A monthly series of masterclasses for nonfiction authors who are writing books to grow their businesses.
Every one is free to attend live, and all registrants will get access to the full replay for 72 hours. (After 72 hours, replays will be available to members of the Story Rebel Club.)
Here’s what’s coming next.
People As Story: Presenting Real Lives In Media
With Amanda Pisetzner of Documentary Intelligence™
October 13, 2026 at 9am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.
Documentary Intelligence™ is a way of listening, interviewing, and being.
Amanda is a documentary filmmaker who now teaches people to use documentary methods to better tell their stories. Her documentary intelligence approach is incredibly valuable to anyone who is using storytelling in their nonfiction books.
Drawn from the documentary filmmaker’s skillset, Documentary Intelligence™ lets you meet people without extracting from them, so that something neither of you could have reached alone gets generated between you.
With or without a camera.
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Weaving Narrative and Research in Nonfiction
With Leah Sottile
October 20, 2026 at 11am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.
Leah Sottile is the author of two books: Blazing Eye Sees All, which won the 2026 Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction, and When the Moon Turns to Blood, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Both books are fabulous examples of a “weaving” nonfiction structure, where she follows a true story while weaving research and context around the plot.
We’ll be talking about how she constructed her books, as well as how she conducts research in general.
Because as well as being an author, Leah is also a podcast host (Hush, Burn Wild, Two Minutes Past Nine, and Bundyville) and a journalist who’s been published by The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Outside, the BBC, The Atlantic and High Country News, where she is an editor and correspondent.
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Getting Found in AI Search
With Meg Casebolt
November 18, 2026 at 9am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.
Traditional SEO taught us to chase traffic: rank higher, publish more, compete harder. But when getting found (and recommended) by AI is becoming a bigger and bigger part of discoverability, authors need to update their strategy.
Fortunately, we have Meg Casebolt to tell us how.
Come ready to take tons of notes!
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Fast Drafting Your Memoir
With Rachael Herron
Dec 9, 2026 at 4pm PST. Q&A Style Interview
If you don’t know Rachael Herron, you are in for a treat!
Rachael is the author of Fast Draft Your Memoir, where she teaches people to quickly get to the heart of their own stories. This will be a purely Q&A-style interview where I would highly encourage the audience to come with questions about their own stories for Rachael to answer.
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Past Masterclasses:
Clone Your Voice to Narrate Your Audio
With Phil Marshall of Spoken
Want your audiobook in your own voice—without spending days in a recording booth?
Join Phil Marshall from Spoken, the platform that lets authors clone their voice and produce audiobooks that sound remarkably like the real thing. Phil will give you a live, hands-on demo of how Spoken works, then dig into why audio has become essential for authors—and why narrating in your voice makes all the difference.
You’ll learn:
- How voice cloning actually works, and what it takes to get a clean, natural-sounding result
- A step-by-step walkthrough of producing an audiobook in Spoken
- Why audio is one of the biggest untapped opportunities for authors right now
- What having an audiobook in your own voice does for reader connection, discoverability, and reach
Whether you’ve been putting off audio because of cost, time, or the intimidation factor, you’ll leave knowing exactly how to get your book into listeners’ ears—sounding like you.
July 15: Co-Writing Books
With Matty Dalrymple and Michael La Ronn
July 15, 2026 at 9am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.
Thinking about co-writing a book—or already in the thick of one and wondering if there’s a better way to do it?
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the process with veteran co-authors Matty Dalrymple and Michael La Ronn. They’ll walk you through exactly how they collaborate, from first idea to finished book, including:
- The project management systems and tools that keep them on track
- How they divide the work (and what to do when the split isn’t even)
- The legal and contract basics every co-author should nail down up front
- Pitfalls to watch for before they derail your project
- How to protect the working relationship through deadlines, disagreements, and revisions
Whether you’re co-writing with a long-time collaborator or teaming up for the first time, you’ll leave with a practical roadmap for making the partnership work.
