The Gainesville Writers Workshop offers important services to fiction writers of all levels of skill and experience in the Gainesville community. The GWW provides instruction and feedback tailored to the experience level of its members. Members can sign up for the Foundations Workshop, the Workshop for Developing Writers, or the Advanced Workshop. The GWW also offers other services to writers in t
he Gainesville area. Please visit our website for details on the specifics of each workshop as well as scheduling and pricing. The GWW is run by its founder, Heather Wells Peterson. Heather graduated from Brown University. She also has an MA in English and Creative Writing from Lancaster University in Lancaster, England. She then participated in a workshop at Harvard University taught by Paul Harding, a recent recipient of the Pulitzer, before coming down to Gainesville to earn her MFA in Fiction from University of Florida, an exclusive graduate program ranked in the top 10 by Poets & Writers that accepts only 1-3% of its applicants each year. While at UF, Heather participated in workshops led by famous, established fiction writers like David Leavitt, Padgett Powell, Jill Ciment, and Mary Robison. In her third year, the program awarded her the Rebecca Elizabeth Porter award for woman writers. While earning her MFA, Heather taught:
1 beginning composition class
1 intermediate composition class
3 technical writing classes
3 introductory creative writing (fiction) classes
3 intermediate creative writing (fiction) classes
1 introductory screenwriting class
During her time in the MFA program, Heather was given an award for excellence in teaching from UF's English department. She was also asked to give a presentation on teaching at the University Writing Program's orientation for incoming graduate students. In the fall of 2013, Heather also taught a literature course at the GWW's partner, the Sequential Artist's Workshop, to students in its certificate program.
