Writers' Workshop
Next year’s Workshop will be held July 20-25, 2025. Information on the 2024 gathering is included below. Check back in November for updated information!
Interested in learning more about Ironwood Writers Studio, our high school creative writing residency? Click here!
JULY 21-26, 2024
The Premier Literary Gathering of the Mountain South
Make plans to join us for the 47th annual Appalachian Writers’ Workshop. This week-long residency welcomes published and unpublished writers alike, all learning alongside one another in a supportive environment guided by the region’s unique tradition.
The Workshop provides an opportunity to study craft in structured workshops, attend special topic sessions, and enjoy captivating readings by our award-winning faculty. This historic gathering is known for providing rigorous instruction in a family-like atmosphere, where writers of place come together at the banks of Troublesome to meet a year-round community. Beginning, emerging, and established writers are all encouraged to apply.
Jim Wayne Miller/James Still Keynote Lecturer Margaret Renkl is the author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (2020 Reed Award for Environmental Writing), and Graceland, At Last (2022 Southern Book Prize and 2022 PEN/Diamondstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay). She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times where her essays appear weekly.
Offering immersive workshops, including one-on-one feedback session, by renowned faculty for the genres of:
- creative nonfiction (Jonathon Corcoran)
- novel (Jennifer Haigh and Glenn Taylor)
- short story (Monic Ductan)
- poetry (Rose McLarney and Joy Priest)
Multiple special topic sessions and panels to enhance your experience:
- Me and You, Yo Mama and Yo Cousin, Too, as Characters: Recognizing Real to Shape Your Fiction: (Gentry)
- Bathing In Words (Hicks)
- Poetry: The Image as Discovery & Gift (Lyon)
- Writing with Humor (Shaffer)
- Out of the Mouth of Babes: Finding the Voice of the Child Who Inhabits Your Memories (Carver)
- The 5 W’s and H of the Appalachian Literary Renaissance (Green)
- The Elusive Literary Agent: How to Find and Secure Your Publishing Representative (Speilburg)
- Learning the Lyrics: Songwriting Essentials for Listening (Parsons)
Craft lecture with Marianne Worthington, the Workshop’s Senior Writer-In-Residence
Special events including a book publishing panel with Ohio University Press, University Press of Kentucky, and Hub City Press and a book signing reception
Evening readings by faculty
MANUSCRIPT REQUIREMENTS
All manuscripts (original, unpublished) should be formatted with one-inch margins, 12-point type with no unusual fonts. Please submit your best work in your chosen genre. You will have an opportunity to submit a different manuscript for faculty feedback, if admitted. Limit your manuscript submission to the following number of pages:
- Novel: (20 or less, double-spaced)
- Nonfiction | Short Story: (10-15, double-spaced)
- Poetry: (10-15, single-spaced; 1 per page)
Please do not include your name or any identifying information on the manuscript. Use the following protocol to name your manuscript file: Genre_Year_FirstName_LastName.doc (or .docx). For example: ShortStory_2024_Josh_Mullins.doc
A $200 deposit is required at the time of application.
The cost for tuition, which includes all sessions and special events, is $450.
For those opting to utilize shared campus housing in one of our historic cottages, the cost is $200 for the duration of the Workshop. We will strive to honor all housing and roommate requests. Additional lodging may be available in area hotels for those wishing to commute.
Meal plans are also available for the week, beginning with dinner on Sunday and concluding with lunch on Friday. The cost is $250. Our kitchen accommodates vegan (including vegetarian) or gluten-free diets.
Deadline to apply: May 1
For those with financial need, please explore scholarship opportunities available thanks to our generous donors.
SARA HENNING - HUNTINGTON, WV
The Workshop offers participants an opportunity to hone their craft and build a tightly woven network of peers across the Appalachian region.
“It felt meaningful to me to be in a space with writers and artists who care about the artistic journey and human dignity of all conference participants, writers and artists generous enough to provide advice and extend friendship to those at all levels of artistic development.
As someone who has attended many literary conferences and workshops, I find Hindman unique in being able to provide such a democratic, unpretentious, and nurturing atmosphere. “
