Teaching Writers & Writing Teachers Group

A Writing Group of Teaching Writers and Writing Teachers

I’m a teaching writer and a writing teacher, both professions a labor of love which continuously feed each other.

Having  co-edited two popular anthologies in contemporary short fiction (1999-present) and contemporary creative nonfiction  (2006-present), I’ve also taught undergraduate and graduate-level literature courses and writing workshops for forty years, mostly in English Departments, and, over the last twenty-six years, in a bilingual (English/Spanish) MFA program with students from all over the Americas and beyond.  

I’ve focused my writing and teaching mostly on dramatic, blended-genre narrative writing—books of flash fiction, short fiction and novellas; flash-, short-form and long-form creative nonfiction; as well as narrative screenwriting, picture-book writing and illustration, prose poetry, etc.  

I’ve flown solo as a writer for my entire career, publishing award-winning books of literary fiction, a novella and a novella in flash fiction, but as I near retirement—five years or more ahead as I put two kids through college—I’ve found myself increasingly yearning for something I’ve never had: a small (no more than eight), diverse  writers’ group composed of long-term teaching writers and writing teachers who, like me, have found it difficult to share my work with others who also share, like me, a great deal of writing, teaching and technical expertise, especially the kind of insightful, respectful, honest, generous and genuinely kind feedback I’ve learned through deep experience as a teaching writer, writing teacher and workshop director.

Frankly, I don’t want to be an administrator or gate keeper or to be in charge of this group but, like my increasingly “democratic” and descriptive (rather than prescriptive) workshops over the years, I prefer civil conversations with other writers who’ve had trouble finding  readers who could share their work with in a safe, mutually respectful setting.

If you’re interested in writing and workshopping in a group like this, please send a direct message and let me know why this might be a group you could thrive in.  At present (June 12, 2026), I’m the only member of the new group, but as the group grows, I’d like to share the decision-making about which writers who respond we all agree will be a good fit.

Feel free to critique the ChatGPT logo—too cheesy?