Where writers become Professional Storytellers.
Where books get finished, craft is studied, and authors learn what actually sells.
A professional school where experts
in their field train the next generation of writers.
Author Academy is where working writers train the way professionals in every serious field train: with rigor, mentorship, and a community that expects excellence.
An institution with standards, traditions, and instructors who write for a living — the MFA brought into the modern era, taught by professionals working in the field, not career academics.
Standards
Author Academy isn’t for everyone. Like any professional school, we expect prospective students to be prepared for the program.
Working Instructors
Every instructor is a professional author with books in the world — writers who have demonstrated excellence in their craft not through repetition, but through the ultimate test: are readers paying for their writing?
Tradition
Education is changing, but tradition is not. Every student is welcomed into the writing community and the Author Academy ranks. These traditions turn classmates into writing partners, friends and colleagues.
courses in Our Core Curriculum, across two terms in one academic year.
novels published by the founder, and more than four million dollars earned from them.
seats in a Novelist Cohort. Capped, so every student gets the attention they deserve.
to read every article and hear every episode. The ideas are open, permanently.
Professional Storytellers.
Through disciplined practice, expert mentorship, and a lifelong commitment to the craft, our students become Professional Storytellers.
The MFA, brought
into the modern era.
Author Academy’s Novelist Cohort is based on the traditional Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, designed by our team of bestselling authors and founder David Viergutz, MFA. Twelve core courses and two terms over one academic year.
Term I — Foundations
Structure, character, scene, voice, close reading, and the writing practice itself.
Term II — Execution
The novel engine, dialogue, setting, revision, the professional author, and a capstone.
Electives
Chosen between Term I and Term II. Genre Studies on modern novels, plus masterclasses on the working author's real problems.
Capstone
The Novelist Cohort ends in a Capstone event in Las Vegas — a week of business courses, the Academy Graduate Banquet, and the signing event at Reader Nation.
Membership means dedication to
lifelong learning.
Membership is the life of the Academy — the full Core curriculum with updates forever, weekly live sessions, moderated critique circles, writing sprints, quarterly meetups, free members-only masterclasses and Academy Partner Perks.
- The twelve-course Core, plus the full course archive
- Weekly live sessions and moderated writing sprints
- Critique circles matched by genre and rank
- Rank progression and your academic transcript
- Vendor perks, the resource library, newsletter and podcast
The Novelist Cohort.
A class of writers over two semesters study and produce a professionally published novel — culminating in a business Capstone week in Las Vegas, NV, alongside your class of colleagues.
Selective Admission
A short application and writing sample is required to apply. We admit writers who take their craft seriously.
Faculty Mentorship
One or more professional writers mentor students through the life of the manuscript.
Your First Twenty
A professional edit of your first twenty pages — the pages an agent, a reader, or a browser actually decides on.
Capstone
Each student participates in the Capstone in Las Vegas, NV — a week learning the business of writing, and their first bookselling event. A virtual option is available.
Hear it from the desk.
A short film on what the Academy is for, and who it is not for.
I’ve received my MFA. I wrote 20+ books before that. My MFA left me wanting. This Academy is everything I was missing.
David Viergutz · Founder & DeanVoices from the founding class
The first cohort convenes in January 2027. Their accounts of the year will be published here, unedited.
David Viergutz
Bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Disabled veteran. Former law enforcement officer. MFA in Creative Writing. To date, David has made more than four million dollars from his stories.
David founded Author Academy on a conviction earned across twenty books: writers become professionals the same way anyone does — through disciplined practice, expert mentorship, and a community that holds the bar high.
“I’ve received my MFA. I wrote 20+ books before that. I know what it takes to study the craft and apply it. My MFA left me wanting. This Academy is everything I was missing.”David Viergutz · Founder & Dean
Doors open January 2027.
The founding academic year begins the second week of January 2027 and admits by application from the waitlist. Join it and you will hear from the Dean directly when the window opens.