I’ve been teaching writing for 13 years, privately and at various schools and universities, including the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program, and Chapman University. I’ve guest lectured at UC Riverside-Palm Desert, Cal State Northridge, CSU Channel Islands, Lighthouse Writers, The LA Writers’ Grotto, CalArts, Antioch, and The Jakarta Post Writing Center in Jakarta, Indonesia, among other places, and have mentored students through the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Program.

My students have gone on to publish stories in Wigleaf, Narrative, One Story, Ninth Letter, Smokelong Quarterly, Iowa Review, Fugue, Hobart, HAD, Paris Review, Gulf Coast, Georgia Review, Maudlin House, Jabberwock Review, Bourbon Pen, Juked, Friction, New England Review, Asimov’s, Apex, Augur, Southwest Review, Bellevue Literary Journal, Harvard Review, Freeman’s, BULL: Men’s Fiction, The Los Angeles Review, Craft Literary, BOMB Magazine, and The Sun, among other places.

They have also continued on to MFA or PhD Programs, including at NYU, Rutgers, Columbia, CalArts, BU, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, OSU, SFSU, UC Santa Cruz, UNM, Notre Dame, University of Miami, University of Manchester, USC, and the American Film Institute, while others have gone on to the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, and the PEN Emerging Voices Program. They have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and for inclusion in the annual Best Small Fictions anthology; one had a story appear in the new Coolest American Stories 2023 anthology; one won a Fulbright Scholarship to Brazil(!); one was accepted into the Stony Brook BookEnds Fellowship Program; another had a story on the LeVar Burton Reads Podcast. Most recently, two of the students in my 2022 Chapman University class on Writing SF&F won 1st and 2nd Place in the Annual Dell Award Contest for Excellence in Undergraduate Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing, and a third received Honorable Mention. I’ve also had students go on to publish novels, short story collections, middle grade novels, and children’s books.

This is not to say that I’m responsible for any of these successes! But I do pride myself on not having prevented them.

If you’d like to enroll in one of my writing workshops, the easiest thing to do is head over to the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program website and see what I’m teaching there this quarter. I also sometimes have room in my quarterly private workshop (I call it The Echo Park School of Short Stories); if you’re interested in that, send 1-2 sample pages of your fiction (12pt font, double-spaced, spellchecked, in a Word doc or PDF only please) to me at benloory at gmail dot com; if I like it and there is space I will let you know and send you the details. If you don’t hear from me the answer is no. If you send me more than 2 pages I will not read them and will ignore you for the rest of my life.

I am also available for hire to critique individual stories on a case-by-case basis. Turnaround is 2-3 weeks. I will provide written feedback and, if you like, there will be a short Zoom call to discuss the notes and answer questions. Email me at benloory at gmail dot com for rates and availability. Do not send a story without talking to me first.

And that’s it! My teaching speech. Happy Writing!