Minna Zallman Proctor is the author of the memoirs Landslide: True Stories and Do You Hear What I Hear? My Father, the Priesthood, and Religious Calling and co-author of Bethany Beardslee’s autobiography, I Sang The Unsingable: My Life in 20th Century Music. She is an acclaimed translator from Italian, including the recently published The Leucothea Dialogues by Cesare Pavese as well as Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg and These Possible Lives by Fleur Jaeggy,. Her short stories, lyrical essays, and writing about art and literature have appeared in Conjunctions, Bookforum, Aperture, The Nation, and American Scholar, among other publications. She taught creative writing at the graduate and undergraduate level at Fairleigh Dickinson University for many years, where she was Editor of the now-defunct The Literary Review and then Director of the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing. She was Editor and Co-Founder of the local lifestyle magazine yogacitynyc.com and worked for many years in magazines—including COLORS, BOMB, LUCKY, and GOOD—where she developed her skills in design, branding, and communications strategy. She is working on a collection of short stories and a multimedia book about how to write.
Coaching
& Teaching
Author, translator, and editor, Minna Zallman Proctor has been working closely with writers and visual artists across genres for over twenty years to develop, strategize, revise, and refine their creative projects. She meets creatives where they are in their work, approach, and vision—helping to align all three. As a veteran professor of creative writing, she’s attuned to different processes and modes of creativity. She believes that making art and literature is hard and exhilarating work, but should never be painful or boring.
Manuscript Reading & Evaluation
$500
For manuscript reading and evaluation. Up to 500 manuscript pages (approximately 100,000 words) and 2-hour conference. Fiction, memoir & personal essay, poetry collections.
- A status check on your work in progress to address matters like:
- I’m stuck…
- Is this done?
- I know this isn’t done but I don’t know how to fix it…
- Will this ever get published?
- Is this any good?
- Am I any good?
- Have I let my story get away from me?
- I don’t know what to do next?
- Do I really need to add more physical description?
- I’m no good at dialogue…
- What’s “story”?
- How do I vanquish writers block?
- My book might be boring me? Or maybe it’s fear of failure…
- If I throw my book off the balcony in the middle of a windstorm will it get sucked up into the atmosphere, picking up so much centripetal acceleration that it will eventually get spit out into space and then hurtle toward the sun and certain incineration?
- So I’m not sure whether I should backing up into the cloud.
- Can be broken into two sessions within a 4-week timeline.
- Does not include an editorial letter or in-line edits.
- If I don’t think I’m a good match for your project, I will tell you before we get underway.
- If I do think I’m good match, my goal will be to encourage you and help keep your project moving (somehow or in some form) in the best, most productive direction.
Reading & Evaluation: Short Form, partial manuscripts, proposals
$250
Reading (up to 20,000 words) & 2-hour conference. Same parameters as the full manuscript consultation, but you’re working with a shorter draft.
Project & Story Development / Brainstorming
$175 / hour
Get a sounding board. Talk through your project. Find your story. Develop and consider possible approaches. Understand and plot next steps. This is a good option if, for example, you’re at the very beginning of a project and you’re trying to understand what it is. You’ve got a disparate collection of work and you’re trying to shape it into a single collection. You’ve got a project but need to develop its story. You want to talk through plot and character. You’re developing a pitch, proposal, or artists statement. You’ve got a story but don’t know how to tell it. You think you want to write a book.
Book/Manuscript Coaching
$1000 / 4-meeting series
Work with me over a set time period. We will:
- Map out a work plan and schedule
- Discuss and review revisions
- Study craft as it applies to your work in progress
- Develop your story, approach, characters
- Build an accountability structure that will help you meet your goals
- Center your artistry, work process, and passion for the project
Wordsmithing: Line Editing & Rewriting
$175 / hour
Line editing means that I will provide you with detailed in-line notes on your manuscript. Rewriting means that I will take your copy and make it better. The goal will be clear, effective communication or expression. Note: This is not copyediting or proofreading. I will comment on grammar and syntax, but I am not checking punctuation or spelling, or finalizing your manuscript for submission or publication.
Literary Translation, Ghost Writing, Copywriting
Contact me
Projects take on all different shapes and have different needs. Be in touch so we can discuss yours.
Book Design
Cover, Typesetting, Ebook
- Cover $500
- Typesetting, print or digital – project dependent
Logo
$500
Author / Artist Website
Range: $1,000 – 1,500 depending on complexity
Contact me
Projects take on all different shapes and have different needs. Be in touch so we can discuss yours.