The cost for each class is $25, or $20 for members (those who have made a charitable contribution in 2008 or 2009). Because some classes have sold out, a package of six sessions is no longer available. Converse College is our partner in this program.

January 5

Fiction Workshop with Ashley Warlick SOLD OUT

There's a wonderful lie about (and sometimes perpetrated by) writers, that they must live dangerously in order to write about danger; that all good writing comes from experience. In fact, good writing comes from the ability to recognize experience when you see it, and the confidence to apply your imagination to what you find.  In this course, we will examine the fictional promise of found stories, public artifacts, family memories, gossip, and other slivers of the everyday, using what we find around us as inspiration for what we invent. We will use class time to generate and discuss new work, as well as to discuss stories by other successful writers who have drawn their inspiration from real life.  This course is appropriate for writers at any stage in their craft. Ashley Warlick is the author of three novels, The Distance From The Heart of Things (1996), The Summer After June (2000), and Seek the Living (2005), all published by Houghton Mifflin. She is the youngest winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, a founding member of the advisory board for the Novello Festival Press, and book columnist for several newspapers.

7-8:30 p.m.

$25 ($20 for members) Email to join Wait List

February 9

Poetry workshop with Cathy Smith Bowers

One of the biggest mistakes a poet can make is to begin with an idea or an abstraction rather than with an image. This workshop will explore the process of writing into the mystery of abiding images, images that take hold of us and will not let go, sometimes even after decades. Cathy Smith Bowers, a poet who lives in Tryon, is the author of The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas, published in 1992, and the first winner of the Texas Tech University Press First-Book Competition in their Poetry Award Series, subsequently named for Walt McDonald. Iris Press republished The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas in 1997. Iris Press published Cathy’s second book, Traveling in Time of Danger, in 1999. Iris Press published Cathy’s third book, A Book of Minutes, in 2004. Cathy teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte.

7-8:30 p.m.

$25 ($20 for members) REGISTER

March 16

Fiction workshop with Elizabeth Cox SOLD OUT

This workshop focuses on dialogue and gesture, as well as description of a character. Novelist Elizabeth Cox will give examples from literature and give participants a chance to complete short assignments. They will also write a scene in which two characters are interacting, using all of these specifics. Elizabeth is the author of Slow Moon, Night Talk, The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love, Familiar Ground, and the story collection Bargains in the Real World. She is an instructor at the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches at Wofford College in South Carolina, where she shares the John C. Cobb Endowed Chair in the Humanities with her husband, C. Michael Curtis.

$25 ($20 for members) Email to join Wait List

April 6

Poetry workshop with Richard Tillinghast

The author of eight poetry books will present a session on “working with archetypes.” This session will include some in-class writing assignments. Richard, who lives in Ireland, is the author of eight volumes of poetry. He retired in 2005 from the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Michigan, having been there since the program's inception in 1983. He has also been a Director of The Poets' House in Ireland and founder of the Bear River Writer's Conference held annually in Petoskey, Michigan. Richard is in Spartanburg courtesy of Converse College, where he is a visiting writer in the Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Visiting Writers Series.

7-8:30 p.m.

$25 ($20 for members) REGISTER

May 18

History writing workshop with Melissa Walker

History is one of the best-selling categories of non-fiction, and most of us know a true historical story that we believe needs telling.  But writing history can seem overwhelming.  How can you assemble mountains of research into a coherent narrative?  This workshop will de-mystify the process of writing history. Melissa Walker's first book, All We Knew Was to Farm: Rural Women in the Upcountry South, 1919-1941, received the Willie Lee Rose Prize for the best book in Southern history authored by a woman. Her 2007 book Southern Farmers and Their Stories was awarded a prestigious Outstanding Academic Title Award from Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. Melissa holds the George Dean Johnson Jr. chair in history at Converse College.

7-8:30 p.m.

$25 ($20 for members) REGISTER

June 1

Memoir/Fiction workshop with Leslie Pietrzyk SOLD OUT

Have you always wanted to write but couldn't quite find the courage to pick up a pencil? Or perhaps you're a secret writer, scribbling stories in private notebooks, compulsively filling the pages of your journal? This supportive, hands-on workshop will give you courage to write and direction about how to proceed. Through discussion and writing exercises, participants will learn some basic techniques of fiction/memoir writing.The goal is to leave with several promising pieces to finish at home. Leslie is the author of Pears on a Willow Tree, a novel about four generations of Polish-American women, and Year and a Day, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Her short fiction has appeared in many literary journals, and she has received a number of awards and fellowships, including Shenandoah's Jean Charpiot Goodheart Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Memorial Award. She currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University. Leslie is in Spartanburg courtesy of Converse College, where she is on the faculty of the MFA in Creative Writing Program.

7-8:30 p.m.

$25 ($20 for members) Email to join Wait List