Learn To Write A Page-Turning Novel Filled ​With Living, Breathing Characters Readers Will Love — Or Love To Hate!

Whether you’re just beginning your novel or have been thinking about your characters, but don't know how or where to begin your story...

​Or you're lost in the middle of writing a novel or have finished an early draft and need professional help to find out where to go next...

You've come to the right place!

​ ​I’ve helped hundreds of students break through writing blocks by giving them the tools and confidence they need to write compelling fiction.
I know only too well that fiction writing has immense challenges, but in forty years as a fiction writing coach, I haven't met a challenge I can't turn into a writing opportunity. And whether we're working privately or in groups, the payoff is huge!
​​I was delighted by this recent message on my Linked in account.  Thought to share it here...
​"Emily you are by far the clearest most inspiring writing teacher I have ever had. I remember how much I learned from you on how to think like a writer, going way back. Eternally grateful. And the most recent happy event—my middle grade children’s book, “Witchy Magic and Me, Maggie” won The Mom’s Choice Award, complete with the little round gold sticker for the cover. I’m sure you will be encouraging many more writers to come." - Cynthia Wexler
When we work together, I'll teach you how to take the important next steps in your writing. This includes:
  • Understanding the fiction writing techniques that are necessary to develop three-dimensional, living, breathing characters and dynamic plots. Hint: there are only Five Ingredients needed!
  • Learning to unleash the passion required to keep the fires of your imagination burning brightly,
  • Giving you the confidence to take the risks that any successful artistic endeavor demands.

No matter the genre of my students' novels or short stories, I teach them all how to create the kinds of characters and plots that readers can’t stop thinking about, even after they turn the last page. I write books like these myself, and I can teach you how to write them, too! 
To learn more about working with me as your fiction writing coach, just choose the path that best matches your needs:

I Want To Work Privately With Emily.

I Want To Work With Emily In A Group Setting Or Workshop.

​I Want To Go On The Women's Writing Retreat October 15-22, 2022!

​​​​​​​"Emily's Bar Harbor Retreat jump-started my writing in a way I never thought possible. The words tumbled out, and I am overjoyed.
​ I come away from this magical place that invites the land and the sea into my imagination with a full heart." ~ Cynthia Ayers
​Read these great reviews from Publisher's Weekly and the Pittsburg Press: 
​Petersburg became a Best Seller in England.

​"Emily Hanlon's Petersburg is lush and boldly imagined... it smoothly mixes history and fiction, realism and romance... Characters are either fictitious or composite portraits based on real people, but all carry conviction and verisimilitude to real life. The scenes in which they take part-scenes of passion, plotting, violence in the streets and confrontations with the dreaded secret police, the Okhrana-succeed each other at a mounting pace." — Publisher's Weekly

"Hanlon's characters are fully drawn and complete. They do not simply walk through the pages but live the story, as does the reader...Hanlon's well-researched and extremely readable novel contains all the elements: passion, intrigue, suspense, treachery, murder, lust. But it is also a story of a love that survives all obstacles. Given the grand scope, the fine writing and superb characterization, a favorable comparison with "War and Peace" is not out of the question." — United Press International