Anita’s Attic is India’s longest-running creative writing mentorship program, founded and personally led by author Anita Nair in Bengaluru. For twelve years, it has identified and nurtured new literary voices across fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and mor in partnership with HarperCollins India and conditionsapply, a digital strategy agency.
In 2026, the program has been restructured into three formats, This has been done so that writers at any stage, and with any amount of time to give, can learn directly from Anita Nair and the Attic’s network of authors, agents, and publishing professionals.
Three Ways to Learn at Anita’s Attic
The Mentorship Intensive (Flagship Program)
A four-week, highly personal mentorship for 4 consecutive Saturdays, limited to 20 aspiring writers, personally selected and mentored by Anita Nair. This is the core Anita’s Attic experience: focused craft sessions, manuscript feedback, guest talks from publishing industry experts, and a showcase at the end of the program. Cost: Rs 40,000.
Creative Writing Webinars
Two-hour live online sessions on specific aspects of the craft -voice, structure, character, dialogue, genre conventions — followed by an open Q&A with Anita Nair. Designed for writers who want focused, expert input on a single topic without committing to the full mentorship cycle.
Self-Paced Learning
Pre-recorded modules available on demand through learning.anitasattic.com, the Attic’s e-learning platform. Built for writers anywhere in the world who want to work through the fundamentals of creative writing at their own pace, ahead of or alongside the live programs.
Why the Program Changed
For the past decade, Anita’s Attic ran a single twelve-week mentorship format. The new three-tier structure exists because not every writer needs, or can commit to, three months of weekly sessions to benefit from direct mentorship. The four-week Mentorship Intensive keeps the same hands-on, small-group model that the original program was built on, while the webinars and self-paced modules extend the same craft instruction to a much wider audience, including writers outside Bengaluru and outside India.
Who is Anita Nair
Anita Nair is an internationally published author, working across fiction, poetry, and screenwriting, with a body of work translated into over thirty languages. She is the bestselling author of nine novels and a short story collection. She has also published six books for children, three original audio books, a collection of poems and a collection of essays. Anita has also written two plays and the screenplay for the movie adaptation of her novel Lessons in Forgetting which won the National Award in 2013. Her books have been published in over 31 languages around the world. She is a High Profile Supporter of UNHCR.
Who Should Apply
Anita’s Attic works with writers across genres: novels, poetry, essays, screenplays, short stories, audiobooks, and children’s fiction. Applicants must be 18 or older. Whether you’re starting your first manuscript or refining work toward publication, the program is built to help you identify your strengths, address your weaknesses, and develop a clear, distinct voice, guided directly by Anita Nair.
What to expect in each Session
As it is a dedicated project to hone and sharpen literary skills, the program will be open to only 20 writers at a time and will be conducted online. Four sessions of 5 hours each, every Saturday, that is spread over four weeks! There will be assignments as well as periodic evaluations and a showcase event.
Who can benefit from the Program
The Anita’s Attic Creative Writing Mentorship program looks at nurturing talents from the realm of Poetry, Novels, Essays, Travel Writing, Screenplays, Short Stories , Audio Books and Children’s Fiction. Anyone who has ever thought of writing or dreamt of publishing one’s literary work will find the Creative Writing Mentorship program at Anita’s Attic the perfect place to begin that journey. The program will help you clearly evaluate your strengths and drawbacks as a writer, enabling you to enhance the former and effectively address the latter, with the guidance and mentorship on an one to one basis with one of the most popular and respected authors in fiction internationally and in India.
How to Apply
It is as easy as it comes. All you need to do is to fill up the brief form available here online, and upload a copy of your recent published work, if any, or anything that you have written recently. You can either upload the file or have it pasted into the form-fields given in the Inquire & Join section.
Cost of the Program & Inclusives
The consolidated cost of the 4-week Anita’s Attic Creative Writing Mentorship Online program is INR 40,000/- .
By the end of each Creative Writing Course Season, the aspiring writer would have spent 5 hours a week for consecutive 4 weeks interacting and engaging with some of the best authors, publishing industry experts and digital media specialists, who together will give the participant a clear understanding of the publishing domain. Anita Nair, with her personal mentorship and one to one sessions will evaluate, assess and guide the aspiring writer on his/her work in progress, often helping view the literary work with objectivity, suggesting crucial changes and facilitating an exceptionally productive literary output.
