Beware the murderous writing workshop
I probably shouldn't say this, but sometimes a workshop is exactly the wrong thing.
Stay connected to your writing this summer and find creative community with Writing Co-Lab’s Summer Camp, a three-week online program of generative sessions, accountability groups, and panels on writing to inspire and motivate you in midsummer. More info here!
When are you ready for a writing workshop1? And when will a workshop be the death of your book or writing life?
These are not the only two options, of course, but they are two of the options!
Maybe I shouldn’t say anything negative about workshops, given that I teach them — sometimes two or three at a time — nearly constantly. I love teaching and working with writers. But, like so many novelists in our contemporary era, I’m unaffiliated with an academic institution, which means I find myself teaching a kind of churn of 6- and 8-week workshops, which means I encounter a LOT of writers. And I’ve started to see some patterns that I find interesting.
Specifically, I keep coming up against a truth that feels illicit to admit: Sometimes writing workshops are simply not the right thing for a writer. Sometimes, in fact, they will murder a writing project dead. And I love writers, and want to protect you all from book butchery.
I love writing workshops too, I do! I loved (almost all of) my experiences in various workshops during my MFA, one million-and-half years ago. Learning to get good at reading and analyzing and responding seriously to my classmates’ work helped me to get good at doing this to my own work, too, and nudged me to engage more deeply with everything I read. It helped me to develop a thicker skin — important, if you plan to publish! — and to engage with the craft of writing, and to figure out who I was a writer.
And I (almost all the time) love teaching workshops, and engaging seriously with writers and their work.
A lot of writers come to me with what I think of as writing workshop trauma, because being in the wrong class at the wrong time has seriously shaken their faith in their own ability to write or call themselves a writer. Sometimes a writer’s workshop trauma is result of having taken a class before they were ready, with their voice as a writer still so in flux that hearing 10-20 opinions on it feels like an attack on the self. Sometimes this was an old-school MFA program or instructor who thinks a “tough-love” approach will weed out the writers who don’t “have what it takes.”
Something else I want to note is that the dynamic of a workshop can be flavored by the instructor, yes, but it’s also kind of at the mercy of the dynamic of students themselves. We all know this from every class we’ve ever been in. Sometimes, you get an amazing group of amazing people who totally all vibe with each other and that amazing energy ricochets all around. Those are magical times. Then there are the classes that just never quite gel. This is not the fault of anyone in particular (almost all the time), and it doesn’t mean the people in those workshops aren’t excellent writers and generous workshoppers — often they are. It just means that the energies are a little off. There’s not really much you can do about this as a student signing up for a class, unfortunately, but it’s something to be aware of. If you’re in a tender place with your writing, this might not be something you want to subject yourself to.
I like to think I create a welcoming, encouraging atmosphere in my workshops. I truly believe, like my girl Brenda Ueland once wrote, that “everyone is talented, original and has something important to say.” I think that everyone who wants to write should write. There’s enough pie, enough seats at the table, enough of everything. Writing helps us to understand our lives. Writing makes us better people. Writing makes you hotter. Just try and prove me wrong.
But even I can’t overcome the kind of writer who is so unready to share their work in workshop that they respond with an essay about how stupid and pointless said workshop is, and yes, invite said workshop to workshop this essay about themselves. (Ask me how I know!)
That kind of writer is hurt, and confused about why they are hurt, and lashing out, and I get that. And writing is honestly a great way to lash out. In a journal, for example. Such writing, however, usually needs a lot of reflection and revision in order to become art or even readable. The point is, that kind of writer is not ready for a workshop. If someone saying, “I’m noticing that X keeps coming up in an essay you’ve said is meant to be about Y,” is going to send you into a spiral, maybe you have some more processing about X to do.
So anyway here’s what I’d like to share, in case these findings are useful to writers trying to figure out how to get the kind of support they need.
Writers who are ready for workshop…
-are interested in, ready, and able to seriously engage with the work of other writers.
-have some idea of what they want their work to be like.
-have the self-confidence to be able to handle criticism of their work.
-have the self-confidence to know what their work is, and not be led astray by careless or irrelevant feedback.
-strive to create something great.
Writers for whom a workshop is probably not the right fit…
-don’t have the bandwidth to seriously engage with the work of other writers.
-don’t like to read.
-want to play around with writing in the same way they might take a random art or movement class.2
-have not been reflective enough or had enough therapy (seriously) to really understand what they’re revealing in their writing — this one is especially important for writers of memoir, autofiction, or any kind of personal narrative dealing with serious trauma.
-think their writing is already perfect as is.
Writers for whom a workshop is probably not the right fit YET…
-don’t actually have time to be taking a workshop.
-are so susceptible to critiques or advice that they will listen to every piece of feedback indiscriminately and workshop their piece into bland oblivion.
-are so impermeable to critiques or advice that they will ignore every piece of feedback indiscriminately, rendering themselves unhelpable.
On that last one — for years I worked as an editor at a series of publications, and sometimes I found myself editing writers who were quite early in their careers, and sometimes I found myself editing writers who were extremely well-established, we might even say “extremely well-respected in their field” (which is, let’s face it, as “famous” as most writers are liable to get). You know who tended to be the most touchy and difficult about edits? The newbies. New writers are often brittle in a curious way. Veteran writers tend to be more supple, more flexible — maybe because they’ve been through so much, maybe because they know editors are trying to make them sound better, and they want their work to sound better and be clear and meaningful more than they want their egos to be stroked. Maybe because they have a wealth of writing out in the world so they don’t worry so much about each piece. Maybe there’s a whiff of Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias that explains why people with lower levels of ability and experience in a field underestimate the difficulty of mastering it, and therefore overestimate their own skills. (Uh, no offense.)
A lot of the writing life is learning how to take care of yourself and your writing, discovering how to create the best conditions to nurture your creative practice. Maybe you’re craving community and honest feedback, and a workshop is ideal. But it’s okay if you’re not there. One lucky thing about living in this sometimes-not-so-lucky-feeling now, is that there are lots and lots of options out there.
PS: If you want to engage with your writing more seriously and/or if going it alone isn’t working for you, but you don’t think a workshop is the right fit, there are so many other great alternatives:
You can take a generative class, where you actually write during the class from prompts the instructor shares. I offer this one! The brilliant writer and teacher Sarah McColl offers some! Sackett Street Writers Workshops offers some! Go forth and write!
You can work 1:1 with a writing coach. I do this! I meet with my coaching clients every week or every other week, and we work on their writing together. These built-in deadlines help writers to prioritize their work, and it’s a good fit for writers who want to be focusing on their work but don’t have the time/energy/desire to focus on other writers’ work as in a workshop. When looking for a coach, think about what kind of support your work needs. Specifically looking for help plotting your novel? Get a hold of my dear friend Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, the Plot Coach, who helped me untangle my current novel-in-progress. The inimitable Courtney Maum has some wonderfully specific offerings including one-off problem-solving sessions and brand audits. Etc!
Looking for something more low-key and like, free? Writing groups can be great sources of accountability and community. Reach out to writer friends, or take a generative class and poach the people you liked. Writing Co-Lab has some neat writing group-type offerings, too!
Basically, even if a workshop isn’t your speed, you don’t have to write alone. But it will behoove you to consider what kind of support your writing practice actually needs.
My latest novel ANIMAL INSTINCT — which my MFA workshop would have hated, probably!— is about a woman rediscovering her desire in midlife. It was called a best book of 2025 by NPR, Oprah Daily, and more. You can order it here. And hey, if you do get a copy, DM me your receipt and I’ll comp you a lifetime paid subscription to this very newsletter, Writing on the Verge (this gives you access to alllll the archives)
Some upcoming offerings:
☀️ Stay connected to your writing this summer and find creative community with Writing Co-Lab’s Summer Camp, a three-week online program of generative sessions, feedback and accountability groups, and panels on writing designed to inspire and motivate you in midsummer. More info here!
✍️ Looking to commit or recommit to that novel or memoir? Contact me or put some time on my calendar to chat if you need some 1:1 work with a developmental editor for your book draft, or a creativity coach to keep you accountable. My specialities are literary/upmarket fiction and memoir. I love well-written tales of life upheavals, LGBTQ stories, and, of course, women on the verge. Now booking for fall.
By “workshop” I mean the kind of writing class in which a group of 10-20 writers meets regularly, studies some published work and some craft topics, and shares their own drafts of stories, essays, or chapters with the group. Generally, everyone in the group then reads their classmates’ work as carefully and thoughtfully as they can, making notes on the draft, and writes up some feedback about how they think the writer could improve the piece. In class, there’s a discussion in which everyone shares their thoughts on the work. Some teachers don’t let the writer speak during the workshop of their piece, the idea being to keep them from getting defensive.
I used to follow that “cone of silence” model because that’s how I was taught, but I’ve moved away from it in recent years. I think a conversation is more useful than the rest of us pelting the writer with our thoughts, especially in a beginning-level class. I also encourage my writers to let us know at the top of their draft what exactly they’d like us to read for, what questions or concerns they have about the piece. (This is something I learned from Sybil Baker, a fabulous writer who is a colleague at the Yale Writers Workshop. Thanks, Sybil!)
Totally fine! Writing can be play! But this is a time for a generative class, not a workshop.
The Dunning-Kruger note is the most counterintuitive finding in the piece — that the most established writers tend to be the most supple about edits, and the newest writers the most brittle. The veteran has enough work in the world that no single piece carries the full weight of their identity. The newbie is often defending not the draft but the self. That's the real diagnosis underneath the workshop-readiness checklist.
Oh hey thanks for the shout out! Love you and all your hard work and good thoughts! And I can't wait to read your book!