Courses, Salons, and Consultations
with James F. Mulhern
One page for the whole of the teaching work — the literary salons, the ten-session creative-writing course, the memoir consulting, and the self-paced resources for adult writers and secondary-school teachers.
How the work is offered: All courses, salons, and consultations are taught in person in Philadelphia or the Philadelphia region. There is no Zoom, no hybrid, and no remote delivery. The self-paced resources listed further down are separate — a small library of digital guides available at any time.
Representing a library, bookstore, school, or venue? See the short version for program partners →
Section ILive Teaching — In Person, Philadelphia
Courses meet at libraries, bookstores, community centers, universities, retirement communities, and literary nonprofits in the Philadelphia region, and on request elsewhere in the Northeast. Every one of them meets in a single room.
The 2601 Salon — Literary Course Catalog
A working catalog of literary courses for adult readers and writers — close reading, generous conversation, and a light writing prompt at the close of most sessions. Full sixteen-session courses, four-session workshops, single evening talks, and one-day masterclasses are all available. Titles include Women in American Literature, The Greatest Short Stories Ever Told, Minority Voices, and Literature & American History, among others.
See the full catalog →The Art of Telling
A ten-session salon that moves in three movements — the short story, the poem, and the memoir. Each session includes a brief historical framing, a passage read aloud, a guided discussion, and a ten-minute in-class writing exercise done by hand in a paper notebook. No grades, no quizzes, no required publication outcomes — only the work, the company, and the slow accumulation of skill.
Course site → Companion volume →Memoir Consulting
Private consulting for writers working on a memoir or a book-length personal essay project. The work covers market fit, structure and shape, the ethics of writing about living people, and clear editorial next steps. A first orientation of twenty to thirty minutes is offered without charge; manuscript review, custom outlines, and written follow-up are paid engagements.
Services page →Pathways to Publication
A single seventy-five-minute lecture, approximately thirty slides, on the real spectrum from traditional to legitimate hybrid to self-publishing — with a plain accounting of who pays whom, and how to recognize a vanity operation dressed in "hybrid" costume. Suitable as a bookstore evening, a library program, or a one-off talk for a writers' group.
Mentorship, Writing Guidance, and Teen Tutoring
Weekly or biweekly in-person sessions in feedback, close-reading mentorship, and secondary-school tutoring in writing and literary analysis. The author site's Services page is the current descriptor and inquiry form for these engagements.
Services page →Section IIWho Comes Through the Room
The teaching work is shaped for four kinds of reader in particular. Most sessions hold two or three of them at once.
Adult readers and writers
Readers who want a serious literary community and writers of any stage who want a room to read carefully and draft in.
Memoirists and personal-essayists
Writers with a book-length personal story to tell who want structural, ethical, and market-fit guidance from a published novelist and editor.
Older adults and community-room residents
The Art of Telling and the salon catalog have been shaped again and again with retirement-community residents in mind, and with them in the room.
High-school and college students
Teens preparing for AP English, college essays, and literary analysis; occasional cross-generational rooms alongside the adult courses.
Program partners and institutions
Libraries, bookstores, universities, retirement communities, and literary nonprofits bringing a course to their community.
Secondary-school ELA teachers
Teachers looking for classroom-ready close readings, discussion questions, and craft-focused literary guides — served through the self-paced resources below.
Section IIISelf-Paced Resources
These are not live courses. They are digital guides and reference libraries that stand on their own — available at any time to writers, readers, and teachers who prefer to work on their own schedule.
The Mulhern Story Library
A curated companion library of canonical short stories with reading notes and discussion guides — for readers and for salon students between sessions. Visit the library →
Publishing Poetry — A Field Guide
A self-paced field guide for the contemporary poet — how to build, submit, and place a manuscript. Read the guide →
Submitting Short Stories
A self-guided submissions guide for fiction writers — journal tiers, cover letters, response times, and the etiquette of the query. Read the guide →
Publishing Memoir & Personal Essay
A self-guided guide for memoirists and personal-essayists placing shorter work and preparing to place a book. Read the guide →
Submitting Poetry
A companion set of practical suggestions for poets sending work out to journals. Read the guide →
The English Classroom · Mulhern Teaches English
A forthcoming teacher-resource storefront for secondary ELA, AP English, and literary-analysis teachers — self-paced curricular materials, not a live course. The site is under construction. If you teach and would like early access, please write and say so.
How to Inquire
A short email is enough. For individual enrollment, a proposed partnership, a memoir consultation, or a bookstore evening, please write with a sentence or two about what you have in mind — and, if you are proposing a partner venue, an approximate audience size and a date window.
Either address reaches Professor Mulhern. The press address is the newer channel; the second address is the one longtime students already know.
The Silver Current Press family of teaching sites is a single body of work in several rooms. This page is the front door.