Unignorable: A Live Query Workshop for Stories That Break the Mold

You don’t need to strip your story of its soul or sell out to get agent interest. You need a query that makes people feel something. Unignorable is a live workshop for writers with bold, voicey, emotionally rich stories (and the pitch letters that often don’t fit into an easy formula).

If you’ve ever been told your book is too weird, too quiet, too much, or too hard to sell, this is for you.

You're not imagining it—querying in 2026 comes with more pressure, more sameness, and more silence than ever.

Publishing is capitalism all the way down

Publishing lives at the intersection of art and commerce. Writing a query asks you to step into the world of sales to learn how to present it so the right people can actually find it.

This shift asks you to look at your work through a new lens: the lens of a stranger who genuinely wants to fall in love with what you’ve made.

Learning how to talk about your book in a way that keeps the vulnerable, beating heart intact while giving your story enough structure to survive in a system that wasn’t built for nuance is a skill that makes your story more legible to the people who can champion it.

Your book deserves to be unignorable.

What You’re Up Against (And What We’ll Tackle)

✦ Trend Fatigue: We’ll explore how to position your book when it’s not a trope-machine (and how to stop pretending it is).

✦ Genre-bending and Category-defying Stories: We’ll show you how to pitch stories that live in the margin (and why it’s not a liability).

✦ The Pressure to Perform Identity: We’ll talk about writing queries that honor your identity (without turning your voice into a marketing angle).

WELCOME TO THE WINTER QUERY CLINIC

THE WORKSHOP

A live masterclass where you’ll learn exactly what makes a query work, why agents stop reading, and how to shape your story into something unignorable.

WHEN: JANUARY 16 @ 3PM PACIFIC

THE REVISION

A week to upload your query, gather early impressions from the group, and shape a stronger draft before we meet for critique.


UPLOAD YOUR QUERY BY JANUARY 23.

THE CRITIQUE

A 2-hour small-group session where you’ll receive a guaranteed live critique of your query and walk away with a submission-ready draft.

WHEN: JANUARY 25 @ 11AM PACIFIC.

NOTE: THE REVISION & LIVE CRITIQUE EXPERIENCE IS LIMITED TO 10 WRITERS.

A live masterclass where you’ll learn exactly what makes a query work, why agents stop reading, and how to shape your story into something unignorable.

The Workshop

Historic Gothic-style church with arched windows and a small garden courtyard with a fountain, plants, and cobblestone pathways.

In this workshop, we’ll unpack:

✦ The 3 things your query must prove, and how to do it without selling out
✦ How to pitch a story that doesn’t follow genre or trend conventions
✦ Why agents stop reading, and how to make them keep going
✦ How to clarify tone and emotional stakes so your story lands
✦ How to revise your query using voice, tension, and truth
✦ What “unignorable” really means, and how to get there

What This Includes:

  • 90-minute Zoom workshop

  • Honest Q&A space where no question is too small

  • Replay access

When:

  • Friday, January 16 at 3pm pacific / 6pm eastern

A dedicated week to upload your query and shape a stronger draft using the tools from the workshop.

The Revision

During this week, you’ll focus on:

✦ Reworking your query with what you learned in the workshop
✦ Clarifying what’s landing and what still needs work
✦ Sharing your query for early group feedback before the live critique session
✦ Offering supportive, constructive notes on others’ queries

What This Includes:

  • A revision window between sessions

  • Optional space to share your draft and receive feedback

When:

  • Upload your initial query draft between January 16 and January 22

  • Provide feedback by January 23

A 2-hour group session where you’ll receive a guaranteed live critique of your query.

The Critique

In this session, we’ll critique:

✦ How your query reads through an agent’s eyes
✦ What to strengthen, clarify, or cut to improve flow
✦ Which details anchor your story’s emotional truth
✦ How to sharpen voice, stakes and specificity
✦ What final tweaks will help your query stand out in a crowded inbox

What This Includes:

  • 2-hour Zoom critique

    • We’ll spend roughly ten minutes on each query so everyone receives clear, actionable feedback and has time for questions.

  • Guaranteed professional feedback on your query

    • I’ll read your query before the session and share my prepared critique live on screen.

  • Replay access

When:

  • Sunday, January 25 at 12pm pacific / 3pm eastern

Ready to make your query unignorable?

Grab your spot below, then show up with your weird, voicey, beautiful book.

Winter Query Clinic Winter Query Clinic
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Winter Query Clinic
$150.00

10 spots available

Only need the workshop?

You are welcome to join us without enrolling in the full clinic. The worksop is available a la carte at a pay-what-you-can price because I believe that knowledge should not be gatekept behind a price point.

3% Cover the Fee
Tiffany Grimes, book coach and developmental editor

Meet your host

Hi, I’m Tiffany Grimes

Pronouns: she/they

I help writers shape emotionally resonant, genre-bending stories that actually connect—with agents, with readers, and most importantly, with themselves.

I’ve coached hundreds of writers through the query trenches, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s this: the best stories don’t always play by the rules. That’s why Unignorable exists. I created this space for the weird, voicey, hard-to-pin-down books that deserve a damn good shot.

You don’t need to contort your story to fit a trend. You just need to tell the truth of it. Let’s get you there.

Writing Coach for Authors

Querying is brutal

You second-guess every word, wonder if your book even makes sense anymore, and start to believe the silence means something about you.

This workshop won’t fix the industry. But it will give you clarity, momentum, and language that feels like you.

Join us live. Get what you need. Let’s make your query unignorable.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • You’ll get the most out of this if you can be there in real time, especially for the critique session.

    That said, life happens. The workshop and critique sessions will be recorded, and all registrants will receive the replay. If you can’t make it live, you can still participate fully in the revision week and watch the critiques afterward. As long as you submit your query, your query will still be critiqued live.

  • Writing your query early is one of the fastest ways to understand your book. A query forces you to clarify stakes, define your character’s arc, and name the emotional engine that drives the story.

    All of this feeds directly into revisions. Many writers use their query as a compass while revising because it shows them the story’s strengths, where it sags, and what the book is actually promising. If you’re still revising, the clinic can give you a level of clarity that saves you months of work.

  • Memoir and all genres of fiction! These categories require query letters when submitting to agents, and the clinic is designed with that process in mind.

    We won’t be covering nonfiction proposals since their submission path works differently, but anything rooted in narrative fiction or memoir is a great fit.

  • That’s exactly the type of project I had in mind when I created this clinic!

    Your query is where you translate the shape and heartbeat of your book into something an agent can understand, and that work tends to be even more crucial for nontraditional narratives.

  • If there are still spots left, sure! But we have a limited number of spots available for the revision and live critique portions of the clinic.