February 20-22, 2026
Join us online for both manuscript and “write now workshops” with our acclaimed Tinker Mountain faculty! This is your opportunity to recharge your creativity, reconnect with the Tinker Mountain community of writers, and reframe your work.
The weekend begins with a social session on Friday evening and continues with workshops Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m. Just the right amount of time to affirm your writing and to reset for the balance of winter and spring.
Manuscript Workshops
Manuscript workshops, limited to 8 participants, give you an opportunity to receive feedback on your work from peers and your faculty mentor and learn what other writers are working on.
Write Now Workshops
Write now workshops, limited to 10 participants, allow you to immerse yourself in the craft of writing and generate new work without the pressure of preparing or reading manuscripts.
Workshop Descriptions and Faculty
- All Styles All Forms Fiction Manuscript Workshop, Fred Leebron
- The Middle Place, A Workshop for Book-length Works in Progress, Barbara Jones
- Write Now Workshop for Fiction Writers, Daniel Mueller
- Write Now Workshop: Poetry and Nonfiction, James McKean
Fred Leebron
All Styles All Forms Fiction Manuscript Workshop, fiction
Please prepare stories or a novel excerpt totaling no more than 20 pages (12 pt., double spaced). We will read these in advance and offer useful feedback on narrative and character arcs, the treatment of time, stylistic and point of view choices, the use of setting, and how to break your work apart and put it back together. This will be a fun, constantly engaging, and expansive experience. We will work to make each other’s fiction better and take it to the next level.
Fred Leebron has published three novels, a novella, and numerous short stories, winning both an O. Henry Award and a Pushcart Prize. He has founded and directed writing programs in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, and has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate level for nearly 30 years. His second novel, Six Figures, was made into a feature length, award-winning film in Canada, and he has worked on a number of film and television projects. He is coauthor of a Harcourt Brace textbook on fiction writing and coeditor of the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Fiction. His collection of short fiction, The News Said It Was, was published in 2022.
Barbara Jones
The Middle Place, A Workshop for Book-length Works in Progress, multigenre
Please prepare 15-20 pages (12 pt, double spaced) from a longer work in progress; this could be a story collection, novel, memoir, or collection of essays. We’ll read the samples from each work in advance, then spend workshop time considering which kinds of inspiration and which sorts of technical assistance might benefit each writing project now; that is, we’ll investigate how to nourish and sustain each of these projects to completion. And, overall, we’ll share the trials and joys of being in the sometimes vast-seeming middle of a book-length piece as well as the notable benefits of reaching the end.
Barbara Jones is a literary agent with Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, a leading, independent New York literary agency representing a distinguished list of bestselling and award-winning authors. Jones represents authors behind a range of fiction and nonfiction, from highly literary works to much more commercial fare, with an emphasis across all forms on voices from previously underrepresented communities and on durable talents and stories. Previously, she spent several decades as an editor, first in magazines (Grand Street, Harper’s, Vogue, Real Simple) and then in books (as editorial director at Hyperion Books and, most recently, as executive editor at Henry Holt). She has also led writing workshops for 30 years, at Yale University, New York University, Queens University of Charlotte, and elsewhere.
Daniel Mueller
Write Now Workshop for Fiction Writers
In this retreat, we’ll write from preassigned prompts, share what we’ve written with one another, and discuss what we’ve heard in a supportive environment designed to fuel creativity through the winter, spring, summer, and fall. For the first prompt, set a scene of no more than 1,000 words in a liminal space of some kind. What happens to the central character when a space meant to be transitory becomes, to a degree, permanent. Please bring what you’ve written to our first meeting. This workshop is open to writers at all skill levels.
Daniel Mueller is the author of three collections of short fiction: Anything You Recognize, (Outpost 19 Books 2023), Nights I Dreamed of Hubert Humphrey (Outpost 19 Books 2013), winner of a Santa Fe Writers’ Project Book Award, and How Animals Mate (Overlook Press 1999), winner of the Sewanee Fiction Prize. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Pithead Chapel, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, The Cincinnati Review, Gargoyle, Story Quarterly, CutBank, Joyland, Booth Journal, Solstice, Free State Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Manzano Mountain Review, The Writing Disorder, Another Chicago Magazine, Mississippi Review, Story, Playboy, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at the University of New Mexico and low-residency M.F.A. program at Queens University of Charlotte.
James McKean
Write Now Workshop: Poetry and Nonfiction
In his essay, “The Triggering Town,” Richard Hugo suggests that words or subjects can trigger our imaginations and inspire us to turn our attention to the music and play of language. Hugo says, “Your triggering subjects are those that ignite your need for words.” In this weekend workshop, I propose we spend time discussing how our own triggering subjects—memories, images, paintings, and places, for example—might lead us forward in our own writing. I will share a few prompts, poems, exercises, and methods. There will be time for writing in and out of class and sharing where these “triggering towns” have led you. Bring short pieces you have started or attend the workshop simply to regenerate. The goal will be to discover new possibilities for our essays and poems, to come away with new material, and maybe even to discover new approaches to the generation of our written work.
James McKean writes poetry and nonfiction. He has published two books of essays: Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports, and Bound; and three books of poems, Headlong (1987 Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writer Award), Tree of Heaven (1994 Iowa Poetry Award), and We Are the Bus (the 2011 X.J. Kennedy poetry prize from Texas Review Press). His work has appeared in magazines and collections such as The Atlantic, Iowa Review, Gettysburg Review, the Southern Review, and the Best American Sports Writing 2003, and has received a Pushcart Prize.