On Thursday, July 16, Paragraph hosted the New York Writer's Coalition for their first ever Pitch Party. Instructor Melissa Petro led a workshop on how to effectively pitch an essay idea to editors. 

Instructor Melissa Petro

The class hard at work

Impressive spread courtesy of NYWC

Melissa helps attendees edit their pitch letters

Writing fuel

Melissa Petro is a freelance writer and writing instructor living in New York City. She's written for Marie Claire, NY Magazine, Salon, Daily Beast, Guardian, Al Jazeera America,New Inquiry, Pacific Standard Magazine, Post Road, Penthouse, Jezebel, xoJane and elsewhere. She was one of three PEN Award Finalist for the Emerging Writers Prize in 2015. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the New School.

NYWC is one of the largest community writing organizations in the country. NYWC creates opportunities for formerly voiceless members of society to be heard through the art of writing by providing free and powerful creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in our society, including at-risk, disconnected, and LGBT youth, the homeless and formerly homeless, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, war veterans, people with disabilities, cancer and major illness, immigrants, seniors and others. For more information, visit nywriterscoalition.org.