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Is your novel or story collection a hot mess?
Are you stuck in the middle or trying to connect a puzzle of broken fragments? Do your friends or relatives roll their eyes when your book is mentioned or politely say, “Oh, you’re still working on that project?”
Do you have amygdala hijack—otherwise known as “writers’ block?”
Does structuring your novel feel like sewing together a Frankenstein monster out of mismatched limbs?
Do you ever dream you left a baby in the oven or the freezer?
The relationship between a stalled writer and their “book baby” can be the stuff of nightmares. Lengthy writers’ block is complex and painful. If you feel anxiety, shame, or despair about your unfinished novel—this means you really care—if you didn’t, you would have dropped it and blithely moved on.
Let’s rescue your “book baby!”
Clemintine Guirado is a creativity consultant and an award-winning author who has taught writing for over twenty years.
She specializes in unblocking advanced writers and teaching craft to beginners and late bloomers. Inspired by her own humbling creative path, she developed a keen interest in the creative process and has researched, practiced, and distilled powerful techniques and innovative hacks for writers.
Clemintine has published short stories in Best New American Voices, Rainbow Curve, Comet Magazine, and 580 Split. Her short story "Above Asmara" won a Robie McCauley Award from StoryQuarterly and was subsequently included as a Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology (her second nomination for a Pushcart). She was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fiction Fellowship at Stanford University, a Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, and a Sacatar Foundation Fellowship in Bahia, Brazil. She was a 2022 recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship and her short story “Walking to Camano” was recently selected by judge Peter Ho Davies to be included in the Masters Review’s XI Anthology. Born close enough to Disneyland to see the fireworks, she has lived in sixteen states and the US Virgin Islands. She has taught fiction and creative nonfiction for over twenty years in universities, haunted beach motels, and a classic Clipper. She holds an M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College in Oakland, CA.
Clemintine works internationally via Zoom and leads in-person writing retreats in Nashville, Charleston, and Manhattan.
What People Are Saying
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Alchemy
"My experience taking the MFA in a Bottle series? Jubilant, rapturous, dazzling. Working with Clemintine is a kind of alchemy.
She is able to access your truth and translate it to the page. Her unique blend of technical knowledge and skill combined with her refreshing, metaphysical approach to evoking creativity is one of the most transformative professional (and personal) processes I've been through.
Clementine’s authenticity and thoughtful nature meets you exactly where you are and leads you to where you are destined to be."
Nicole Williams, Best Selling Author, President of Ella Works
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Craft
“Clemintine taught useful, technical aspects of the craft that are so essential, it’s hard for me to understand why I only discovered them in her class!
I’d been writing longform fiction for ten years at that time, but until Clemintine’s class, I didn’t know how to use white space, how to consider scene and summary to construct and pace fiction, or how to grammatically move in and out of flashbacks.
Along with structural guidance, Clemintine’s teaching included brilliant open-ended exercises.
I remember coming into class to discover a table covered with bizarre pictures: a rusty door, a man standing in front of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, a window of warped glass shrouded in ivy.
We were instructed to intuitively pick a picture and dream into it, and then write, shaping from the image a story or a scene.
Another day, Clemintine taught us an exercise that included playful movement and breathwork followed by a fabulous visualization involving a hat with a green light rotating above our heads.
This mental shift proved to be as useful as learning about white space!
She taught us to value the weird and surprising in our work and in life and how the desire and mystery of character drives fiction.”
Amanda R. Howland, Noise Musician and Author
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Writer's Gold
"I found working with Clemintine to be astonishing, even revelatory!
I always thought I was going to be a doctor and when that didn’t work out, I was adrift. Clemintine taught me that painful life experiences and conflict are “writer’s gold.”
Now I feel like not one moment of life is wasted. I find myself looking at everything through the lens of a writer. She sees the light in other people and is one of the wisest people I know. "
Jennifer Barthe, Mental Health Activist, Memoirist, New Orleans
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Push
“Clemintine took me into the labyrinth of my first draft, pushed down a few walls, opened some doors and windows and showed me exactly where to take myself next.
Clemintine is a genius and getting her views has been enormously helpful to me. She's an intuitive and sympathetic reader and I couldn't recommend her more highly.”
M.A., Queensland
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Growth
“I owe Clemintine a huge debt in my growth as a writer.
She combines her gifts of insight and intuition with an amazing expertise in the technical mastery of craft.
In just the right measure, she offers keen analysis, highly informed commentary, and a generous portion of encouragement and kindness, acting on the genuine desire to guide students into a realm where they can discover and foster their own voices.
A masterly teacher, she is fun, smart, and powerfully committed to her students' work, without bias toward a particular aesthetic.
Though we are students of very different approaches, interests, and levels of experience, she deftly leads us beyond our previous limits, exposing us to writers and concepts we had not considered before, and helps us excel in ways that continue to surprise us.”
Priscilla Turner, Seattle
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Jump
“Clemintine didn’t encourage me to jump—she pushed me from the ledge.
She nourished me with Gaitskill, Shepard, and Carver…taught me the difference between dribble and draft, and pressed my spirit until writing became routine like breathing.”
Elisha Wagman, Brooklyn