Pre-Workshop Mini Writing Retreat

“Writing Place: A multi-genre generative retreat” will be facilitated by writer-in-residence Marianne Worthington. This pre-conference retreat welcomes all writers who want to explore how setting, context, memory, and lived experiences can be communicated by concentrating on physical landscapes and the internal emotions associated with place.

Participants will create and share new place-based work over three sessions:

Saturday, July 19

1-3 p.m.                       Check in

3-5 p.m.                       Session 1

5:30 p.m.                     Dinner

6:30-8 p.m.                 Session 2

Sunday, July 20

9-10 a.m.                    Continental breakfast

10 a.m.-12 noon        Session 3

12 noon                       Lunch

1 p.m.                          Check in begins for Appalachian Writers’ Workshop

Participation in the mini retreat is available only to those admitted to the Workshop. A maximum of 20 slots are available and will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. Registration information will be provided in your acceptance notification to the Workshop.

Participants attending the mini retreat will use the same housing option and assignment assigned for the Workshop. The cost to attend, which includes one nights lodging, three meals, and sessions, is $125. The cost for commuting participants is $80.

About the Facilitator

Marianne Worthington is author of The Girl Singer (University Press of Kentucky, 2021), winner of the 2022 Weatherford Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, CALYX, Swing, Five South, and Salvation South, among other places. She cofounded and was poetry editor of Still: The Journal, an online literary magazine publishing writers, artists, and musicians with ties to Appalachia (2009-2024). Her second book of poems, Water. Witness. Word., is forthcoming from Belle Point Press. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and lives, writes, and teaches in southeastern Kentucky.