, girls, issues spawned by maltreatment, the element of Hades as hell on earth for women, gender issues, and daughterhood.
Sleeping Dog shows the 'dog' in man though his stubborn doggedness of dark and sometimes evil actions.
Shadow Limbs" addresses exile through expatriated characters, victims, witness of violence and displacement and the earth as a fallen place.
Judith Skillman’s class helped transform my stack of poems into a cohesive manuscript. Judith taught me how to identify themes, obsessions, and reoccurring images in my writing. I learned how to organize these elements into a kind of a symphony – creating movements and motifs, how to harmonize voices and use dissonance in the sequencing of the poems. Throughout the class, Judith provided thoughtful, helpful feedback, both on the manuscript’s strengths and where it needed work. I felt she was invested in my success, and she gave me the confidence to finish the project. I highly recommend Judith’s class to anyone working on a poetry manuscript.
– Julia McConnell, author Landlocked, Michigan State University Press 2023
Winner of the 2022 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize
Please contact jskillman54@gmail.com with a word.doc containing ten pages from your current manuscript.