Short Story Writing Workshop with Kritika Pandey (Online)
November 22 – December 13
This Short Story Writing Masterclass is led by Kritika Pandey.
The earlier ten were sold out or almost full, and received rave reviews.
The Alien in Me: Writing Beyond Identity
In the era of artificial intelligence, when stories are reduced to patterns and predictions, this short story masterclass invites you to unlearn those patterns. Explore the versions of yourself that won’t hold still. Let language do something you wouldn’t normally permit.
After all, to be human is to resist interpretation.
We are creatures who don’t quite cohere and keep going anyway.
So how do you write fiction that is, in the words of Albert Camus, “the lie through which we tell the truth?” Now that machines can pass as human, how do you write something that goes beyond personal history, identity markers, and a stable sense of self? How do you expand that mysterious entity called consciousness when even quantum physicists are unsure about it? And in an increasingly polarized world, how do you tell stories about people’s myriad universal complexities, not just their narrow political leanings?
This workshop will explore those questions and more.
Together, we’ll encounter The Thunder, Perfect Mind, a 2nd-century CE Gnostic text of unknown authorship. We’ll place it alongside the ancient Chinese wisdom of the Dao De Jing and the ascetic Upanishadic philosophy of neti neti.
But we won’t get lost in abstraction.
We’ll ground ourselves in the work of writing as we think through elements of craft such as:
- How to pass the time in fiction
- Escalation and causality in storytelling
- The narrative significance of not knowing what comes next
- How the best dialogue can reveal character, present information, and move the plot forward, all at once
Event Summary
USD 200 for International payments
**Please note: The price is exclusive of GST. So the full price is INR 15,000 + GST.
This class is for any writer who has ever attempted to write a short story, irrespective of whether they have a complete work to submit. You’re welcome to share fragmentary notes, multiple excerpts, as well as finished stories under 5000 words.
In addition to receiving lots of feedback on your writing, as well as commenting on the works of your fellow writers, there will be in-class generative writing to demonstrate the aspects of writing that can’t quite be taught.
Take this class if you’ve ever wondered if:
- All stories have already been told
- What makes fiction original is not the WHAT but the HOW
- As a new writer, your job is to touch upon the age-old conundrums of the human condition that have been tackled by other writers a million times before, such as love, loss, spite, loneliness, guilt, and belonging, in a way that feels fresh and exciting
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- You will have one thoroughly considered short story by the end of this workshop.
- You will have a clearer understanding of how to write in a way that amplifies your unique voice.
- You’ll be equipped with new psychoanalytical and philosophical methods of abstracting all works of fiction, including your own.
This workshop is spread over four weekends:
22nd & 29th November, and 6th & 13th December 2026 – All Sundays
5.00 PM – 7.30 PM IST each day
During these four days different aspects of writing short stories will be covered.
(Day-wise detailed program is shared in the section given below)
COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1: Time and Dialogue
Techniques for handling time within a story, and employing dialogue to advance the plot while developing character.
Week 2: Causality and Meaning
Using patterns and repetition to create structure in the absence of a clear, logical progression.
Week 3: The Self That Doesn’t Hold
Approaches to employing shifting narrative voices and points of view.
Week 4: Say It and It Exists
An inquiry into how speech functions as action and how language can carry risk.
Participation in the Short Story writing workshop is limited to 12 only of which four remain open. We enroll approved participants on a first-come first-served basis. To apply, please fill out the form below. It helps us get to know you better as a writer, and also as a fit for this workshop.
About the Instructor
KRITIKA PANDEY
A Pushcart-nominated writer from Jharkhand, India, Kritika Pandey is a graduate of the MFA for Poets and Writers, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her many accolades include the 2020 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation and shortlisting for the commonwealth prize in 2018 as well as 2016.
In 2020, she was the Overall winner of the Commonwealth short story prize for her story “The Great Indian Tee and Snakes”. “A gut-punch of a story, all the more shocking in its charged conclusion given that most of it is set at a tea seller’s and its energy derives from a few looks between a boy and a girl,” says the Ghanaian writer NiiAyikwei Parkes, one of the Judges. You can read the story at https://granta.com/the-great-indian-tee-and-snakes/ .
Her writing has been published in Raleigh Review, The Common, Granta, UCity Review and The Bombay Literary Magazine, among others. Her other awards include the 2014 Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh, the 2018 Cara Parravani Memorial Award in Fiction, the 2018 Harvey Swados Fiction Prize, and the 2020 James W. Foley Memorial Award.
Kritika lives in Massachusetts, USA and will teach the course online from there.
FAQs
- Why should I choose HWR Workshops?
- Personal Attention: We don’t take more than 10 students in a class. You get a lot of personal attention and feedback. No classrooms of 20-30 people or one-way pre-recorded videos here.
- Class Quality: For most courses, we filter our participants. You can’t just pay and sign up. We need to see a writing sample (in our application form) to ensure the class is of a uniform standard.
- Quality of Faculty: No lightweights here. Many of our faculty are award-winners. All are experts and great teachers. We don’t settle for average.
- A Decade’s Experience:The Himalayan Writing Retreat was founded in 2016. we’ve been doing teaching programs for writers for ten years. we;ve hosted over 1000 people, and have yet to have an unhappy participant. It shows up in everything we do.
- Feedback scores: Across courses, we are rated 4.9/5, or higher. You can read our reviews HERE.
- Do I get a certificate of participation?
Yes, certificates are available on request.
- Any discounts for students / other categories?
At the Himalayan Writing Retreat, we follow a strict No-Discount policy.
- Is the workshop fee refundable?
Our cancellation policy is as follows:
Online Writing Workshop:
* 95% refund if cancellation 2 weeks before the event start date
* 50% refund if cancellation one week before the start date
* No refund if cancellation less than one week before the start date.
Workshops in the Himalayas (INR Denominated) :
* 95% refund if cancellation 4 weeks before the event start date
* 50% refund if cancellation two weeks before the start date
* 0% refund if cancellation less than two weeks before the start date.
- Is the Himalayan Writing Retreat a business or an NGO?
The Himalayan Writing Retreat is a social enterprise. It works closely and actively to support the unique and precious Chirag School. On average, HWR raises INR 8 Lakhs every year to support the Chirag School.
Have more questions?
Feel free to write to us at:
info@himalayanwritingretreat.com
Or connect with us at
+91 73035 16665
(Call | WA | Signal)
Cancellation Policy for Online Workshops
- 100% refund (less 5% of total program fee) on cancellation 15 days or more before the event start date.
- 50% refund if cancellation is between 15 and 7 days before start date.
- 0% refund if cancellation is less than 7 days before the start date.