Seth Harwood received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where he studied with award-winning authors Marilynne Robinson, James Alan McPherson, Chris Offutt, and Frank Conroy.

In addition to his bestsellers Love of a Preacher Man (formerly Everyone Pays), In Broad Daylight, Jack Wakes Up, and The Maltese Jordans, Seth has published seven crime novels–most recently The Maltese Jordans (5 stars on Amazon)–two collections of literary short stories, and a Kurt Vonnegut/Kindle Worlds novella, As Much Protein as an Egg. He has published over a dozen short stories in literary journals that include The Red Rock Review, Inkwell, Ecotone, Post Road, and others. His story “Tattooed People” was featured in the anthology Best of the Web 2008.

Over the years, Seth has taught for Stanford Continuing Studies, Harvard Extension School, City College of San Francisco, the University of Iowa, UMass Boston, and LitReactor.

Seth has been teaching and coaching writing students independently since 2001, helping many achieve a new understanding of craft, process, and the development of longer works.

He lives in Easthampton, MA with his wife and daughter. (And an Australian Cobberdog named Tallulah.) In addition to writing and being a book coach, he loves to coach basketball, play on the weekends, and pitch softball for the local CBI Shluggers.

He volunteers doing soulful men’s work and leadership trainings with the ManKind Project USA.

Here’s what past students have said:

Seth stands out for me as the best instructor I’ve had at Stanford because he is dedicated to not just being a great writer but to also being a great teacher. I felt like Seth was interested in my development and committed to my learning which made me take everything much more seriously. Because Seth gave so much it made me want to pour myself into the class.

To put it simply, I learned to be a better writer… This course taught me to look at my writing in a different way, to view it in terms of how an audience is going to view it… where they may get confused, where I lose meaning, sense, or clarity, etc.

Simply put, Seth is a published author who both talks the talk and walks the walk.

Learned a huge amount about the craft of writing—how to create “meaning, sense, and clarity” sentence by sentence—but also about what to expect and how to more efficiently manage the emotional/psychological aspects of the creative process. Also, strategies for developing a daily writing routine—time, place, word count, tips for getting un-stuck, etc.—and the seat-of-the pants approach to writing.

He knows how to get the best from every one of his students. And will inspire you to do your best.

Seth is a master of mechanics and the art of the scene in fiction writing. He is a sharp reader with feedback that is easy to understand and act on.