Hollinsummer: Creative Writing

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2025 Workshop Descriptions

Sharing the 2025 workshop descriptions to give a preview of 2026

Showing and Telling: Writing Emotion with Lucy Marcus

Creative writing of all forms offers the reader an emotional experience. But conveying emotion is one of the writer’s most challenging and powerful tasks. How can we convey strong emotions without melodrama? How do we maintain authorial control when writing out-of-control hysteria, joy, pain, fear, or fury? In this session, we will interrogate the tools of imagery, detail, and dialogue as we practice translating emotions onto the page.

Personas and Points of View with Lucy Marcus

In this workshop, we will explore writing from the perspectives of cities, animals, planets, and people very different from the authors. We will then try on new voices as we experiment with writing personas of our own.

Sestina Poetry Workshop with Lucy Marcus

Sometimes, limits allow for freedom and play. This workshop is for all types—the poetry-averse to the prolific poets. Together, we will play around with one of the more complex (and exciting!) forms of poetry: the Sestina.

Driving a Car at Night: Workshop with Jordan Humphrey

The novelist E. L. Doctorow once said, “writing a novel is like driving a car at night.” In this imaginative workshop, we’ll explore what he meant, as we write a full short story in our time together! Starting with what a character wants, we’ll learn to trust our headlights (or intuition), as we drive (or write) our way through the night (or unknown).

He Said, She Said: Dialogue Workshop with Jordan Humphrey

In this workshop, we’ll dig into how to write dialogue that feels real and alive—where what characters say (and don’t say) reveals who they are and what they want. We’ll read Katherine Anne Porter’s “Rope,” a subtle but simmering argument between a couple that shows how an ordinary conversation can carry extraordinary emotional force. And then we’ll try it ourselves!

Graveyard Visit & Reading with Jordan Humphrey

Venture to the strange and storied 160-year-old cemetery on Hollins’ campus. We will explore the gravestones and read a spooky story by Ray Bradbury, as we consider how part of a writer’s work is to bring stories back to life that have long been buried.

Beyond Escapism: Social Commentary and World-building in Science Fiction and Fantasy with Sydney Tammarine

            “Speculative fiction uses the unreal to put reality into clearer focus.” – Erin Eckstine

The writer of science fiction and fantasy has the weight of two worlds on their shoulders: the one we share, and one of our own creation. How can we invent a setting that’s beyond our readers’ wildest imaginations, yet feels as real to them as their own hometown? And how can we use those fantastical worlds to speak about the issues that matter to us in real life? In this generative workshop, we’ll learn to be fearlessly creative, collaborating to build worlds that are detailed and rich enough for our most imaginative stories and real-world passions.

Writing Art: Ekphrastic Writing in the Eleanor Wilson Museum with Sydney Tammarine

In this workshop, we’ll follow in the footsteps of famous poets like William Carlos Williams and Natasha Trethewey, who found inspiration in writing in response to art. We’ll begin by finding narrative in paintings and photographs, which will require us to slow down and look deeply: important skills for any good writer! Then, we’ll try our hand at writing our own ekphrastic poems, stories, or essays. While we write, we’ll explore techniques for engaging all our senses (Have you ever written a red essay? What about a sunlit story? A poem in a voice not your own?). By the end of this workshop, we’ll know: How can a single image have the power to tell an entire story—and how can we harness that power in our own writing?

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