Your cover letter should describe your background and your reasons for wishing to attend the workshop. Please include your name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.

If you are accepted to the workshop, the manuscript you submit will be the manuscript that your instructors and classmates critique.  You will not be allowed to substitute a different work for critique.  Submit work that you are proud of and that you are prepared to receive constructive criticism about.  Your manuscript should not currently be on submission to a professional publisher.

Your manuscript may consist of one or two short stories, a novelette, or a novel portion with a synopsis.  The total length of your manuscript, including any synopsis, should be no more than 8,000 words, although it may be shorter if it serves the purpose.

For a novel, submit entire chapters, starting with the first chapter.  Count the words in the synopsis, the words in Chapter One, the words in Chapter Two, etc., until you get to the limit of 8,000 words.  If you find that the end of a chapter falls just a bit over the word limit, please send us the complete chapter — don’t leave us hanging! But only a bit: if you are more than 500 words over the limit, please trim your material.

The synopsis is typically between 250 and 750 words. It is a concise present-tense telling of the events in the entire novel, including what happens in the chapters you submit.  It shows the general shape of the whole plot, so that the instructors can compare what you want the novel to be with what you’ve put in the chapters.  Don’t separate the events in the synopsis into chapters.  Don’t use Roman numerals, or points and sub-points.

Your manuscript should follow these formatting instructions:

• Save your electronic manuscript as a .docx (MS Word format) file. Do not use .txt, .rtf, .pdf, or anything else – we will not be able to open your file.
• Name your file with the surname from your byline followed by a keyword from your story’s title. Dragons Over Detroit by Bugs Bunny might be saved as bunny_dragons.docx. (Calling your submission “submission.docx” is right out.) Use the same name and keyword that are in the header of your document.
• Type your manuscript in a 12-point serif font, preferably Times New Roman.
• Double-space your manuscript, with approximately 1” margins.
• On the first page of each piece of fiction:
  • In the upper left corner of the first page of each piece of fiction, put your name as you wish to be known during the workshop and if you wish, your email. Do not include your address or phone number. Please be sure to use the name you wish to be known by during the workshop. Staff need your legal name for administrative/emergency use; if you wish to use some other name during the workshop, put that name on your submission. Include your email address here if you want to share it with your classmates.
  • Put an approximate word count in the upper right corner of the first page, e.g. “1,250 words“.
  • The title should be centered about a third of the way down the first page, with your byline two lines below the title. Your byline should be the name you publish or plan to publish under, which may or may not be the same as your legal name or your chosen name.
• On each subsequent page, in the upper right corner, put the surname from your byline, an identifiable keyword from the title, and the page number (e.g. “SMITH / MY STORY / 2“)
• Don’t skip lines between paragraphs. Indent the start of each paragraph using your word processor’s ruler or paragraph formatting.
• If submitting a novel, use one file for the chapters you submit and a separate file for your synopsis. Put the novel title and your byline at the top of your synopsis, but the extra space is not necessary. Use the same font, margins, and double-spacing.
• If submitting more than one short story, use a separate file for each story.

When in doubt, please use the sample formatting available here as a guide, and note the comments included which explain what we are looking for.

The application fee changes based on when in the application period your application is submitted:

• For applications submitted from January 1 to January 31: $12.50 (USD).
• For applications submitted from February 1 to February 28: $25 (USD).
• For applications submitted from March 1 to March 31: $35 (USD).
• For applications submitted from April 1 to April 30: $50 (USD).
• For applications submitted from May 1 to May 15: $65 (USD).

The application fee is non-refundable and is separate from the tuition cost for applicants accepted to the workshop.

For those applicants we accept as students, the non-refundable tuition cost is $2450 (USD) and is due on August 1st.  The acceptance letter will include instructions about how to submit your tuition payment.  At our discretion, acceptances may be revoked if the tuition is not received by August 1st.

Your tuition payment includes the cost of course materials and two communal meals each day of the workshop, Sunday through Friday.  We are experienced in accommodating mild food allergies and dietary restrictions — just ask our alumni! — but if your allergies or dietary restrictions are severe, you may need to make your own arrangements.  We will ask about your food allergies and dietary restrictions after your acceptance.

Your tuition payment does not include the cost of lodging (see below), travel to and from the island of Martha’s Vineyard, or food for meals other than the two communal meals each day.  If you have questions, please contact us.

The science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres derive their strength from the full community of writers who tell their stories. The faculty and alumni of the Viable Paradise workshop believe that diverse voices need to be heard, and there are stories, styles of storytelling, and points of view the field has yet to fully promote. We want to help see that change and are proud to put our conviction into practice by offering the Viable Paradise Writers-of-Color Scholarship.

A writer of color who applies to attend Viable Paradise can apply for the Writers-of-Color Scholarship at the same time just by checking one box on the application. The readers who assess applications will not be given this information during the selection process.

Once the readers have decided whom to accept for the workshop, our application system will randomly select two scholarship winners from among those applicants who were accepted to the workshop and who also applied for the Writers-of-Color Scholarship. We will notify these applicants of their scholarship award when we notify them of their acceptance, their tuition bill will be reduced by half, and the workshop will sponsor their travel to and from Martha’s Vineyard.

For more information, please read about the Writers-of-Color Scholarship Fund.

Students typically make arrangements to share rooms on the VP Student Slack Group.

If accepted, you will need to make your reservation by telephone with Vacasa, the organization which handles all bookings at the Island Inn. When making your reservation, you will need to let Vacasa know that you are a guest of the Viable Paradise workshop, and to provide their booking team with a group code that you will be provided with after acceptance.

If there are any problems let us know; we can help work things out.

We follow Covid protocols to help keep our students, faculty, and staff safe in an intensive environment. These protocols may be updated in response to changing conditions. Please click here to familiarize yourself with our Covid protocols.