In workshop, American academic (8)
I believe the answer is:
studious
'academic' is the definition.
(academic can mean studious or scholarly)
'in workshop american' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'workshop' could be 'studio' (I've seen this before) and 'studio' is present in the answer.
'american' could be 'us' (United States) and 'us' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for studious that I've seen before include "Deliberate and painstaking as in reading" , "Bookish, scholarly" , "Like a good schoolboy" , "Thoughtful - hard-working" , "with great care" .)