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Margaret Telsch-Williams

About Margaret

@mtelschwilliams

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Raised in the mountains of Virginia, Margaret cut her teeth on literary works during undergrad, but sometime in graduate school fell in love with sci-fiction and fantasy, particularly from diverse writers and about diverse locations. She's not afraid to comment when a story seems 'whitewashed' or predictable, or give kudos when the writing is top notch.  

About Sid

Sidney T. Blake

@sidneytblake

 

With a Masters and Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice, Sid loves action/suspense books and movies, which her critique partners remark make her good with critiquing a story's pace. While suspense is her favorite genre, she loves reading everything  from romance to historical fiction, and values why the author is driven to tell the story.  

About  Us

Together Sid and Margaret have been critique partners for over a decade and actually found each other in the same online professional writing group they're still in today.

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Between the two of them they have:

  • Read slush piles for and judged more twitter writing contests than they can count.

  • Participated as judges for larger, more mainstream contests. Most recently for the Speculative Literature Foundation's Diversity Grant and the RWA Daphne du Maurier Contest.

  • Amassed a wealth of knowledge about the hunt for literary agents and the publishing industry, teaching us how to improve a limping query letter or a fat five-page synopsis.

  • Critiqued every type of story imaginable from time traveling vampires and vengeance-seeking DEA agents, to grouchy warlocks and beach reads which suck you in from the first whiff of murder. 

  • Eagerly worked with novice writers who know little about storytelling or grammar but have a great idea, all the way to traditionally published authors who want to keep their ax sharp in finding plot holes and typos.

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They're known for and you can expect:

  • Honest feedback about the positives and negatives of your important work.

  • A respectful atmosphere in all communications. Writing is hard enough, there's no need to tear anyone down.

  • Encouragement to make changes, refresh characters, rewrite scenes, and polish your work the best you can. 

  • Professional and realistic conversations about your work, your goals, your level of determination in the industry.

  • Support. Even after running your work through the Two Step Approach, the relationship doesn't end there. We want to know when you're shopping for agents and/or when you've decided to enter that nerve-wracking Twitter contest because we want to cheer you on and, more importantly, congratulate you on your successes!

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