Mastering the Craft: Writing-in-Residence Program Cultivates Lifelong Writing Skills

And thanks to Yale’s Summer Dissertation Writing Program, Horwitz is about halfway there. She’s writing about a corpus of around 140 wooden palm wine vessels from Central Africa and recently handed in the second chapter to her committee.  

The six-week online program, co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, is open to students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Led by a faculty member, it features daily group check-ins over Zoom, skills workshops, and peer review sessions.  Originally funded by a three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the program aims to help students develop sustainable writing habits beyond their dissertation projects.  Now in its tenth year, the program instills that writing is a craft encompassing strategies that may be built and improved upon over time. 

This summer’s cohort included 12 students from across disciplines—including economics, sociology, art history, drama, history, French, comparative literature, linguistics, and Slavic languages and literatures—who are at various stages in the dissertation writing process.  

The program offers students accountability and structure as well as close faculty mentorship and a sense of community. This summer, the program was led by Nicole Sheriko, assistant professor of English. 

“We meet every day, and each day is structured to give students two serious blocks of writing time. The rhythm is modeled on previous years and my own writing practice,” Sheriko explains. 

Each day starts with a check-in, followed by a morning writing block. After lunch, there’s a second writing block, with Slack check-ins after each session. Wednesdays feature targeted workshops to help students stay motivated, including topics on the emotional aspects of writing, technical skills, and writing for research. Peer-review groups meet on Fridays. 

“As the faculty mentor, I act more as a model than a teacher, demonstrating sustainable writing habits. Students value hearing daily that writing is hard but doable, and that it’s a skill they can improve,” Sheriko said. 

“We’ve discussed how to turn anxiety into excitement, how to think about the kind of writer you want to be, and how to articulate research problems and audience. We’ve also covered academic writing norms—paragraph structure, sentence-level writing, passive voice, and evidence presentation. These sessions have been especially helpful for students trained in different academic systems,” Sheriko said. 

For Horwitz, the program both improved her writing and how she structures her time. 

“I’ve changed the way I work. I used to write frantically toward a deadline and then crash. Now I write a little every day, dipping in and out of my project with time in between writing blocks to distill my thinking, and it’s more consistent,” she said. “This chapter is probably the strongest I’ve written at Yale. I’ll be forever grateful to Nicole—this has changed my career.”

Meera Choi, a PhD candidate in sociology, also appreciated the program’s structured approach and close faculty mentorship. 

“I was able to refine each chapter and draft my introduction, which helped tie the chapters together into a cohesive book argument. Nicole was incredibly helpful in guiding that process. I also worked on job market materials, which helped clarify the stakes and contributions of my dissertation,” said Choi, whose research focuses on the feminist movement in South Korea. 

“Nicole was always present and available, had office hours, and helped me think beyond just the six weeks. I gained confidence that I can continue this kind of structured writing post-PhD,” said Choi. 

“Seeing Nicole manage teaching, administrative tasks, and writing was inspiring. She gave us tips on how to navigate that balance. It helped me envision my life after graduate school,” she added. “This has been one of my best experiences at Yale.”

Both Horwitz and Choi said they wished they had access to a program like this earlier in their time at Yale. 

For Sheriko, leading the program was both a rewarding mentorship experience and a helpful structure for meeting her own summer writing deadlines. She’s currently working on a book manuscript (the first history of English puppetry before 1800) that’s due in December. 

“The program has helped me stay accountable and productive. I’m framed as a model writer for the students, but they inspire me as well.”

Maureen Farrell, Director of Communications, Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Liz DeRosa, Director of Communications, Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning