Even if you weren’t picked to read this month, don’t fret — we do go back through old submissions and use them for upcoming dates. Submissions are always open, and we welcome you to submit again, but please make sure not to submit the same excerpt unless you’ve significantly changed it, or feel free to send us something new!

There’s still an incredible amount of value in attending, as watching someone else’s work get critiqued live will often help you settle your own writing problems. It’s very common for writers to hit the same roadblocks as each other. As well as this, we do turn to the audience for their feedback too!

For both accessibility and the ease of those attending, a read-along document will be shared that contains all the excerpts from the session.

If you are chosen to read your submitted excerpt at Critique Club, you will be contacted around seven days before the live session takes place.

We will email you to confirm your attendance, ask whether you have made any significant changes to your submission since you sent it, and whether you are happy to read it live. Although we prefer our readers to read their work themselves, we are happy to do so on their behalf.

After 24 hours of us sending out the acceptance email, your excerpt will be passed on to our reading panel. This means we can no longer accept any edits or changes. The reading panel is made up of authors who are part of the Jericho Writers team, as well as the occasional extra special guest.

During the session itself, you will have, on average, 12 minutes to read and get feedback. As we have five other readers, we like to keep the evening tight so everyone gets a fair chance.

Don’t worry about taking notes on your feedback during the session — just enjoy the experience. The session will be recorded, so you will be able to watch it back a few days after the event.

Please bear in mind that this is a live event with diverse fellow members, some of whom may find certain topics or language difficult.

Although we support both fiction and non-fiction in all forms, some topics are not appropriate for Critique Club. Because we have limited time between readings and critiques, we are often unable to provide trigger warnings in a way that gives the audience enough time to make an informed choice.

As your submission will only contain 400 words of your work-in-progress, dialogue involving, but not limited to, racism, sexual assault, or explicit violence may not appear within the full context you intended as an author. In these cases, please choose another section of your work.

If you are unsure if your work meets this threshold, please submit as usual but include a note in the submission template and we will be in contact with you.

When selecting pieces for Critique Club, we use a very broad set of criteria.

We’re not looking for perfection, we’re looking for work where the Jericho Writers staff feel they give actionable feedback and genuinely help you polish your piece.

Where possible, we aim to select a wide range of genres so our members can experience different styles and maybe even find some inspiration.

If you’ve submitted before and haven’t been selected yet, you’re more than welcome to resubmit. We dip into both old a new submissions when it comes to selection time, so if you work hasn’t been selected within 6 months, we recommend sending across either a different passage or a different WIP.

We like to give as many premium members as possible the chance to take part in Critique Club, so we ask those who have already been selected to hold off on submitting again for at least six months. Of course, we run plenty of other critique-style events, such as Live Edit, so this doesn’t prevent you from submitting your work to those.