Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust

What it reported doing in 2025

Odyssey critique service: offered year-round by mail and email. The odyssey critique service provides authors of fantasy, science fiction, and horror with educational feedback on their writing. Authors can submit manuscripts ranging in length from 20,000-150,000 words and receive in- depth, instructional, professional-level critiques. Critiques are provided by 4 odyssey writing workshop graduates who have become successful, professional writers. One is an award-winning author and another is a New York times bestseller. Critiques average over 8,300 words (16 single- spaced pages) and also include significant line edits and marginal notes on the manuscript. In 2025, 10 manuscripts were critiqued. Authors were extremely satisfied with the feedback they received and found it very helpful. One author said, "outstanding the critique i received from lane robins was deep, thorough, and felt like she was somehow able to see my face through my manuscript. Over thousands of words, she traced every plot thread, noticed ideas that i had intentionally taken out, and advocated for their reintroduction without having ever seen my worldbuilding notes. She broke down my writing into my strengths and my weaknesses, both in technical sentence craft and structural story craft, and showed me the path to bringing my novel to its fullest potential. I will continue coming back to this service for future novels that i write." (grants 0)(expenses: 9,233.43) odyssey podcast: offered free on our website, on itunes, and on other podcast platforms. Guest lectures at the odyssey writing workshop and your personal odyssey are recorded. With the lecturers' permission, 10- to 15- minute excerpts from those audio recordings are posted online to provide free education to writers of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other genres. One volunteer makes notes about which sections of the lectures could potentially be made into podcasts. Another volunteer selects and edits the excerpts and posts the podcast episodes. The director secures permission from guests. Approximately ten podcasts are posted each year. It's hard to know how many people are listening, since they can listen in different ways, but a low estimate is 2600. On itunes, the podcast is rated 4.5 stars from 98 ratings and 77 reviews. Here is one review: "the episodes are short so it's super easy to devour tons of them. The information is great; it tends to be things i haven't heard before. Love this podcast" the odyssey podcast has appeared on several "50 best podcasts" lists, such as "50 of the best podcasts for writers," a list compiled by robyn roste. Many people have emailed their thanks to us for providing this free resource. (grants: 0)(expenses: 790.02) odyssey blog: offered free online. Two volunteers work with the director to create posts with valuable writing information, which provide free education to writers of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other genres. Posts are made monthly and include interviews with odyssey and your personal odyssey guest lecturers and graduates, and writing advice. The blog has 235 subscribers. We had 4,600 visitors over the past year and 7,500 views. (grants: 0)(expenses: 691.27) odyssey consultations: offered through zoom. Odyssey provides consultations to help writers who have a specific writing problem they need to discuss. Over the years, director jeanne cavelos has found that one- on-one meetings with writers are often the most helpful, allowing her to brainstorm with a writer, focus on a particular problem that concerns the writer, and explore issues more deeply. Consultations allow writers to send 2,000 words in advance, which may be a writing sample or a description of a problem or question. Then jeanne meets live online with the writer for an hour, so she and the writer can see and hear each other, and they can also look at the writing sample that was sent. Three consultations were held in 2025. The writers were very satisfied with their experiences

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 92.7%; rating input score 93
• Program expense ratio: 86.8%; rating input score 87

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -2.8%; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.78; rating input score 76; 76th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 46; 46th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 59.9%; rating input score 3; 3rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 1.5% per year; rating input score 100; 33rd percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 2.8% per year; rating input score 100; 32nd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 12.3% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings