Preparing your Manuscript for Publication: Revisited with Jules Nyquist & John Roche July 12, 2025
Preparing Your Poetry Manuscript for Publication
Instructors: Jules Nyquist & John Roche
Saturday, July 12, 2025
10 am - 3 pm
$85 (if you have taken the first workshop, please email jules@poetryplayhouse.com)
In-person at Jules’ Poetry Playhouse, Placitas, NM
Do you have a collection of poems that are waiting to be assembled into a poetry book? This class is a deep-dive workshop to work with your poems to assemble them into a book. It is a continuation of our January class with a focus on small group and instructor review. However, you do NOT have to take the first class to participate, and first-time students are especially WELCOME. This workshop is review-intensive.
Please bring your poetry manuscript. A minimum of 20 or so poems is reasonable to work with for a chapbook-sized book, and 50-80 poems for a full-length poetry book. Upon class registration, we will ask you to email a Word document of your manuscript (with all poems in one document, minimum 20 poems). Bring a printout of your manuscript to class. You will be assigned a half-hour meeting time with Jules OR John during class. Therefore, you need to register a minimum of a week in advance for the reading of your manuscript. Please note that this class is not a guarantee of publication. It is to help prepare your manuscript to send out to publishers. We will suggest publishers that we know of and general resources. Where you send your manuscript is up to you.
Organizing, sculpting, curating, composing, designing, arranging, mapping…any of these words could describe the process of organizing a poetry manuscript. There is an art to assembling a poetry book from a manuscript.
How do you know what to include and what to leave out?
How do you determine an effective order of poems to reflect what your poetry manuscript says to your readers?
What about the title page and the book title?
Class exercises will include writing a statement about the theme of your book, pairing up and selecting opening and closing poems from each other’s work, generating book title ideas, resources for getting ‘blurbs’ or write-ups from others for your manuscript, and one-to-one half-hour sessions with Jules or John during class. One-on-one sessions will alternate with small-group pairing-up sessions.
We will review a narrative arc, through-line, thematic sections, intuitive, logical, and best practices for placing strong and weak poems. In writing the book, the poet sets the relationship between the poems, the book, and the reader. This class will give ideas on what poems to cut and what to keep, and review the relationship of manuscript poems in order to attract your publisher and readers’ attention.
Sample class format:
First hour: writing statements about your book and instructions for reviewing your manuscript in class.
One-to-one sessions/pair-ups: Scheduled meetings with Jules OR John reviewing your manuscript for 20-25 minutes, alternating with pairing up with class students to review your manuscript, with class instructions provided. This is a small-size class to allow time for reading and review of poetry manuscripts.
Last hour: Sharing insights learned from preparing your manuscript, next steps forward.
Class will have a working lunch break on-site (bring a lunch and we will provide snacks and beverages).
Jules’ Poetry Playhouse is at 11 Homestead Lane, Placitas, NM. Directions will be sent upon registration. No refunds; however, you may apply the fee to another class or merchandise if you need to cancel.
Preparing Your Poetry Manuscript for Publication
Instructors: Jules Nyquist & John Roche
Saturday, July 12, 2025
10 am - 3 pm
$85 (if you have taken the first workshop, please email jules@poetryplayhouse.com)
In-person at Jules’ Poetry Playhouse, Placitas, NM
Do you have a collection of poems that are waiting to be assembled into a poetry book? This class is a deep-dive workshop to work with your poems to assemble them into a book. It is a continuation of our January class with a focus on small group and instructor review. However, you do NOT have to take the first class to participate, and first-time students are especially WELCOME. This workshop is review-intensive.
Please bring your poetry manuscript. A minimum of 20 or so poems is reasonable to work with for a chapbook-sized book, and 50-80 poems for a full-length poetry book. Upon class registration, we will ask you to email a Word document of your manuscript (with all poems in one document, minimum 20 poems). Bring a printout of your manuscript to class. You will be assigned a half-hour meeting time with Jules OR John during class. Therefore, you need to register a minimum of a week in advance for the reading of your manuscript. Please note that this class is not a guarantee of publication. It is to help prepare your manuscript to send out to publishers. We will suggest publishers that we know of and general resources. Where you send your manuscript is up to you.
Organizing, sculpting, curating, composing, designing, arranging, mapping…any of these words could describe the process of organizing a poetry manuscript. There is an art to assembling a poetry book from a manuscript.
How do you know what to include and what to leave out?
How do you determine an effective order of poems to reflect what your poetry manuscript says to your readers?
What about the title page and the book title?
Class exercises will include writing a statement about the theme of your book, pairing up and selecting opening and closing poems from each other’s work, generating book title ideas, resources for getting ‘blurbs’ or write-ups from others for your manuscript, and one-to-one half-hour sessions with Jules or John during class. One-on-one sessions will alternate with small-group pairing-up sessions.
We will review a narrative arc, through-line, thematic sections, intuitive, logical, and best practices for placing strong and weak poems. In writing the book, the poet sets the relationship between the poems, the book, and the reader. This class will give ideas on what poems to cut and what to keep, and review the relationship of manuscript poems in order to attract your publisher and readers’ attention.
Sample class format:
First hour: writing statements about your book and instructions for reviewing your manuscript in class.
One-to-one sessions/pair-ups: Scheduled meetings with Jules OR John reviewing your manuscript for 20-25 minutes, alternating with pairing up with class students to review your manuscript, with class instructions provided. This is a small-size class to allow time for reading and review of poetry manuscripts.
Last hour: Sharing insights learned from preparing your manuscript, next steps forward.
Class will have a working lunch break on-site (bring a lunch and we will provide snacks and beverages).
Jules’ Poetry Playhouse is at 11 Homestead Lane, Placitas, NM. Directions will be sent upon registration. No refunds; however, you may apply the fee to another class or merchandise if you need to cancel.
Preparing Your Poetry Manuscript for Publication
Instructors: Jules Nyquist & John Roche
Saturday, July 12, 2025
10 am - 3 pm
$85 (if you have taken the first workshop, please email jules@poetryplayhouse.com)
In-person at Jules’ Poetry Playhouse, Placitas, NM
Do you have a collection of poems that are waiting to be assembled into a poetry book? This class is a deep-dive workshop to work with your poems to assemble them into a book. It is a continuation of our January class with a focus on small group and instructor review. However, you do NOT have to take the first class to participate, and first-time students are especially WELCOME. This workshop is review-intensive.
Please bring your poetry manuscript. A minimum of 20 or so poems is reasonable to work with for a chapbook-sized book, and 50-80 poems for a full-length poetry book. Upon class registration, we will ask you to email a Word document of your manuscript (with all poems in one document, minimum 20 poems). Bring a printout of your manuscript to class. You will be assigned a half-hour meeting time with Jules OR John during class. Therefore, you need to register a minimum of a week in advance for the reading of your manuscript. Please note that this class is not a guarantee of publication. It is to help prepare your manuscript to send out to publishers. We will suggest publishers that we know of and general resources. Where you send your manuscript is up to you.
Organizing, sculpting, curating, composing, designing, arranging, mapping…any of these words could describe the process of organizing a poetry manuscript. There is an art to assembling a poetry book from a manuscript.
How do you know what to include and what to leave out?
How do you determine an effective order of poems to reflect what your poetry manuscript says to your readers?
What about the title page and the book title?
Class exercises will include writing a statement about the theme of your book, pairing up and selecting opening and closing poems from each other’s work, generating book title ideas, resources for getting ‘blurbs’ or write-ups from others for your manuscript, and one-to-one half-hour sessions with Jules or John during class. One-on-one sessions will alternate with small-group pairing-up sessions.
We will review a narrative arc, through-line, thematic sections, intuitive, logical, and best practices for placing strong and weak poems. In writing the book, the poet sets the relationship between the poems, the book, and the reader. This class will give ideas on what poems to cut and what to keep, and review the relationship of manuscript poems in order to attract your publisher and readers’ attention.
Sample class format:
First hour: writing statements about your book and instructions for reviewing your manuscript in class.
One-to-one sessions/pair-ups: Scheduled meetings with Jules OR John reviewing your manuscript for 20-25 minutes, alternating with pairing up with class students to review your manuscript, with class instructions provided. This is a small-size class to allow time for reading and review of poetry manuscripts.
Last hour: Sharing insights learned from preparing your manuscript, next steps forward.
Class will have a working lunch break on-site (bring a lunch and we will provide snacks and beverages).
Jules’ Poetry Playhouse is at 11 Homestead Lane, Placitas, NM. Directions will be sent upon registration. No refunds; however, you may apply the fee to another class or merchandise if you need to cancel.
Jules Nyquist, Ph.D. is the founder of Jules’ Poetry Playhouse in Placitas, NM. Her recent award-winning books are Atomic Paradise, Homesick, then, and The Sestina Playbook (Poetry Playhouse Publications). She took her MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College and her Ph.D. in Post-Secondary Adult Education from Capella University. Her dissertation focused on using poetic inquiry to manage stress for adult poetry instructors. Her poems have appeared in Taos Journal of Poetry, Salamander, 5AM, Malpais Review, Adobe Walls, A View from the Loft, St. Paul Almanac, Long Islander News, Gray Sparrow, House Organ, Duke City Fix, Café Review,Open-Hearted Horizon: An Albuquerque Poetry Anthology, IKON Magazine, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, and elsewhere. She is co-editor of the Poets Speak Anthology series co-published by Poetry Playhouse Publications and Beatlick Press. Two of the volumes have been finalists in the NM/AZ 2017 Book Awards: Trumped (vol. 1) and Hers (vol. 2). She taught poetry for the NM State Poetry Society and UNM Writer’s Conference and continues teaching at Jules’ Poetry Playhouse.
John Roche, Ph.D. is the founding editor of the Poets Speak Anthology series, co-published by Beatlick Press and Poetry Playhouse Publications. Two volumes have been finalists in the NM/AZ 2017 Book Awards: Trumped (vol. 1) and Hers (vol. 2). He is the author of several volumes of poetry, including the award-winning Tubbables (Poetry Playhouse Publications and finalist in the NM-AZ Book Awards), Road Ghosts (Theenk Books), The Joe Poems and Joe Rides Again (FootHIlls Publishing), as well as the editor of Mo’ Joe: The Anthology (Beatlick Press) which was a NM/AZ Book Award and Pushcart Prize finalist. John earned his Ph.D. in English at SUNY/Buffalo and an MA in Anglo-Irish Studies at University College Dublin. John taught Literature and Creative Writing for four decades at various colleges, retiring from Rochester Institute of Technology. His poems have appeared in Malpais Review, Adobe Walls, House Organ, Napalm Health Spa, Gray Sparrow, Interim, Big Bridge, Redactions, Rootdrinker, and many other journals.
