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: Early Fall Through December 2026
WritingWorkshops.com Instructor Application Wish List
We're actively seeking new class pitches for early fall through December 2026 (classes starting mid-August through December). 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.
Back-to-School Craft Intensives
September brings that back-to-school sharpness—the urge to study, improve, and get serious. These are deep-craft classes for writers ready to level up.
Kill Your Darlings: Advanced Cutting and Revision – A revision-only workshop focused on the ruthless art of making good work great. What to cut, how to restructure, and when to let go of a scene you love.
Pacing: When to Speed Up and When to Slow Down – A craft-intensive on narrative velocity—scene vs. summary, white space, sentence rhythm, and the architecture of momentum.
The Art of the Twist – Structuring reveals, misdirection, and surprise. How to plant and pay off—in literary fiction, genre, and everything in between.
Writing Endings That Haunt – How to stick the landing. Open endings, closed endings, ambiguous endings, and why some final pages stay with readers for years.
The Architecture of Suspense – For writers across genres who want to understand how tension works on the sentence level, the scene level, and the structural level. Not just for thriller writers.
Drafting Season: Generative Energy
November is draft season. These classes ride the generative momentum of National Novel Writing Month (Rest in Peace)—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.
The 48-Hour Story – A weekend sprint intensive. Writers arrive Friday evening with nothing and leave Sunday night with a complete draft. High energy, high accountability, zero preciousness.
The Binge-Worthy Novel: Writing Books Readers Can't Put Down – Pacing, chapter endings, tension management, and the architecture of compulsive readability—whether you're writing literary fiction or genre.
Novel Boot Camp: Craft Tools for the Long Haul – A structured companion course for writers tackling a novel draft in November. Weekly check-ins, craft mini-lessons on scene construction, and strategies for when you hit the wall at 20,000 words.
Writing in the Margins: A Workshop for Busy People – For writers squeezing creativity into full lives. Techniques for writing in stolen moments—10-minute exercises, phone-first drafting, and building a sustainable practice around a demanding schedule.
Harvest Season Nonfiction
Fall is a natural season for reflection, gathering, and making sense of experience. These nonfiction classes channel that energy.
Writing Cultural Criticism – The smart-take essay. How to write about culture, art, and ideas with authority and style—think Hanif Abdurraqib, Hilton Als, Rachel Syme.
Writing About Money – Personal finance essays, class narratives, economic anxiety on the page. One of the last taboo subjects in personal writing—and rich territory for essays.
Writing About Work – The workplace memoir, the labor essay, the career-change narrative. How to write about the thing that takes up most of our waking hours.
The Year in Review: Writing Personal Essays That Take Stock – A generative workshop timed to the reflective energy of late fall. Writers craft essays that look back on a year, a season, a chapter of life—and find the story in it.
Writing the Hermit Season: Solitude, Silence, and the Inner Life – For the quieter, more introspective writing that winter invites. Essays and fiction rooted in isolation, stillness, and what surfaces when the noise stops.
Poetry
Our poetry catalog has strong foundations. We're looking for classes that expand into territory we haven't covered yet.
Poems That Tell Stories: Narrative Poetry – For poets who want to move beyond the lyric moment and into sustained storytelling—ballads, dramatic monologues, verse narratives.
The Dark Months: Poetry of Winter, Grief, and Endurance – A generative workshop for the season of long nights. Poems that sit with difficulty, loss, and the stubborn persistence of beauty in hard times.
First Book Manuscript Workshop – For poets assembling a full-length collection and preparing it for submission. Structure, ordering, the arc of a book, and navigating contests and open reading periods.
Screenwriting & TV (Priority Gap)
This remains our thinnest category and a major growth priority. We're especially eager for pitches here.
Writing the Feature Film – A dedicated multi-week course on feature screenplay structure, character, and visual storytelling—beyond the introductory level.
Writing for Streaming: The Limited Series – Limited series structure, binge-worthy storytelling, and the specific demands of prestige TV. A class for the streaming era.
Writing for Children & YA (Priority Gap)
Another thin category with big opportunity. We're looking to build out meaningful offerings here.
Picture Book Bootcamp – Writing and submitting picture books—from concept to manuscript to understanding the illustration partnership.
Writing YA That Doesn't Talk Down – Voice, authenticity, and emotional honesty in young adult fiction. How to write for teens without condescending.
Writing the Holiday Story – A seasonal generative workshop for writers crafting stories, essays, or picture books rooted in holiday traditions, family gatherings, and the emotional complexity of the season.
Chapter Books and Early Readers – The craft of writing for the 6-to-9 set. Word counts, pacing, illustration notes, and the gap between picture books and middle grade that's surprisingly hard to fill.
Year-End Publishing Push
The months between September and December are prime submission season. These classes help writers turn drafts into polished, publishable work—and get it out the door before year's end.
Fall Submissions Push: Getting Your Work Out Before Year's End – A structured accountability workshop focused on identifying target journals and agents, polishing submissions, and building a submission calendar for the fall season.
Self-Publishing Done Right – Beyond the indie publishing toolkit—a comprehensive class on quality self-publishing. Editing, design, distribution, and marketing for the independent author.
Ghostwriting and Collaborative Writing – A practical path for writers who want to make a living with words. How to find clients, manage projects, and write in someone else's voice.
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.
Second Book Syndrome: Writing After Your First Publication – For writers who've published and feel stuck. Addresses the pressure, the sophomore slump, and the craft challenges of following up a debut.
Science Fiction Craft: Building Believable Futures – World-building, speculative logic, and the science in science fiction. We have speculative fiction and horror—now let's give sci-fi its own home.
Historical Fiction Deep Dive: Research to Page – How to build authentic historical worlds without letting research drown the story. For writers turning history into narrative.
Award Season Reading: What Prize-Winning Books Can Teach Us About Craft – Timed to the fall award announcements. A reading-as-a-writer seminar that studies recent National Book Award, Booker, and Pulitzer winners for craft lessons.
Fireside Fiction: A Winter Writing Retreat (Online) – A multi-day virtual retreat designed to help writers generate new work, build community, and close out 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 mid-summer and early fall 2026. 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.