Writing Workshops: Instructor Opportunities
At Writing Workshops, we offer something different: niche classes with unexpected angles, taught by working writers who deliver craft-focused instruction and actionable feedback.
Our students come to Writing Workshops for inspiration, fresh perspectives on their work, and concrete tools to advance their writing careers and forge paths to publication.
Each month, over 50% of our course enrollments are returning students—proof that our approach works. We're looking for instructors who share our commitment to helping writers push their work forward with meaningful, practical guidance.
What We're Looking For
Niche, Craft-Focused Classes: We want classes that zero in on specific elements of craft—or the business of writing—with fun, unexpected, and surprising titles. Writers come to us for classes they can't find anywhere else. Our classes have a clear hook—a specific technique, form, theme, or approach that gives students something concrete to explore. Your voice should inform your class pitch, as that will likely be the course you are most passionate about teaching. Put another way: what do you love to nerd-out about?
Actionable Feedback: Our students want to improve their craft and move toward publication. We're looking for instructors who provide meaningful, practical feedback that helps writers identify what's working, understand what isn't, and know exactly what to do next.
Publication-Minded Instruction: Whether it's understanding market trends, crafting submissions, navigating the publishing landscape, or simply writing stronger sentences, our instructors help students connect their creative work to real-world publishing goals.
Professionalism and Excellence: Teaching with us is as much an extension of your author brand as it is a representation of our organization. We strive for excellence above all else, a shared value that unites our instructors and staff alike. Our students are adult writers—many are working professionals balancing job stressors, family life, and other obligations while prioritizing their writing lives. They've made a real investment in themselves by taking a class with us. They're investing their time and hard-earned income, and they expect your class to be worth it. We're looking for instructors who take that responsibility seriously.
Commitment to Alumni Success: We're looking for instructors who champion their students beyond the classroom—those who provide connections, mentorship, and guidance that extends past the final session. We believe in pulling the next person up behind you. Our best instructors pour into their students, and those students go on to be featured in our Alumni Publication News. We want instructors who see student success as part of their own legacy.
What We Value
Engaged Instruction: We look for passionate educators skilled in the craft of writing who will foster a supportive, inspiring environment.
Cultural Awareness: Our instructors should be ready to explore how personal identity, background, and tradition shape writing, encouraging honest conversations within their groups.
Inclusivity and Accessibility: We prioritize creating a welcoming space for every participant.
Qualifications
Our instructors tend to have one or more of the following: an MFA, substantial publication history, and/or extensive teaching experience. Publishing and industry professionals are also welcome to apply for classes in their areas of expertise.
Application Process
We review applications on an ongoing basis in line with our current programming needs. If there's no immediate opening, you may not hear from us right away. We keep all applications on file unless you ask us to remove yours.
Before you pitch: Please spend time exploring our current catalog to understand the kinds of classes we offer. Your pitch should feel like it belongs on our site—specific, unexpected, and genuinely useful to writers looking to level up their work.
Current Programming Needs: November 2026 Through Q1 2027
WritingWorkshops.com Instructor Application Wish List
We're actively seeking new class pitches for November 2026 through the first quarter of 2027 (classes starting early November through March). Proposals approved now will be scheduled during this window. We're looking for specific, craft-focused classes that give writers something they can't get anywhere else—not broad "Intro to Fiction" surveys, but the kind of class that makes a writer say, "That's exactly what I need right now."
Below is our current wish list, organized by category and themed to the season. This list is a starting point, not an exhaustive menu. If you have a class idea that isn't listed but fits our ethos of craft-driven, community-centered writing education—pitch it anyway. We're always excited to discover classes we didn't know we needed.
Finish the Year on the Page
November and December are draft season—the last push before the calendar turns. These classes ride that end-of-year momentum and give it real craft scaffolding.
Draft Zero: Write the Terrible First Version – A generative workshop built on the idea that the fastest way to a great draft is through a bad one. Permission to be messy, with craft structure underneath.
Writing Through the Holidays: Keeping a Practice When Everything Competes for Your Attention – A class for the busiest weeks of the year. How to protect the work, write in small windows, and end December with pages instead of regret.
The Long Haul: Craft Tools for Sustaining a Novel – A structured companion course for writers deep in a draft. Weekly check-ins, mini-lessons on scene construction, and strategies for the wall at 20,000 words.
New Year, New Practice
January is the most powerful month in a writer's calendar—the surge of resolve, the blank notebook, the year that finally belongs to the book. These classes meet that energy and give it staying power.
The Year You Finally Write the Book – For writers starting a novel or memoir in January. Architecture, planning, and the craft foundations that turn a resolution into a real manuscript by year's end.
Build a Writing Practice That Survives February – The honest class about habit. How to build a sustainable writing life that doesn't collapse the moment the January motivation fades.
The First Fifty Pages – A generative, momentum-driven workshop on openings. How to start strong, establish voice and stakes early, and write the pages that pull a reader—and an agent—in.
Begin Again: A Generative Reset for Stalled Writers – For writers returning to abandoned projects or a long silence. Low-pressure prompts, craft scaffolding, and a path back to the page.
The Dark Months: Deep-Winter Craft
The long nights of late winter invite quieter, more interior work. These classes lean into the introspection the season makes possible.
Writing Desire: Longing, Intimacy, and Want on the Page – Timed to February. How to write attraction, yearning, and intimacy with precision and honesty—across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Cabin Fever: Writing the Interior Life – Craft for the inward-facing story. Consciousness, rumination, and the challenge of making a character's interiority as gripping as external action.
Writing Grief and Endurance – A generative workshop for the hardest material. How to write loss without sentimentality, and how to find the shape inside difficult experience.
Submission Season: Get Your Work Out the Door
Late winter and early spring are prime submission season, building toward AWP and the spring reading periods. These classes help writers turn finished drafts into work that's actually out in the world.
Submission Boot Camp: A Plan to Get Published This Year – A practical, deadline-driven class on building and sustaining a submissions habit. Where to send, how to track, and how to handle the rejections that come with it.
Small Documents, Big Stakes: The Cover Letter, Query, and Bio – The short pieces of writing that gatekeep everything. How to write a cover letter, query, and contributor bio that open doors.
Contest Season: How to Submit—and Stand Out – A guide to navigating literary contests, open reading periods, and submission fees without going broke. What editors and judges are actually looking for.
Poetry
Our poetry catalog has strong foundations. We're looking for classes that expand into territory we haven't covered yet.
New Year, New Poems: A Generative Reset – A January-timed generative workshop to shake loose new work. Daily prompts, fresh constraints, and a stack of rough drafts by the end.
The Winter Sequence: Writing Linked and Serial Poems – For poets ready to move beyond the single lyric into sequences, crowns, and book-length projects.
Submitting Your Poems: Journals, Contests, and the Long Game – The business of being a working poet. Where to submit, how to read a journal before you query it, and how to play the multi-year game with patience.
Cross-Genre & Fresh Angles
These are the classes that don't fit neatly into a single category—and that's what makes them exciting. Unexpected, specific, and very WritingWorkshops.com.
Reinvention on the Page: Writing Transformation and Change – Timed to the new year. The craft of writing characters—and selves—in the middle of becoming someone new.
Second Book Syndrome: Writing After Your First Publication – For writers who've published and feel stuck. The pressure, the sophomore slump, and the craft challenges of following up a debut.
The Writing Year: Build a 12-Month Plan for Your Projects – A goal-setting and craft-strategy class for writers juggling multiple projects. How to map a realistic, ambitious year and actually finish things.
Award Season Reading: What Prize-Winning Books Teach Us About Craft – Timed to the winter and early-spring award announcements. A reading-as-a-writer seminar studying recent National Book Award, Booker, and Pulitzer winners for craft lessons.
Fireside Fiction: A Winter Writing Retreat (Online) – A multi-day virtual retreat to generate new work, build community, and start the year with creative momentum. Destination retreat energy, no plane ticket required.
IndieMFA Programs
We're always looking for instructors who can lead long-form, sustained programs—our 6-month and 12-month IndieMFA tracks in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting. If you have the track record and the commitment to walk alongside a small cohort for an extended period, we want to hear from you.
A note on this list: We update our programming wish list seasonally. What you see here reflects our current needs for November 2026 through the first quarter of 2027. We're always accepting applications and keeping them on file for future scheduling.
Don't see your idea on this list? Pitch it anyway. The best classes we've ever offered are ones we didn't know we needed until the right instructor proposed them.