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Novel Writing Workshop

Write a Novel in One Year

The Honors College Novel Writing Workshop, led by Michael Gills, is a yearlong course in which a small cohort of students each develops and completes their own original novel.

Each student works toward a full manuscript of approximately 300 pages by the end of the academic year. Through daily writing, weekly workshops, and sustained peer feedback, students move from first idea to finished draft while supporting each other and developing the discipline and creative confidence required to complete a major literary project.

Who Should Apply
This course is ideal for students who:
  • Have an idea for a novel they want to pursue
  • Are willing to commit to daily writing
  • Want rigorous feedback from peers
  • Thrive in a small, highly collaborative creative community
Students often say the workshop is the most fulfilling experience of their undergraduate education.
Rise and Write
A hallmark of the workshop is its commitment to creative discipline. Students begin their writing sessions early in the morning, harnessing the creative state between dreaming and waking. By focusing on consistent daily progress rather than perfection, students learn to sustain momentum across a long-form creative project, resulting in every student in the workshop producing a complete novel manuscript by the end of the year.
The Daily Commitment

  • Wake early (4:30 AM)
  • Write two pages per day
  • Five days a week
  • Workshop your pages with the cohort each Friday

How to Apply

The Novel Writing Workshop is a selective, year-long Honors course designed for students who are serious about completing a novel.

Ready to tell your story? Email Michael Gills with:

  1. Novel Proposal: a short description of the story you want to write.
  2. Short Bio: a brief paragraph introducing yourself and your interest in writing.

Selected applicants will be invited to interview.

 

Gain Real Experience in the Literary World

Students in the workshop have:

  • published novels by national presses, including
  • published work in national literary journals
  • won the Alison Reagan Library Thesis Award
  • presented work and won awards at national conferences

 

 

 

Michael Gills

Professor (Lecturer)

A first-generation college student from Arkansas, I joined Honors as core writing faculty in 2006.  My student writers publish novels and creative and scholarly work in national venues and have a high completion rate for the honors thesis.  I currently mentor Honors’ 2023 Undergraduate Research Scholar of the Year, whose novel/honors thesis, Lady of the House, is forthcoming from Madville Publishing in spring 2025.  My undergraduate Novel Writing Workshop has been featured in USA Today, and novelists present at conferences in Portland, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and elsewhere.  I am grateful to my students who’ve made possible recognition including a Distinguished Honors Professor Award and Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year.

I teach writing as a process, an act, as opposed to a thing.  That our rough drafts are fecund sites where vitality thrives, and out of such good things grow.  Perfection is paralysis.  Writing is an avenue of inquiry, a portal to discovery.  “What stands in the way becomes the way.”  We sit in a circle.  I am only one of the circle.  All this is strange for student writers. After that first class, I can see it in their eyes–that holy not knowing. This is why I teach writing, why I’ve stayed in the classroom these thirty-five years. Because the first day passes, the first week, and there is always–always–that fine moment when fire flies and the student writer makes the leap of faith onto the tightrope, no net below.  Such moments are transformative, and the payoffs are profound because the writer now possesses a vehicle that ushers them full-throttle toward revelation and innovation and truths that the world so needs now at this most perilous moment for our species. And that is important.