The Winter Intensive Workshop

Hub City Writers Project is thrilled to host a new program, the Winter Intensive Workshop, for the first time in 2024, on the weekend of January 12-14, at the AC Marriott in downtown Spartanburg, SC.

The Hub City Winter Intensive is a brand-new program that consists of a weekend of dedicated fiction workshops with limited participants (10-12 per class). It is geared toward experienced writers who are working on a book-length project and will benefit from a dedicated workshop environment. Applicants must be 21+ years old.

Our inaugural Intensive Workshop leader will be acclaimed writer Dorothy Allison. Dorothy Allison is the author of the novels Bastard Out of Carolina, a National Book Award Finalist, and Cavedweller; the short story collection, Trash; essays, Skin: Talking about Sex Class & Literature; and poetry, The Women Who Hate Me. She lives in Northern California. 

Cost of Attendance

Tuition: $1000
Room and Board: $418 (includes hotel room, with two breakfasts, one lunch, and one dinner)

How to Apply

Acceptance to the Intensive will be by application with a fee of $15. We ask for one unpublished writing sample of short fiction or an excerpt from an in-progress novel—2,500 words or less. Hub City staff will read these applications and award writers a place in the Winter Intensive. Please reach out to Kate McMullen for more information. 

Two full scholarships are available for LGBTQ+ writers from the South. All self-identified applications will be considered.

Apply via Submittable

Projected Workshop Schedule

The Intensive starts at 5 p.m. on Friday, January 12, and wraps up at 1 p.m. on Sunday the 14th. A short class on Friday night will give time for introductions and icebreakers. Two 3-hour class blocks on Saturday will be time for workshopping the cohort's work. Dorothy Allison will read at our downtown Bookshop here in Spartanburg on the evening of the 13th, with a reception to follow.

On Sunday morning, Carter Sickels will offer a craft capsule workshop from 9:30-11 a.m. that will explore strategies for writing empathetic, engaging characters—how to create complex, flawed, and deeply human characters, as well as how to write from different points of view.

From 11-noon, Hub City Press staff will host a drop-in session on preparing a book for submission to agents and publishers and answer questions about the publishing process.