Creative Writing on Jewish Themes
Online creative writing workshops with author Shira Nayman
SIGN UP BELOW!
Many of us have stories we want to tell that relate to our experiences of being Jewish. We feel called to write about personal family history or find ourselves interested in exploring Jewish identity in the modern world.
In My Jewish Learning’s new creative writing workshops, we’re offering a space in which those wishing to write on Jewish themes can come together in community and develop and share their work — in the form of fiction, creative nonfiction or memoir. Participants will be guided by Shira Nayman, a clinical psychologist and author of five books on Jewish themes, as well as essays and short stories. Shira has taught creative writing at Barnard College and Columbia University, as well as in private workshops and volunteer spaces, and she is passionate about the cultivation of Jewish identity through the written word in our tumultuous contemporary times.
We’re offering two identical workshop groups, each limited to 12 participants, and every participant will have the opportunity to workshop their writing with the class. You’ll leave the eight-week class with a trove of new work and a set of writing goals for the future.
Students will also gain access to our Circle community platform, which will bring us together to communicate and share work between class sessions.
No creative writing experience is required to join in — Shira believes that writing groups flourish when the participants bring different levels of experience to the work. Everyone is an expert in their own search for expression, which means that in a deep human sense, we are all at “the same level” and will learn from each other.
So choose a workshop group and sign up below!
SPRING 2026 WORKSHOPS
Workshop enrollment will close once a group has 12 participants. Learn more and register below.
Group 1:
8 Sundays from 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. ET, starting March 1
CLICK HERE to sign up for our SUNDAY session workshop group.
Dates: March 1, March 8, March 15, March 22, March 29, SKIP FOR PASSOVER, April 12, April 19, April 26
Group 2:
8 Wednesdays from 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. ET, starting March 4
CLICK HERE to sign up for our WEDNESDAY session workshop group.
Dates: March 4, March 11, March 18, March 25, SKIP FOR PASSOVER, April 15, April 22, April 29, May 6
ABOUT YOUR TEACHER:
Shira Nayman is an award-winning author, creative writing teacher and psychologist living in New York. She is the author of multiple novels and short story collections, including “Awake in the Dark,” “The Listener” and “Mind of Winter.” She has published fiction and nonfiction in a variety of literary journals and newspapers, including The Atlantic, The Georgia Review, The New England Review, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought and Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Prose. The winner of several grants from the likes of the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and the Australia Council for the Arts Literary Board, Nayman also holds a Psy.D from Rutgers University and explores themes of intergenerational Jewish trauma in her many works.