2026 Workshop Leaders
Ron Rash
Ron Rash is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University. He has won as many awards for his writing as he has published books. He is the author of 20 books of poetry and fiction, including the New York Times bestselling novel Serena, which was a two-time PEN/Faulkner finalist. His latest novel is The Caretaker. Rash has achieved acclaim as an American short story author and is a three-time O. Henry Short Story Prize winner and a Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award winner. Rash’s poems and stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and journals. His books have been translated into 18 languages.
Crystal Wilkinson, Nonfiction
Crystal Wilkinson is a recent Kentucky poet laureate who teaches writing as an endowed professor at the University of Kentucky. Her Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts (2024), a national bestselling culinary memoir, was selected for Amazon’s Best Books of 2024. Her works of fiction include Blackberries, Blackberries (2017), The Birds of Opulence (2016), and Water Street (2002). Her poetry collection, Perfect Black (2021), received an NAACP Image Award. She has also received an O. Henry Prize, a USA Artists Fellowship, and an Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence as well as recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, Hedgebrook, The Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, and The Hermitage Foundation. She has written for The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Oxford American, and Southern Cultures.
Linda Parsons, Poetry
Linda Parsons is an eighth-generation Tennessean and Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee, for 2025–27. The poetry editor for Madville Publishing and copy editor for Chapter 16, Humanities Tennessee’s literary website, Linda is published in Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, and Shenandoah. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Linda has received artist grants from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the AWP Intro Award, George Scarbrough Poetry Award, prizes from Streetlight Magazine and the Tennessee Writers Alliance, and numerous Pushcart Prize nominations. She co-created and coordinated “WordStream: The Weekly Writer’s Voice,” a performance series sponsored by WDVX-FM and Visit Knoxville. Her plays are produced by Flying Anvil Theatre.
Kelli Jo Ford, Fiction
Kelli Jo Ford teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Crooked Hallelujah, her novel-in-stories debut about four generations of Cherokee women, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, The Dublin Literary Award, and The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of honors and awards such as an NEA Literature Fellowship, The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, and a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. She received an MFA from George Mason University and served as the Indigenous Writer-in-Residence at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.
Previous Workshop Leaders
2025: Crystal Wilkinson (nonfiction), David Joy (fiction), Karen Spears Zacharias (fiction), Maurice Manning (poetry)
2024: Frank X Walker (guest author), Monic Ductan (fiction), Maurice Manning (poetry), David Brill (nonfiction)
2023: Richard Powers (guest novelist), Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle (fiction), Frank X Walker (poetry), Janet McCue (nonfiction)
2026 Workshop Leaders
Ron Rash
Ron Rash is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University. He has won as many awards for his writing as he has published books. He is the author of 20 books of poetry and fiction, including the New York Times bestselling novel Serena, which was a two-time PEN/Faulkner finalist. His latest novel is The Caretaker. Rash has achieved acclaim as an American short story author and is a three-time O. Henry Short Story Prize winner and a Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award winner. Rash’s poems and stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and journals. His books have been translated into 18 languages.
Crystal Wilkinson, Nonfiction
Crystal Wilkinson is a recent Kentucky poet laureate who teaches writing as an endowed professor at the University of Kentucky. Her Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts (2024), a national bestselling culinary memoir, was selected for Amazon’s Best Books of 2024. Her works of fiction include Blackberries, Blackberries (2017), The Birds of Opulence (2016), and Water Street (2002). Her poetry collection, Perfect Black (2021), received an NAACP Image Award. She has also received an O. Henry Prize, a USA Artists Fellowship, and an Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence as well as recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, Hedgebrook, The Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, and The Hermitage Foundation. She has written for The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Oxford American, and Southern Cultures.
Linda Parsons, Poetry
Linda Parsons is an eighth-generation Tennessean and Poet Laureate of Knoxville, Tennessee, for 2025–27. The poetry editor for Madville Publishing and copy editor for Chapter 16, Humanities Tennessee’s literary website, Linda is published in Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, and Shenandoah. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Linda has received artist grants from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the AWP Intro Award, George Scarbrough Poetry Award, prizes from Streetlight Magazine and the Tennessee Writers Alliance, and numerous Pushcart Prize nominations. She co-created and coordinated “WordStream: The Weekly Writer’s Voice,” a performance series sponsored by WDVX-FM and Visit Knoxville. Her plays are produced by Flying Anvil Theatre.
Kelli Jo Ford, Fiction
Kelli Jo Ford teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Crooked Hallelujah, her novel-in-stories debut about four generations of Cherokee women, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, The Dublin Literary Award, and The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of honors and awards such as an NEA Literature Fellowship, The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, and a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. She received an MFA from George Mason University and served as the Indigenous Writer-in-Residence at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.
Previous Workshop Leaders
2025: Crystal Wilkinson (nonfiction), David Joy (fiction), Karen Spears Zacharias (fiction), Maurice Manning (poetry)
2024: Frank X Walker (guest author), Monic Ductan (fiction), Maurice Manning (poetry), David Brill (nonfiction)
2023: Richard Powers (guest novelist), Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle (fiction), Frank X Walker (poetry), Janet McCue (nonfiction)
