THE WORKSHOP (application-only)
The core Banyan Writers’ Workshop offering is the ten-week online workshop.
Experience: This course is best suited for people who have been writing for a little while, and who have a few short stories or novel chapters that they’d like feedback on. You will also learn a lot from workshopping others’ work.
Genre: All literary prose is welcome. My expertise is in fiction (novels and stories), but I also worked as a journalist and write essays and criticism.
Meets weekly over Zoom for two hours at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern.
The Cohort: Intimate! Eight students.
Workshops: Each student will submit writing for workshop twice.
Office Hours: I’ll meet with each student for 45-60 minutes at some point during the course. This time belongs to you; we can discuss your workshop submissions, your career, or anything else on your mind.
Career Day: At the end of the workshop, we’ll do a class devoted to all things career. I’ll lay out my personal career path, explain everything I know about placing stories in literary magazines, pitching journalistic outlets, querying agents, and attempting to actually make a writing life.
Signing up? Scroll down to learn more about the next open course.
WORKSHOP: FALL 2026
The inaugural Banyan Writers’ Workshop launches in fall of 2026.
Dates: This course will meet on Thursday nights over Zoom for two hours at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern, starting on September 17th and running through November 19th.
Requirements: You will workshop two pieces of fiction. You can write one of these during the class, but I recommend having at least one ready to go for the first round of workshops. One of those may be a novel opening, but the other should be a piece of short fiction with a beginning, middle, and an end. Pieces do not need to be perfect; I celebrate drafts’ draftiness.
Other Homework: You should set aside time to read ~20-40 pages of your classmates’ fiction each week, and to write thoughtful feedback letters.
Class size: The course is capped at eight people.
Pricing: $900 for ten weeks, paid by September 10th via Venmo, Zelle, or Wise if you are outside the U.S. One half-tuition scholarship will be available, reserved for a writer who shows excellent promise and comes from an underrepresented background in literature.
How to apply
Apply for the FALL 2026 batch by August 6th, 2026 by sending 10 pages of literary prose (double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt font) to banyanwritersworkshop AT gmail DOT com.
Incomplete work is fine. Please do not send more than 10 pages.
Write “Application for Fall 2026 Workshop” in the subject line. In the body paragraph of the email, please include a 1-paragraph bio including your full name.
You should also write a cover note of no more than 500 words, explaining your interest in the course. Your note should discuss the reasons you write, what you hope to get out of the workshop, any prior experience you have in creative writing or literature (none is required), and what you like to read.
If you are applying for the half-tuition scholarship, please indicate that in your cover note, and explain the ways in which your background is underrepresented.
If you use an LLM in crafting any part of your application, please disclose that and explain what you believe the purpose of using A.I. in your writing is. In very rare cases, I may be open to working with writers who are using A.I. in intelligent ways, but I am generally not sympathetic to its uses in creative arts. I may disqualify cover notes that appear to be written with A.I. Try to sound like yourself — a human.