I would rate BWW a solid 10 (on 10). It offred not just a great workshop, but also connected me to a community of writers, a group of lovely people who want to write well and read a lot.

The intent was to feed off the creative energies of fellow writers and to help evolve my writing skills. This was certainly accomplished, at least the creative energies bit. I can only hope my writing skills have evolved. If anything, I might be stronger in accepting literary rejections now! The workshopping exercise was my primary take-away. I learnt as much from critiquing others as I did from being critiqued. The forceful (somewhat) push towards leaving my writing comfort zones, was beneficial in exploring the craft with a new perspective.

BWW is not a school or a walk in the park. It is an alternate universe, which has many travellers. Many of us have different destinations but all of us students know that our journey, pain and fun of writing is the same. And the BWW community helps us come together to make us a better writer. The community is like a family or tribe. We respect each other.

If you are in Bangalore and serious about writing, you should consider joining Bangalore Writers Workshop. It will introduce you to a community of like-minded people and help you focus on writing as a serious and achievable goal. The classes will take you over a few basic concepts of writing and the assignments, feedback and critique will all help you grow as a writer. I was a part of the second batch of what was then an experiment and the BWW course actually helped set me off on a course which has finally led me to publish a book. In short, I would highly recommend Bangalore Writers Workshop.

Joining BWW was one of the best things I did for my writing. It gave me all the things I so badly needed and didn't know about – discipline, debate, community, and, most of all, the courage and the curiosity to follow my ideas, however silly or difficult they seemed. To anyone who is interested in writing better, and in any genre, BWW is an invaluable school of ideas. Bhumika is a force of nature, intelligently and feistily nudging each student on to their best work.

I want to thank Bangalore Writers Workshop for encouraging the writer in me and providing new writers with a platform to hone their writing skills. This thriving community has helped me evolve as a thinker and a writer. I want to thank Bhumika Anand for so many life lessons, stimulating discussions, and countless book recommendations over the years.

Words and ideas are as numerous and dense as the trees in the woods. It's easy to get lost. BWW is that nimble-footed guide who knows every inch of the terrain and leads you gently by the forest path, taking you where you wish to go but know not how. BWW will help you appreciate great writers, organize your ideas, choose the right words, present your piece effectively, review like an editor, and much more!

As a young writer taking my first tentative steps into the world of writing a few years ago, there was nothing I desired more than an assurance that my work mattered. Such validation was difficult to come by, with writing being an inherently solitary activity. Thankfully for me, I stumbled upon BWW at the right time in my life. For BWW is a refuge you go to where you can honestly critique other people's works and get your own work looked at with dispassionate eyes. It is a place where you improve as a reader because you meet people with reading tastes different from your own. It is a community of people who are serious about writing, who make you realise that writing is a worthy pursuit. All this make BWW a precious resource for any aspiring writer in the country, one that I'm proud to be associated with.

My intent was to practice and get some discipline to my writing, learn a few things in the process on the art/craft of writing. The intent was met. In addition, it’s been great to see a community develop as a part of this process! I hadn’t quite expected that when I signed on.

My journey as a fiction writer started four years back with Bangalore Writers Workshop. I had never done creative writing in English before. I was full of uptight corporate lingo in passive voice and clichéd adjectives and adverbs to justify and argue my daily business. Bhumika broke my shell, like she does for many others. Gently and yet firmly with her hand-waving nonchalance, she filled me up with a universe unknown to me till then. She corrected every phrase till it showed more than it told. During these four years, I have done workshops with international writers. I can say with confidence that no one, I repeat no one, breaks down fiction for easy digestion of a beginner and sees to it that her students get out there on the right footing. There may be many great writers, but good teachers of writing are rare. I am fortunate to come across Bhumika and her labour of love, BWW. I recommend the Classic fiction course for everyone who is serious about pursuing writing. You will be a labourer and designer of fiction with perseverance with this start.

I found the workshop online, during these corona times, when searching for the best creative writing course in India. A variety were suggested, but after looking at the BWW website and course readings, I was sold. As I come from Britain and wanted to do a writing course in India, I had specific intentions. I wanted to travel and study in India (which, seeing as here in 2020 this is impossible, this was next best). I also wanted a course, in English as that’s all I can speak, that wasn’t so Euro or US-focused (I don’t mind a bit of that stuff, but it gets boring). So I had what was a political intention that I wanted to investigate and be challenged on, and the wide and highly-charged reading list I saw was backed up by the course. I felt creatively connected, engaged, and able to critically debate with all the group and Bhumika. I still haven’t travelled to India (at least not for 18 years) but in every other sense, yes, the workshop met my expectations. My first key take-way was on the level of organisation. Another was in terms of thinking through characters, plots, and the structure of the writing, making it intelligible and digestible, and in doing this I was allowed to stick to my guns, write in complicated forms if I wanted to, as long as I knew how I would pull it off (and admit when I hadn’t). Thinking about other people’s work and critiquing was the best vehicle for learning all this. Bhumika Anand got me taking my writing seriously and my flaws seriously, which no one else has done to that extent. Her style is encouraging and scolding by turns, and even more effective when doing both at once. Bhumika was able to tell me what I didn’t know about my writing and catch me out when I was - as we say - ‘blagging it’ (faking it and hoping no one would notice). I also learnt more than just about writing but about a possible approach to life which was uncompromising, and how this approach being present in the way you approach writing is a real help.