Epic Writers’ Room
Image courtesy of Unsplash
In collaboration with the Head of Development at Epic for Kids, I led teams of 4-6 creators in semi-annual Writers’ Rooms, creating full cycles of our most popular franchises in a fraction of the standard timeline. Under my leadership, the Room became a valuable, repeatable, and (most importantly) fun method to produce high-quality manuscripts at scale.
Date: 2022 - 2024 || Role: Director and Lead Editor || Performed for: Epic for Kids
Business Goal: Establish clear processes to turn the Writers’ Room into a viable and sustainable content production strategy, and build a trusting creative environment to support increased output
Results: I led two Writers’ Rooms during my time at Epic for Kids—once with a combination of freelance and in-house talent, and once with an exclusively in-house team of talent that spanned organizational levels. Typical single manuscripts took roughly 2 months to develop between author and editor, but each Room produced 10 manuscripts in 4-6 weeks. I developed an adjustable but repeatable calendar system for deadline management, and intentionally structured a fun and collaborative environment (in fact, the Writers’ Room was widely known across the company as people’s favorite part of the week!).
Project Tasks and Scope:
Editorial calendar creation—I built a from-scratch project schedule in Asana that was visible, repeatable, and clearly demonstrated deadlines and team-wide goals
Relationship-building—I developed strong relationships with freelance and in-house teammates that served as the foundation of the Room’s trusting creative environment
Adaptable leadership—I led a variety of brainstorming sessions, provided ongoing editorial support, and made on-the-fly adjustments to schedule and goals to benefit group morale and meet deadlines
Executive collaboration—I worked alongside the Head of Development, Editorial Director, and other senior team members to respond to business needs and create data-informed content. For instance, we created a cycle of curriculum-informed work to fill a gap in our school market, and we adjusted our content page count to respond to reader dropoff data
Editorial guidance—in addition to managing the day-to-day processes of the Room, I also served as the primary editorial voice on all projects, offering creative insight at every stage for story flow, franchise consistency, creativity, and humor
