Is it part fiction writer and part poet?
Is it part screenwriter and party memoirist?
Or is it an AI-generated robot who can write all genres simultaneously?
Well maybe the answer lies in between and among those possibilities in some universes. Here, in our Westport Writers’ Workshop community, a hybrid workshop
is one in which writers may join in person or remotely. The instructor holds the class at the workshop and the remote participants join via our smartscreen.
As someone who has now run many hybrid workshops I’m here to say, it works! I wasn’t sure at first. How can I interact with writers on the screen and in the room? The bottom line is when we have a shared task at hand – to write, share, and talk about our writing – the literal and invisible walls seem to fall away.
On a practical level, it’s a nice option for us teachers and writers who like to meet in person while still allowing folks from farther away or who may be restricted for some reason to join us. I’ve also had cases where a writer could join for the first half and then had to travel for work or something and joined a few workshops from the road. The name of the game with our hybrid workshops is flexibility.
Madelin Parsley grew up in the panhandle of Nebraska. She holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Vanderbilt University, and her short stories have appeared in Ploughshares and Narrative Magazine. She’s currently working on a novel about five siblings, two small towns, and a family dynamic that is shaped and reshaped
Instructor Michael Belanger is an author and high school history teacher. His debut novel, The History of Jane Doe, was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award and received a Kirkus starred review. More recently, his writing has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Pigeon Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, and the 2025 Connecticut Literary Anthology.
