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Publish your backlog of papers
And watch your world-changing ideas advance your career
Navigate 2025 Cohorts
Apply for our upcoming cohort
Fill out a five-minute application
Learn our framework to publish your backlog of papers
Unlock your potential to write while maintaining a spacious, calm schedule
Watch your career soar
Elevate the ideas you know need to be heard in the academic world
Want to publish more papers? You already have the ideas…here’s what comes next
A backlog of papers is just overwhelming, which leads to the freeze response when it comes to writing. Between teaching, mentoring, running a lab, uncompensated admin, and putting out other people’s fires, of course there’s a stack of almost-done drafts getting higher and higher.
It’s not because you’re not cut out for academia! You are. You’ve already gotten yourself this far in your career!
The problem is that the old-school methods your advisor used do not work in a modern academic’s life
(especially if you’re a woman, nonbinary person, and/or person of color, who is simultaneously fighting the racist, ableist, patriarchal culture of academia while trying to succeed within it)
Here’s what is not helping you get papers published:
- Juggling multiple roles (co-author, advisor, caregiver, program director) and feeling stretched to the max
- Planning and prepping to impress students into giving you stellar teaching reviews (spoiler alert: they still won’t)
- Waiting to write until you have big blocks of time that never come (and then crashing from exhaustion when they do)
- Feeling so overwhelmed when you do sit down to write you’re not sure what to work on next
- Exhausted from the isolation of working in a department that doesn’t know how to support you, with colleagues who don’t understand you
With so much riding on a CV full of publications…it’s no wonder that so many academics burn out and leave academia before ever reaching full professor.
But if you know that you are determined to build your career in academia and you want to find a real solution to publishing and getting your voice out there influencing your field, then know that it is possible and keep reading…
“My experience with Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® has been outstanding. It has proven that it’s possible to craft an academic career on our own terms by employing a systematic strategy. This program has been instrumental in developing my academic pipeline, allowing me to remain true to my values while advancing my scholarly endeavors.”
Cindy Cordoba Arroyo, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
You are SO GOOD at what you do (which is why you’re SO BUSY).
No one ever tells you that the reason you have a backlog of papers is because you are an awesome scholar.
It’s because you’re an excellent colleague
A cutting-edge researcher
An involved adviser
An inspiring teacher
An empathetic leader
It’s not because you don’t know what you’re doing or because you’re not smart enough, or because you are a morally corrupt procrastinator (eye roll emoji).
It’s actually because you are awesome!
But here’s how awesomeness leads to a backlog of papers:
- You put everyone else’s stuff first…and you’re writing falls to the bottom of the list
- You don’t want to disappoint…so you say “yes” when you’re already overloaded
- You know your work is outstanding… but there is a little piece of the patriarchy in your brain telling you to put it last
It does not have to be this way. You CAN do academia differently (and let’s face it, you must!).
I deeply believe it is time to leave that racist, ableist, patriarchal culture of old school ivory tower academia behind, along with its glorification of overwork and lone-wolf b.s.
You can create an academic career that
- Honors your whole human self
- Fits into regular working hours, M-F
- Connects you to supportive community who uplifts you
- Includes time to write, read, and think scholarly thoughts
In this revised vision of academia, you’re going to see your impactful and much-needed research published in academic journals and you’ll have a process to do it over and over again.
“I think that Navigate provides the HOW to be productive in the curriculum and provides the support you need to help you figure out the WHY in the weekly meetings. Navigate has a much more realistic and do-able approach than other faculty writing, publishing, and productivity support programs I’ve tried. In part, I think that’s because it’s starting premise is that it is possible to thrive in academia even if it wasn’t built for you.”
Navigate participant
Testimonials
“I was stuck in cycles of low productivity and avoidance, totally alienated from my own writing — and I’ve turned that around. The program helped me develop a reliable system for how to get my writing projects done, and let me feel the joy of being engaged with my own ideas and my academic community again.
I have adored the community that we have developed throughout these last two sessions. I feel really safe and excited for everyone that has been a part of the groups. I am also so glad that I signed up for the multi-session experience because it has been fantastic for growing my own writing identity and keeping it in check longer term!
It was so helpful to have input during the coaching calls from both Cathy and the others in the cohort…Thank you so much: it has been a great 12 weeks!”
Navigate participant
“I participated in every Friday session and am very grateful that I had such an amazing group of colleagues from across disciplines and experiences. I appreciated the support, laughter, and deep level of care. I hope that I continue to maintain many of the friendships that emerged from this experience!“
Navigate participant
“I used my developing academic mission statement to negotiate taking on an opportunity on my own terms. I think that was the first time I have EVER done that in my career.”
Navigate participant
A bit about Cathy Mazak (that’s me!)
My story is probably similar to yours. I wanted to make an impact in my academic field and to have a balanced, fulfilled life. The way to get that, I assumed, was to work hard, get a degree, then tenure, then full professorship and then spend the rest of my academic life working as hard as I could. So I got my dream job teaching at the University of Puerto Rico, but it wasn’t what I signed up for.
Work-life balance? Forget about it. Time to write? Maybe one day. Impact? Does helping students check out projectors count?…
I was pulled in ten directions at once. I needed to write. I needed to publish. I needed to focus. But I also needed to be myself. (What happened to being a full human, anyway?)
I felt like I was squeezing myself into a racist, patriarchal system that was never designed for me. And when the kiddos came along… it became near impossible to get to that dream of mine: an impactful, prolific, fulfilling academic career.
I knew this life wasn’t for me. There had to be a way to achieve the academic career dreams I imagined for myself AND ALSO enjoy life with my family.
So I paved a new path. I went from being a stressed-out academic mom with mind-numbing fatigue and barely any writing under my belt to a tenured and full professor with publications I’m proud of and time to invest in family, relationships, and life outside academia…
yes, that exists!
Cathy Mazak has a PhD in Critical Studies in the Teaching of English from Michigan State University. Throughout her career she won a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and over $500,000 in federal funding for her work with bilingual university students in Puerto Rico. As a tenured, full professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, she founded a research center and fostered international collaborations around her work in bilingualism and educational linguistics. Trained by top scholars in composition studies and a prolific publisher herself, Cathy launched Navigate in summer 2017, and it has since helped over 600 academics learn to write and publish more. She is making her mark as a thought leader through her podcast, Academic Writing Amplified, which has over 500,000 downloads, and her popular book, Making Time To Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing.
“The most important result that I achieved through Navigate was playing the long game to manage my time. Being able to look ahead and say – I’ve got those crazy weeks at the start/end of term that I KNOW I will not be capable of doing any substantial writing – so let’s work around those in planning my writing for the upcoming terms. Far too often I was really hard on myself for “not being productive enough” and comparing myself to others, without acknowledging how hard I have been working – only on very different things.
Which is the other part of Navigate that I think I benefited from – the activities alignment – some of those “things” that I was working on did not and will not contribute to my mission statement – BUT I never had one – so saying YES to everything felt like the right thing to do !!!!
I think these two elements will impact my personal life by lightening my mental load, and professionally by keeping on mission.“
Janet McCabe, Ontario Tech University
Your Path Inside Navigate
Week1 Program Kick-off meeting & Choosing your Low Hanging Fruit Project
Meet your cohort of peers, and learn how you’ll get the most out of the program.
Use our rubric to select one “almost-done article” (we call it the Low Hanging Fruit paper, or LHF) to work on each week during the program, apply what you learn in the lessons to your work on the article. You’ll submit the article before the last call and celebrate with us!
Week2 The Power Pipeline: Learn the Power Pipeline Method to get your backlog of publications submitted
The Power Pipeline: Learn the Power Pipeline Method to get your backlog of publications submitted
If you’re trying to hold your entire publication pipeline in your head, it’s time to #levelup. In this system you’ll map out your publication pipeline and diagnose the clogs that are keeping you from getting your pubs out the door.
Understand all the steps in your pipeline process so that you can control them to your career advantage.
Create a curated pipeline and learn the power of carefully selecting what makes it into the pipeline–and what makes it out.
Week3 The Project Predication Plan: Finally figure out how long it actually takes you to do things so that you can project plan like an expert
Feeling defeated by your never-checked-off to-do list? You might be making a common mistake: you’ve got writing problems but you’re treating them like writing tasks.
Learn how to identify writing problems versus writing tasks so that you can apply the appropriate project management approach to each one.
Discover the secret to estimating time-to-task so that you can predict how long your projects will take to succeed.
Week4 A Year-Long Writing Roadmap: Create a year-long plan you can stick to
Academic publishing is a long game, and even though it varies by field, most writing projects take months–or years–from idea to publication. That can make it difficult to really envision how your publications will work for you this year.
Create a year-long writing plan that works with all the other things you’re doing, not in spite of them.
Learn how to stick to a plan–and how to re-adjust when things go wrong.
Week5 The Mission Method: Create the focus that will propel your writing (and your career)
Dig deep to find the real motivation behind why you want to write and publish more.
Come away with your academic mission statement clearly written and hanging on your wall. 🙂
Week6 Activities Alignment: Cull the creep and learn to say no
Use our proven set of rubrics to assess everything you’re doing right now and cull the off-mission activities.
Align the activities that you can’t eliminate (Spoiler alert: this is the key to feeling less stressed).
Week7 Freeing time: Implement templates and workflows to free up time for writing
Snag done-for-you workflows and templates that you can tweak and implement immediately.
Clearly set boundaries around your time.
Week8 Your Ideal Week: Map out a spacious week with time for everything, then figure out how to make it your reality
If you’ve ever lamented “there’s not enough time in the day!” you’ve never done the Ideal Week exercise. This powerful method will give you clarity around all you do and help you set spaciousness into motion.
Make sure all of your most important activities (like writing!) have time and space on your calendar.
Understand the gap between Ideal Week and Real Week so that you can start to bridge it.
Week9&10 Soaring (vs slogging) Sessions: Repair your relationship with writing and implement a comprehensive, sustainable system
Are you avoiding writing because it feels like a slog? Do you feel like you can get writing done for the first few weeks of the semester and then your writing time gets eaten up when the semester hits the fan? Relegating all your writing to the summer and then collapsing? Yep, you need a system.
Learn our customized three-pronged system to go from slogging to soaring whenever you sit down to write.
Completely change the way you’ve been relating to your writing so that your writing practice feels good, has momentum, and stays consistent.
Week11 The Write Goals Method: Learn The Write Goals Method for goal-setting that gains momentum
If you keep setting goals you can’t hit, you’re pulling the brakes on your own writing practice. Get out of your own way–and use goal-setting to propel your work forward by understanding the power of “write” goal setting.
Discover The Write Goals Method to determine which type of writing goals will motivate you.
Create a customized system for setting goals that you can hit.
Week12 Submit and celebrate!
Ready to FINALLY publish your backlog of papers?
Join Navigate and get access to:
- One year of access to the 12 video lessons ($3,000 value)
- The private-podcast version of the audio from each video lesson ($900 value)
- The 50+ page fillable PDF workbook with all the tools and worksheets you need to support your learning ($250 value)
- Seven live group coaching calls ($1200 value)
- Five live co-writing sessions ($600 value)
Total value: $5950
Yours for only:
1 payment of $3,000 (save $400!)
4 payments of $850 (billed today and monthly for three months after that)
FAQs
What is the experience of the Navigate program? How does it work?
Navigate has two main components. The first one is 12 weeks of recorded content that teaches you our Navigate Framework, with workbooks and exercises to support your learning. In addition (and this is the magic of the program!), every week we have a one hour live call. The live call alternates between a coaching call where you can ask questions, where we dive deeper into the coachy parts of the material so not just the how-to, but the mindset and all the things that help support you as you’re trying to make big changes in your career and in your writing to publish that backlog of papers. We alternate between coaching and co-writing and co-writing is just we all get on the zoom and we work on our writing together. This is designed to create a regular writing rhythm in your week.
Is this the right time for me to do Navigate or should I wait?
If you are having trouble finding time and write and publish now, you should join Navigate now. Navigate is designed to help you write when things get rough, including in heavy teaching semesters, when you have an overload of service work–whenever you feel overwhelmed. I will be frank: If you are waiting for time in your schedule to “free up” so you can do Navigate, you are approaching this decision incorrectly. Time will never “Free up.” You must take the reins and create the time, and that is exactly what Navigate teaches you how to do.
How much is the time commitment for Navigate?
About two hours a week, one hour to consume the content and do the exercises, and one hour to participate in the live call for 12 weeks.
Is Navigate for me at my career stage?
Navigate was created for professors. It’s not for graduate students. It is for professors and full-time researchers (including post-docs) at every stage of the career. People have a backlog of papers at every career stage, and the system we teach in Navigate for publishing your backlog of papers is the same throughout the career. So if you have the problem of having a backlog of papers, then Navigate is for you.
Is Navigate for me if I’m in admin?
Yes! We often work with people currently in administration who want to keep their writing and publishing going, and with those who are on their way out of an admin position who want to reinvigorate their publishing.
What if I have to miss a call?
We would love for you to be at every call! But we understand that things happen. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend that you don’t miss more than 30% of the calls.
If you miss a coaching call, you can use the guide questions that are provided along with the week’s lesson to journal, then bring any questions you have to the next call. We do not record the calls for privacy reasons.
Do I get to keep access to the recorded modules?
You do get to keep the recorded modules for one calendar year after enrollment.
Is Navigate for book writers?
Navigate is not a book writing program. If what you’re trying to do is get better at your writing project management, build your writing practice, control your pipeline, and all of those things make your schedule better so that there’s room for writing, then even if you are writing a book, Navigate will benefit you.
However, please be aware that during the Navigate program, we ask you to choose what we call a low-hanging fruit article, which is an article that you’re going to move to submission throughout the program. If you’re a book writer, you could certainly also publish an article, or you could use that maybe for a chapter or a conference um paper.
But do know that we refer to the low-hanging fruit as an article. So book writers just come in aware.
Is Navigate for people in my field of study?
Yes! We have worked with professors in all fields of study, and our methodology works regardless of field. A major advantage of this program is that you are in a group of people who come from a diversity of fields and backgrounds.
Co-authors and writing with students is slowing me down. Can Navigate help?
Yes. In order to be a good co-author either with colleagues or with students you need to have your ducks in a row. You need to get your house in order in order to be the best co-author you can be, and that includes co-authoring with students.
What is the size of the cohort?
The cohorts are between 20-25 members.
I’ve already done other programs (like NCFDD), how is Navigate different?
Navigate is specifically designed for women and nonbinary professors, unlike most professional development programs which are designed for everyone. We talk about racism, ableism, and patriarchy. We specifically focus on navigating institutions that were not built for us, and creating fulfilling careers anyway. If you’re into that, we would love to have you!
Navigate is for you if:
You should apply for Navigate if…
- You have published at least one article in a peer reviewed academic journal (Navigate is NOT for newbee academic writers!)
- You have at least three partially written articles in your draft folder (that’s the backlog of papers! Of course, there might be more…)
- You are in a full-time professor or researcher position
Who it’s not for
Navigate is NOT for everyone…and there are some people who should not apply.
You should wait to apply to Navigate if…
- You are a doctoral student
- You have not published at least one paper in a peer-reviewed journal (go do that first!)
You should NOT apply to Navigate if…
- You are looking for a quick fix. Changing your writing and publication practice takes time–we think 9-12 months of intentional The 12-week Navigate program is just the first step.
Are not willing to try new things. If you are of the mindset that you have tried everything and nothing works for you, Navigate is not for you. You should come into the program with an open mind and a willingness to try new things.
Let’s be honest. You can’t keep up this pace. If this is what the next 20 or 30 years is going to feel like, do you even want this career?
But hey–I for one am not willing to let all the most brilliant, socially-conscious, mission-driven, change-making academics cut their careers short because of burnout. That’s not acceptable to me personally, and it’s downright bad for knowledge-making and humanity.
You need to succeed in academia, but you need to do it on your terms. Writing is the missing piece. If you can figure out how to get your writing consistent and your pipeline flowing, then you have definitely got this.
Navigate is the key. There are so many things that you can do to make it feel like you are steering your career ship, and nobody talks about them. With Navigate, you’ll not only fix your publication problem today, you’ll fix it for the rest of your career on!
