Community of Writers

The Community of Writers offers workshops in poetry from June 21 to June 27 and in fiction and nonfiction (including creative nonfiction) from July 7 to July 14 in Olympic Valley, near Lake Tahoe in California’s Sierra Nevada. The program features workshops, craft talks, publishing panels, readings, and one-on-one conferences with faculty. The faculty includes poets Anthony Cody, Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, Jane Miller, Gregory Pardlo, and Evie Shockley; fiction writers Lou Berney, Venita Blackburn, Kirstin Chen, Rickey Fayne, Jamie Ford, Katy Hays, Louis B. Jones, Maceo Montoya, Peter Orner, Sameer Pandya, Kirstin Valdez Quade, and Gregory Spatz; fiction and nonfiction writers Tom Barbash, Vanessa Hua, Lauren Markham, and Robin Romm; and nonfiction writers Frances Dinkelspiel, Lauren Markham, and Julia Flynn Siler. Participating publishing professionals include editors Jessica Case (Pegasus), Ben George and Maya Guthrie (Little, Brown), Mary Melton (Alta Journal), Alex Star (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Andrew Tonkovich (Santa Monica Review and Citric Acid), Oscar Villalon (Zyzzyva) and agents Michael V. Carlisle and Michael Mungiello (Inkwell Management), Annie Hwang (Ayesha Pande Literary), and Peter Steinberg (United Talent Agency). Tuition, which includes meals, is $1,600 for a poetry workshop and $1,700 for a prose workshop. Lodging is available in private or shared condos as well as nearby shared houses, ranging from $425 for a shared bunkroom in a house to $1,900 for a private condo; prices vary slightly for poetry and prose workshop attendees. Full-tuition scholarships and financial aid designated for underrepresented writers are available. To apply, submit four to five pages of poetry with a $35 application fee or up to 5,000 words of prose with a $40 application fee by March 10. Visit the website for an application form and complete guidelines.

Accessibility accommodations include accessible sidewalks, pathways, and doorways; accessible bathrooms; accessible parking; closed captioning for online programming; transcriptions of talks; venue signage in Braille; and interpretive listening devices (with advance request). Contact the executive director via phone or e-mail for additional accessibility details.