Recommendation: Emily Golden and Rachel May
The tremendous generosity of the Golden May email newsletter and the Story Magic podcast
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Of all the email newsletters I receive and podcasts that I enjoy on the craft of writing fiction, one of the most generous streams of useful but well-presented material comes from Emily Golden and Rachel May, whose business partnership is known as Golden May Editing. I highly recommend signing up for their free email newsletter and following their free Story Magic podcast, and even though I’m not presently in the market for writer coaching services, their Tenacious Writing program is certainly on my short list for future consideration.
How I found them—the long way around
I discovered Emily and Rachel through a somewhat circuitous route. I like writing stories, so I might as well tell this one!
Back in the fall of 2022, when I was doing Daniel Schwabauer’s One Year Adventure Novel curriculum with my son during 10th grade homeschooling, Mr. S, as we call him, sent an email note that his adult course, Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction, was going out with InfoStack.io’s Writer’s Craft 4.0 bundle.
InfoStack’s bundles are an amazing value: for the $49 I spent on Writer’s Craft 4.0, I got access to a whole host of writing resources put out by various teachers, authors, and writing coaches. The resources ranged from ebooks and comprehensive video courses (most of which have lifetime access) to memberships in a few writing communities, access to various online tools, and discounts for services. The combined retail value of the 62 total offers was around 50-60 times the bundle price, meaning that I really needed to make use of only a few of them to get my money’s worth. In fact, my son and I are using Mr. S’s fantasy and sci-fi course now, and I previously wrote a recommendation for C. S. Lakin’s Creating Powerful Settings course, which was part of the same bundle.
The catch is that to redeem any given offer you have to sign up for the provider’s email newsletter—meaning that the providers are using the bundle to build their all-important email list. So—fair warning—an InfoStack bundle means you’ll start getting a lot of email newsletters! But you’ll surely find some that have ongoing value for you, and you can of course unsubscribe at any time without losing access to the resource in the bundle. (I also use rules in Outlook to sort newsletters, including those from Substack subscriptions, into different buckets according to interest and priority.)
So, from this initial foray into InfoStack’s Writer’s Craft 4.0 along with another $59 bundle called Write-Publish-Profit, which focuses on publishing and marketing more than craft, I began getting quite a few email newsletters. But those from Golden May Editing were not yet among them.
That required another step. One of the other email newsletters—specifically that of Gabriela Pereira’s Do-It-Yourself-MFA, which I still receive and recommend as well—alerted me to yet another resource bundle called the Back-to-School Writer’s Backpack. This particular bundle, put out for free, was the brilliant idea of writer, editor, and writing coach Stacy Juba, I believe, to collect an attractive list of many already-free resources—the same ones you often get when you sign up for…wait for it…email newsletters. (Did I mention those all-important email lists?) Each provider listed in the Backpack then promoted the collection to their own email list, thereby giving widespread exposure to all the other providers. Chalk up a win-win for cross-promotion.
Among those resources in the Writer’s Backpack were the two that Golden May Editing continues to offer. The first is a free seven-day email course, The Magic of Character Arcs. I really like working with character arcs, so this was immediately appealing. So, too, was the second freebie is a 21-page eBook, The Key to Scenes that Work.
So, Emily and Rachel dangled the bait, and I bit. And I’m very glad I did!
What do I mean by generous with content?
At the outset of this post I said that Emily and Rachel provide one of the most generous streams of content through not only their email newsletter but also through occasional webinars and their Story Magic podcast.
Their emails, which you sign up for at goldenmayediting.com or by signing up for The Magic of Character Arcs, give very usable and applicable craft-related content on a regular basis. Each email is suitable short, about 750 words, with topics including character backstory, dialogue, tension and stakes, scene structure, point of view, editing, publishing, and more.
Admittedly, the emails often promote engagement with their Tenacious Writing program or registration for an upcoming paid course, which is of course entirely fair. That said, what distinguishes Golden May’s emails is that about two-thirds of the content is straight-up craft insight that is wholly applicable in and of itself, especially for writers who are relatively new to the craft of fiction and would have a hard time absorbing much more. And what all those insights suggest is that the paid courses have much more to offer.
A second example of their generosity is that they occasionally offer free online webinars (such as “The Shape of Character Arcs” in June 2024), in which they again promote their paid offerings while yet spending the bulk of the time on valuable content. I’ve attended other webinars wherein the bulk of the time is instead spent on promotions and what anemic content is delivered is really nothing more than a teaser. Such webinars are simply sales pitches in disguise, whereas Emily and Rachel are sincerely trying to help writers and build a community. Like I said, at what point I might want to join a coaching program, Tenacious Writing is on my shortlist and will likely be the first one I explore seriously.
Added to the emails and the webinars is Emily and Rachel’s Story Magic podcast. I marvel at how much they offer freely through this medium (which includes full transcripts). Most episodes are in the 25-30 minute range, too, which is perfect for me because driving into Nevada City/Grass Valley, CA from my home at Ananda Village takes about 25 minutes. As of this writing, they’re up to 75 episodes, so if you jump in you’ll have plenty of backlog to work through.
One warning: Emily and Rachel do occasionally throw in some profanity; be mindful of that if you’re offended by such language. (You’ll see an “E” rating for “explicit” next to the relevant episodes on the link above.)
Finally, Emily and Rachel post on their blog, which overlaps to some extent with their emails and the podcast. To be honest, I haven’t spent much time here, but wanted to point it out as yet another example of generous giving.
(Both women are on Substack, by the way, but not particularly active. You can find Emily at E. B. Golden’s Desk (occasional news and announcements). Rachel, for her part, has made only a few posts.)
In closing
If you’re delving into writing craft, then, do yourself a favor and at least subscribe to the Golden May Editing email newsletter. Both women have also recently published their own debut novels:
Emily’s Behind the Crimson Curtain (written as E. B. Golden) is a Historical “gaslamp” fantasy.
Rachel’s Blood in the Water (written as R. E. May) is a mafia “why choose” romance, meaning that the strong woman protagonist doesn’t have to solve her problems by getting married or anything like that.
I’ve skimmed Blood in the Water, and because mafia stories (and stories with a lot of sexuality, like this one) aren’t really my thing, I don’t plan to spend any more time with it. I figure I’ll read Behind the Crimson Curtain at some point because Emily says that there’s a lot of interiority in it, which I should find interesting.
But my main reason for even purchasing the books (on Kindle, by the way), was really just to support both women and to show gratitude for their generosity, which, as I think this post has made clear, I deeply appreciate!
(If you like this post, bless the Algorithm Angels, the Digital Devas, or whatever you’d like to call them by selecting the “heart” icon ❤️ even if you’re not a subscriber. It helps!)