Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop
Or, Living History
Hard to believe that it’s not yet Thanksgiving, and we can already look ahead to summer workshops. One of the best to look forward to in my book, Tinker Mountain, just released their 2026 line-up of courses and instructors. And it’s good.
Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop is held in the middle of June on the campus of Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. If on hearing these words, Annie Dillard floats to mind, there’s good reason.
Dillard’s an alumna of Hollins—along with, hold on to your hat, Lee Smith. Double hat-hold, they graduated in the same class! Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, was written while staring at that creek near campus.
Hollins’ history of nurturing creative writers might play a part in why it’s one of the best-run writing workshops I’ve had the pleasure of attending. The workshop is long—Sunday to Friday—and affordable, @$1200. for the week, if you add in room and board.
Tinker Mountain also offers scholarships. There are three partial merit-based scholarships, and one full need-based scholarship. The deadline for the scholarship applications comes up fast—March 16—so keep that in mind if you’re going to apply.
Students sleep in dorms on campus, and while the rooms aren’t luxurious, they are private. Writers don’t share bedrooms, but they do share communal bathrooms, with genders housed in separate wings. Students eat in the university’s dining hall with food crafted for every preference, and a made-to-order omelet station that lingers in my dreams.
Tinker Mountain runs like a top with a perfect balance of courses and leisure. There are faculty and student readings, craft talks and tutorials, red-brick architecture and rocking chairs. Students can use the campus library and fitness center. Capping it all off is a nice Thursday night dinner complete with white-linen tablecloths.
There’s history at Tinker Mountain, but it continues to live and change. This year the courses include new faculty members along with long-time instructors with devoted followings. But more than fresh faces, the courses seem more generative than before.
Generative workshops offer writers the chance to write under the guidance of an instructor who provides prompts and feedback. This is what some students prefer—the chance to write new work, instead of working on “old” pieces.
I do nothing but write most of the time, so I used to prefer a “straight” workshop to get feedback on my already-written poems and essays. But now that I’ve attended a few generative classes, I might be changing my mind. The fresh prompts that a teacher presents seem to unlock the box in my head, and I often find myself writing fresher work there than I would have at home.
I highly recommend Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop to veteran workshoppers and noobs alike. Chris Powell runs the event, and she’s always helpful and forever friendly in her replies. She’s very likely the reason the workshop runs so well.
Give their website a peek to see what I mean. Registration is already open, and it’s first come, first served, so don’t delay. Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop 2026
And if you go, tell them LuLu sent you.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I’m especially grateful to you for following along on my journey into print.
I’ll be busy being thankful this weekend, so I’ll see you on December 9 (!) to chat about the new novel that just rushed out of me like a runaway train—but better! Stay tuned…!