June 22, 2025 – July 13, 2025
This Short Story Writing Masterclass is led by Kritika Pandey.
The earlier ten were sold out or almost full, and received rave reviews.
Kritika Pandey is an award winning writer India is proud of. Kritika has many accolades to her name. Most recently Kritika Pandey’s story “The Great Indian Tee and Snakes” (Link in Kritika’s bio below) was adjudged the overall winner of the Commonwealth short story prize 2020. Her detailed profile is below.
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This Short Story Writing Workshop is designed around the work of the participants. The small group of 12 participants along with Kritika Pandey will discuss the works of participants with a focus on structure. It will include craft talks, exercises, and selected readings.
We will study how to pass time in stories in an organic manner, how to better explore character through perspective and contrast, how dialogue accomplishes multiple tasks at once. During this unique Short story writing workshop in India, we’ll understand the role of brevity in writing and how to cultivate it, why repetition is an important narrative element, how our lack of knowledge about what is to come next is not an impediment but a generative tool for fiction. We’ll also learn other techniques in writing that confirm and unsettle our expectations even as they enrich our own works.
This workshop is spread over four weekends:
22nd, 29th June & 6th, 13th July 2025 – 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)
Participation in the Short Story writing workshop is limited to 12. We enrol 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.
Detailed Program – Short Story Writing Workshop
Each day will be broken into two parts. In part one we will spend an hour on an element of the craft of Short Story Writing such as Dialogue, Repetition, Editing or some such. In the second part which is two hours long, we will “workshop” the work of the participants. Each participant will be asked to have a piece of writing ready for review. The group as a whole will read and provide feedback in a structured manner moderated by Kritika.
So expect to write and read a lot during this workshop.
On the fourth day we will dive deep into editing, a widely underestimated and barely understood element of great writing.
Session #1:
What comes next? (Not knowing: Donald Barthelme) | 60 minutes
Workshop 4 student stories | 30 mins each
Session #2:
Time (in-class exercise) and Dialogue (Angles on Dialogue: Douglas Unger) | 60 minutes
Workshop 4 student stories | 30 mins each
Session #3:
Repetition (Structural Unity in Fiction: Sandra Novack, Why I Decide to Kill Myself and Other Jokes: Douglas Glover) | 60 minutes
Workshop 4 student stories | 30 mins each
Session #4:
Editing (In-class editing exercises) | 120 mins
Talk on submitting to literary magazines and general public Q&A | 60 mins
You will need a good internet connection and a laptop (a phone will not do) to participate.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why should I choose HWR Workshops?
- Personal Attention: We do not take more than 15 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 cannot 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.
- Cost per hour: Our courses are long and intense. As an example, the Creative Writing course is 18000 for 24 contact hours (3 days, 8 hours each day). The cost per hour = 750 / hour. That is comparable to many of the “cheaper” courses.
- 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.
- Feedback scores: Across courses, we are rated 4.5/5, 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:
- Refund on cancellation upto 30 days before the start of the workshop: 100% of the workshop fee (or amount paid until then) less 4% of the full workshop fee including GST as administration and handling charges.
- Refund on cancellation between 13 days to 7 days before the start of the workshop : 50% of workshop fee.
- No refund on cancellation 7 days or fewer before the start of the workshop.
- Is the Himalayan Writing Retreat a business or an NGO?
The Himalayan Writing Retreat is a social enterprise. It works closely and actively with two local NGOs in its community work initiatives: Chirag and Alaap. In 2020, HWR raised INR 6.1 Lakhs 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).
Event Summary
**Please note: The price is exclusive of GST. i.e. INR 15,000 + GST