MASTER CLASS: Finding Your People: Community, Craft, and the Business of Books: How the Black List is supporting Fiction Writers
The Black List is a renowned platform dedicated to nurturing written storytelling and empowering writers to maximize their professional potential. First established in 2005 as an annual survey of Hollywood’s most-liked unproduced screenplays, the Black List has since grown into a comprehensive resource for the creative industries, serving tens of thousands of writers, agents, managers, showrunners, producers, financiers, directors, actors, theater directors, and book editors. Our virtual marketplace, blcklst.com, caters to the film, television, theater, and book publishing industries. Writers can also benefit from high-quality, transparent, and accountable feedback for a fee, with a fast turnaround time from our experienced and vetted readers.
Randy Winston is an artist, curator, and literary amplifier from Atlanta, Georgia. Currently the Creative Director of Fiction at The Black List, he hosts and executive produces the podcast Read the Acknowledgments. Winston is the former Director of Writing Programs at The Center for Fiction. Winston previously served as Fiction Editor of Slice Literary Magazine and has over a decade of experience as an executive admin in higher education. A 2016 graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing (Fiction) at The New School, he’s appeared in Variety, The L.A. Times, Deadline, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Poets & Writers, and WIRED, among others. His interviews in print, online, and on stage have included New York Times best-selling authors, National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and Booker Prize honorees, as well as National Book Critics Circle recipients, and Hugo Award nominees, among others. Winston is currently at work on his first novel. A former Orion Magazine trustee, he serves on the WriteOn NYC board and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
As you may or may not know, The Black List expanded to fiction in September 2024. Since 2005, the site has served screenwriters and the entertainment industry with a platform to provide critical feedback on works in progress and an annual showcase of the best unproduced screenplays (many of which have gone on to critical and commercial success).
Join Creative Director of Fiction Randy Winston, who will discuss traditional and nontraditional entry points to publishing, why studying the industry is essential to building a sustainable career, and resources writers can gather on the business of publishing education journey. Randy will also explain The Black List’s new tools, writing programs, and resources for fiction writers, as well as how the platform could help you strengthen your work for better visibility. The site offers free profiles for writers to list their published and unpublished works, as well as paid options, for fiction writers with full-length manuscripts (novels) – to make their project available to industry professionals or purchase feedback from fiction readers with book publishing industry experience.
As part of The Black List’s expansion into Fiction, the platform has collaborated with established and emerging stakeholders in the creative writing and book publishing industry, as well as industries adjacent:
LeVar Burton, Jennifer Baker, Roxane Gay, Eric Simonoff, Mollie Glick among others for the 2025 Unpublished Novel Award, Jason Reynolds, Julia Phillips, Michael La Ronn, for the Spotify x JED Impact Award; Read the Acknowledgments which includes episodes with Zakiya Dalila Harris, Yahdon Israel, Nicole Dennis Benn, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Stephanie Delman, Ali Hanna Habib, Robert Jones Jr., Mateo Askaripour, Denne Michele Norris, among others; sponsored programs with Chiwoniso Kaitano and D. Watkins for AWP Writers Conference; webinars with the Authors Guild; and conversations with Book Riot, The Sh*t No One Tells You About Writing, Bookum Nook Show, among many other media platforms.
Website:
https://blcklst.com/
