Writers' Workshop

From the Director

Thanks for considering the Duke Writers Workshop. We welcome you to join our community of writers.  The DWW cultivates lifelong friendships and contacts to help you, no matter what your writing goal. Literally dozens of novels, short stories, and poems are now in print that were written, revised or shared during this special gathering of writers begun on the Duke University campus in 1978.  Today the workshop is an ongoing program sponsored by Duke Continuing Studies and held in the North Carolina mountains at Camp Kanuga near Hendersonville.

In a quiet, retreat atmosphere, our approach to the writing workshop is unusual. Our program is not competitive. Rather, we invite writers at all levels – beginning, frustrated, and published -- to join us for four days of camaraderie and intensive learning. We recognize that writing is an intensely personal art form that requires some company on the journey.  We also believe that writing is its own reward, so you are not required to have grand publishing ambitions to join us, but if you do, we can offer some valuable contacts through our faculty.  The Duke workshop gives participants a chance to share their work in a safe environment while also receiving thoughtful criticism and the inspiration to develop a disciplined approach to the craft.

In 2008, we are only one year away from out 30th anniversary and the announcement of some exciting new developments with the workshop.  Until then, however, we are bringing in some wonderful new faculty to teach for us this year.  In addition to longtime faculty members Darnell Arnoult and Judy Goldman and poet Michael Chitwood, this year's faculty includes two new teachers. 

Pamela Duncan, a native of the North Carolina mountains who now lives in the Piedmont, has three novels to her credit and many enthusiastic fans.  We think you'll appreciate her down-to-earth approach to finishing your novel and her fine sense of humor.  Novelist and short story writer Quinn Dalton also joins us for the first time to teach a workshop on how to structure your story or chapter and figure out what's missing from that early draft.  Quinn has published a novel and a short story collection.  She lives in Greensboro with her two young children and husband, and she represents the younger generation of writers that have made a recent literary splash.

While you must pick only one primary instructor for the week, you will also have a chance to learn informally from other faculty members at mealtimes and more formally in daily afternoon and evening sessions with the whole group where each faculty member takes a turn reading and teaching from their own works. We'll also make some time for you to share your writing with the whole group. And yes, there is free time to rest, hike, journal, and generally renew your commitment to the craft of writing in an extraordinary setting. Meals are plentiful and the kitchen can accommodate special dietary needs within reason.

Note that some faculty members have offered to read up to 15 pages of your work in advance for critique. Please adhere to the deadline for mailing this work to your teacher in advance. Faculty members cannot read and comment on work that is not sent in advance by the specified deadline.

Please don't hesitate to e-mail me with any questions you may have about which instructor might be suitable for you.

Georgann Eubanks, Director
GE@minnowmedia.net
919-454-7429

Director of the Duke Writers' Workshop since 1989, Georgann Eubanks is also a principal, with Donna Campbell, in Minnow Media, LLC, a full-service multimedia production company primarily involved in the creation of independent, public affairs documentaries for public television. Eubanks has published short stories, poems, reviews, and profiles in many magazines and journals including Oxford American, Bellingham Review, Southern Review, Duke Magazine, Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and North American Review. She is a North Carolina Arts Council Literary Fellowship winner, recipient of a regional Emmy, and presently is immediate past president of Arts North Carolina, the industry's statewide advocacy and service organization. Eubanks' current writing project is the creation of a series of literary guidebooks for UNC Press that will extend public recognition of the significant role of North Carolina writers as the documenters and interpreters of our families, communities, history, culture, and dreams. See www.georganneubanks.net.
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