Advanced Short Fiction — 8-Week Online Fiction Workshop with Tom Andes Starts Tuesday, March 16th, 2027

Advanced Short Fiction Workshop: Sharpen Your Stories | Mar 2027 Online

Advanced Short Fiction Writing Workshop: Workshop Two Stories with Tom Andes

Begins Tuesday, March 16, 2027
Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays, 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM ET

Please note: the class pauses for the weeks of April 13 and April 20 and resumes Tuesday, April 27, concluding Tuesday, May 18, 2027.

🌍 Class Times by Time Zone:

• Los Angeles (PDT): 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
• Chicago (CDT): 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
• New York (EDT): 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Now Enrolling! This class is limited to 8 writers.

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Instructor Tom Andes wrote the detective novel Wait There Till You Hear from Me (Crescent City Books, 2025). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2025, The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025, Best American Mystery Stories 2012, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, among many others. He lives in Albuquerque, where he is a musician and freelance editor. Southern Crescent Recording Co. re-released his acclaimed EPs on vinyl under the title The Ones That Brought You Home in 2025.

Learn more about Tom in our Meet the Teaching Artist interview with Tom Andes.

Who is this class for?

This advanced fiction workshop is for writers looking to develop their skills at writing the short story and, more broadly, to develop their chops as fiction writers, since the short story can be a springboard to longer work. The workshop focuses on the short story form, so it assumes an interest in that form's particular challenges and rewards.

What to expect:

Nothing hits quite like a great short story. We all know the feeling, especially after a perfect ending. It feels like we’ve been thrown off a cliff. We can’t believe the writer has stopped here. How can they refuse to tell us what comes next? Yet, we know intuitively this is the right place to stop because we either know what comes next, or we know everything we need to know about the characters in the story. The form is so tantalizing, so powerful, so beguiling in part because of what it doesn’t tell us, what it leaves out.

This online writing workshop for advanced writers interrogates the theories and practices that inform the contemporary American short story. What concerns and aesthetic practices animate the stories writers are currently publishing? To that end, alongside a traditional workshop, we’ll read from the most recent edition of The Best American Short Stories and focus on how its writers approach particular craft elements. We'll devote a week each to voice, dialogue, setting, and plot, two weeks to revision strategies for writers, and a week to publishing, with specific, actionable ways to find magazines hospitable to your work and improve your chances of placing it.

But the focus of the course is workshopping the stories writers bring. Each writer workshops twice, and the second workshop may, optionally, be a substantial revision of the first story. Workshopped stories should be between five and twenty pages. Each Zoom session runs two hours: 30 minutes on the published reading, then 45 minutes for each of two student stories. Two writers will be asked to submit their stories one week before the first class meeting.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will workshop two complete short story manuscripts of five to twenty pages each (or one story and a substantial revision of it) and receive direct, specific, actionable feedback on both from the instructor and their peers. Writers will also leave conversant in the aesthetic questions at the heart of the contemporary short story, with a deeper command of particular craft elements and concrete strategies for revising their stories and finding places to publish them.

The instructor’s feedback is specific and granular, based in a close, line-level reading of each story but also informed by an understanding of the writer’s intentions, the genre(s) the writer is working in, and the cultural context for the story. In Tom’s words: “I know that in some workshops, there is a moratorium on so-called proscriptive suggestions. As a writer, I have always found proscriptive suggestions helpful, provided they are made with a degree of humility, presented as exercises, or perhaps prefaced with the statement, ‘If this was my story…’ I’d like to model that type of engagement for the workshop, a deep, emotional, subjective reading of each story, with the understanding that our individual readings are just that, subjective, therefore our answers might not be the right answers for the writer.”

Readings

Readings may include selections from the most recent edition of The Best American Short Stories.

A note about the reading: One might do well to be a little dubious of “best of” anthologies. Given the glut of stories published every year, can a single anthology ever claim to contain the best stories of the year? Of course not. But it’s a good place to start.

COURSE OUTLINE

This course assumes writers already have a discipline, a practice, and stories they want to workshop. The first class replaces the reading discussion with introductions and a conversation about workshop etiquette.

Week 1 (begins March 16): Introductions, workshop etiquette

Week 2 (begins March 23): Focus on voice

Week 3 (begins March 30): Focus on dialogue

Week 4 (begins April 6): Focus on setting

No class the weeks of April 13 and April 20. Class resumes Tuesday, April 27.

Week 5 (begins April 27): Focus on plot

Week 6 (begins May 4): Revision strategies, part one

Week 7 (begins May 11): Revision strategies, part two

Week 8 (begins May 18): Submission and publication strategies

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

The goals of this course are basically twofold: to improve the writing of the workshop participants and to engage more deeply with the contemporary conversations that are part of American writing, and specifically of the American short story, at the present moment.

• Specific, line-level workshop feedback on two full-length short stories
• A deeper command of voice, dialogue, setting, and plot, studied through recent published fiction
• Concrete revision strategies you can apply to any draft
• Actionable strategies for finding magazines hospitable to your work and improving your chances of placement
• A working understanding of the aesthetic concerns that drive the contemporary American short story

TESTIMONIALS:

“Tom is the kind of reader and teacher every writer should feel lucky to work with—sharp, incisive, intuitive, curious, and warm. Wildly well-read, he brings a keen critical mind and an expansive imagination to his teaching. It was in his classroom that I first workshopped the initial chapters of what would become my debut novel. He read my work with meticulousness and generosity, providing feedback that left me eager to return to the page.”
— Antonia Angress, author of Sirens and Muses

“Tom is an outstanding instructor, coach, and editor. His ever-thoughtful feedback, editorial advice, and career guidance have been instrumental in my development as a writer over the years. Tom’s workshops are thoroughly engaging for writers at any stage in their career. He has an incredible breadth of literary knowledge, and his love for the written word is both genuine and contagious.”
— Derrick Boden

“Tom does far more than edit, or even teach. He guides, mentors. After patiently sifting through my novel many times Tom continuously offered focused suggestions while pointing out strengths, all the while asking questions that allowed me to find my own answers. Think Morpheus saying, “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?” Then Tom even shared versions of his own query letters—hugely impactful and confidence building. If you’d like to know more about my experience with Tom, please ask him for my email and reach out.”
— Anto Ljoljic

“Thomas Andes is a brilliant writer and teacher, kind, perceptive,humorous, industrious, compassionate, inspiring. All the great attributes of a master teacher. I recommend him to you. I’ve learned so much in his workshop.”
— Rosary O’Neill

“Tom was instrumental in bringing my manuscript to its final stage. His notes helped me hone in on character motivations, fight choreography, and overall big-picture changes that helped to drive the story forward much better than the manuscript I presented for his consideration. From the developmental edit to the line edit to helping with my query letter and synopsis, he maintained an enthusiasm for my story that kept me excited about moving forward through additional rewrites. I highly recommend him for anyone seeking editorial services.”
— Jon Hébert

“Tom is the kind of mentor who seeks first to understand what you’re tying to write, and then helps you get there. So many instructors impose their own rigid rules of writing, but not Tom. He’s an expert of the craft who can provide guidance across a range of genres and styles without missing a beat. Tom’s editing is always insightful and invigorating. His teaching makes writing feel fun and his encouragement is so genuinely tailored to your project that you forget all the writerly despair.”
— Laurel Shimasaki

“Tom Andes is a fabulous instructor. I would take any class he teaches. I loved his New Noir class.”
— Former Student

“I took Tom's New Noir class, and I wanted to tell you what a terrific teacher he is. Not just because he really knows his stuff-- the history of noir, the films, the authors (new and old). He had terrific stories for us to read and discuss, and excellent writing assignments. Our class had a range of writers from starting out to seasoned, those trying their hand, to those wanting to learn more. Tom created a lovely, supportive atmosphere, found the good in each person's submission, celebrating everyone. This made for a cohesive group (all vowing to stay in touch), and made us look forward to attending. Hard to believe it was 8 weeks! I came away with a partial short story that I will be turning into my next book-- the first time I've been excited by a new idea for my next project (some ideas, no excitement until now). Thank you for having Tom in your pantheon of instructors!”
— Former Student

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $595 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Tom Andes
• Begins Tuesday, March 16, 2027
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Tuesdays, 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM ET
• No class April 13 or April 20. Class resumes Tuesday, April 27, and concludes Tuesday, May 18, 2027.
• The workshop is limited to 8 writers.
• Tuition is $595 USD.