Bradford has taught fiction writing workshops to children and teenagers at venues ranging from an affordable housing community center to a regional arts festival for private high school students. She's proven to be a popular speaker at writing conferences sponsored by the Writers’ League of Texas in Austin and San Antonio's Gemini Ink. At the university level, Bradford recently taught Intermediate Fiction Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. In her teaching, Bradford draws on the wisdom of her own best teachers—Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, literary giant John Hawkes, experimental expatriate Harry Matthews, and many others.

A humorous and dramatic speaker, Bradford has given readings at Brown University and University of Oklahoma, on various community radio programs, and at various venues around Austin.
Bringing together the practical, time-tested and spiritual, Bradford offers the following sampling of courses:

The Things We’d Carry (elementary-age students)
Through writing, reading and sharing we learn what living in wartimes is really like. We listen to music from America’s Civil War and read the journal of a girl who’s family is caught in the conflict. Then we write her a letter, sharing our ideas about what she ought to do. We read an excerpt of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” about the contents of Vietnam War soldier’s backpacks. Then we write down what we’d bring into war.

Singing the Unsingable (for high school students)
Today we are going to sing the unsingable, say things no one has ever said before. Why? Because everyone has their own voice and everyone deserves a chance to be heard. Ever notice that we tend to say the same old things over and over? Today we’re going to try to say what we really mean, what we don’t even know we really mean . . . Oh, forget all that—we’re just going to have fun with a pen!
Writing What You Don't Know About What You Know (for adult writers)
Bending the familiar adage, Grace Paley instructs "write what you don't know about what you know." But what does that mean? This course will invite you to leave behind the familiar fictional worlds in which you usually write and take the plunge into the unknown. Using in-class writing exercises, class discussion, and even a little yoga breathing and altar making, you will tap into your deepest creativity and emerge with fresh ideas for new stories.
Intermediate Fiction Writing (for university students)
We will create a community where our writing can flourish. We’ll begin class with writing sprints and during the week we’ll return to our inner writing pool through journal entries. We will create at least two concise, honest short stories exhibiting an arc of movement, change or tension. We will discuss various aspects of the short story and observe them at work both in classic short stories and our peers’ stories. We will learn to critique stories in a manner that is descriptive and constructive. We will develop habits to incorporate writing into our daily lives.
Student Comments
“Robin was great at helping me get past my grogginess and resistance to in-class writing. I have stories ideas now!”
“I liked her emphasis on the need to write, the fact that if we are writers we cannot get away with not writing.”
“I wrote freely. This workshop has unblocked me.”
To learn more, contact Robin Bradford. {email link here to: robinbradford@hotmail.com}