February Online Writers Workshop

Our next public workshop will be held on Tuesday evening, February 7, 2023 at 8pm ET live via Zoom. This writers workshop is an opportunity to get feedback on your short stories, novel chapters, and other work from other Christian writers.

Peer critique is one of the best ways to improve your work as a writer. We improve as much from providing feedback to others and learning to think critically about writing as we do from the feedback that we receive.

Everyone is welcome to attend the February Zoom workshop. You do NOT need to be a paid member of the Kingdom Writers Guild to participate. You may choose to submit work for peer critique, or you can just come and observe. This opportunity is open to all writers, regardless of skill or experience level.

If you’re a member of the Kingdom Writers Guild, click here to access additional members-only information about the workshops. If you’re not yet a member, it’s free and easy to register here.

To have your short story, poem, novel chapter, or essay included in the workshop, please email it to workshop@kingdomwritersguild.org by 8am ET Monday, January 30. Please only submit if you’re confident that you can attend in person.

We’ll make the stories we’ll be discussing available for download to Kingdom Writers Guild members for the week before the workshop (by the end of the day on Tuesday, January 31). Your work will only be available to KWG members who have an account, not to the general public. (Create a free account here to access the workshop.) We let everyone read the work before the workshop so that we’re ready to dive right into the discussion when we meet.

How does the writers workshop work?

1. You submit a PDF of your short story or other work to workshop@kingdomwritersguild.org by 8am ET on Monday, January 30. Please include your email address and page numbers on your work. If it’s a section of a larger work (like a chapter of a novel), include a note with a brief synopsis of anything the reader needs to know in order to appreciate the work.
2. We make that work available to the Kingdom Writers Guild for download by the end of the day on Tuesday, January 31. Create a free account here to login and download it.
3. You read the story BEFORE the workshop and prepare some thoughts.
4. We meet at 8pm ET on Tuesday, February 7 to discuss the stories. We’ll have a casual conversation to tell the author what we liked and didn’t like. As best as possible, the tone of the conversation will be brutally honest, but supportive and constructive.
5. The meeting will last about 90 minutes.
6. Do it again the next month!

If you don’t want to submit a story for feedback, you’re still welcome to attend and you can provide feedback to others. If it’s your first time doing something like this, you’re welcome to just observe and see how it goes.

Rules for a productive writers workshop:

• You must be present at the writers’ workshop to receive feedback on your work. Please only submit if you’re confident that you can attend.
• If you submit work for feedback, you must read all of the other stories for the workshop so that you can provide feedback to others. That’s the way this works. If you want to get feedback, then you must give feedback.
• You are NOT required to submit to the workshop in order to attend. You’re welcome to simply read and give feedback.
• Your work does not need to fit into the clean “Christian” box, but please be respectful of your fellow workshop participants. Violence, language, etc. should be purposeful.
• When you submit your work, please provide a PDF. Short stories should be less than 7,000 words. Novel chapters should be less than 5,000 words. If providing a novel chapter, make sure the reader has enough context to evaluate the section you want feedback on. Please include a short note to fill in any gaps.
• Submissions should include page numbers as well as the author’s name and email address.
• We will limit the workshop to eight submissions.

What should you do now?

Be bold and courageous! Choose a short story, novel chapter, or work that you’d like to really know if it’s any good or not, and send it to workshop@kingdomwritersguild.org.

This is a great opportunity to improve your writing in a constructive, supportive community.

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