Anna Jean Mayhew
and Scott Huler
will teach at
Table Rock
this fall!

Welcome to the Table Rock Writers Home Page.

If you are new to us, please read our history and values to the right. If you are a returning writer, please know that for our September workshop in 2012, we have some very exciting developments.

Anna Jean Mayhew, author of The Dry Grass of August, will teach fiction for us.

Though AJ has been teaching writing for many years, the story behind the publication of her first novel is inspiring. Her book was an "Okra Pick" by the Southern Indpependent Booksellers Association and was the 2011 winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award. It is now in its 8th printing. Quite a stir has been created by this novel about Charlotte in the 1950s.

Scott Huler, the 2011 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate in Creative Nonfiction, will also be on the mountain at Wildacres to teach-- what else?--creative nonfiction.

Scott is the author of six books on subjects ranging from NASCAR to sailing to Raleigh's underground infrastructure, meaning water and sewer. Yep, plumbing, and he makes it fascinating. No matter what topic Scott tackles, the result is both wise and funny.

You will be glad to know both A.J. and Scott if you come to the workshop this year.

Dawn Shamp, author of On Account of Conspicuous Women, will be with us again this fall, but this time she arrives as the first-ever "Table Rock Reader in Residence," meaning that for a reasonable fee, Dawn will do a line-by-line critique of your work in advance of the workshop and meet with you by appointment during an afternoon in the workshop week to give you detailed feedback. This is a new service we want to try, just to add value to your experience.

Veteran instructors, Darnell Arnoult (memoir) and Abigail DeWitt (novel) are back this year with their own workshop sections. And Judy Goldman, though not teaching a section of the workshop this year, will arrive on Thursday to give a talk and sign copies of her new memoir, Losing My Sister, that is coming out this fall.

Registration opens March 1.


The workshop week is September 17-21, 2012. Special consideration will be given to Jewish participants who have a conflict because of Rosh Hashana. Please let us know if you need to negotiate missing the first day of the workshop.

And please check out details of the Table Rock Spring Studio (see logo above in the right-hand column). Our writing retreat with evening critiques will be held on the campus of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee in conjunction with the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival in mid-June!! See Table Rock Spring Studio.

Part of the crew from 2011 at Table Rock Writers Workshop.


OUR HISTORY

Table Rock Writers Workshop grew out of the 30-year-old Duke University Writers Workshop when it ended. The Table Rock Writers' Workshop, continues as an intensive, small-group learning experience designed to stretch participants' creative capacities and knowledge in a supportive and noncompetitive environment.

Our instructors are chosen not only for their distinguished professional credentials, but also for their skill in building a learning community where the joy of new discovery is primary. Because writing is very hard work, we also reserve time for relaxation, recreation and reflection.

The mission of Table Rock is:

• To provide a generous, supportive environment for adult writers at all levels of experience to reflect on the challenges and rewards of writing and to focus
on improving their craft.

• To offer first-rate instruction across genres with an emphasis on identifying, shaping, and polishing each participant's distinctive voice and material.

• To foster a spirit of community where all participants may receive an honest and sensitive appraisal
of their works in progress.

If you have questions, please
e-mail the director, Georgann Eubanks.