Welcome to The Writing Conference
Artistic Director
Gary Copeland Lilley
Gary Copeland Lilley is an award-winning poet and educator with a strong background in Southern American culture, blues poetry, and storytelling. He has published several collections of poetry and is renowned for his ability to bring raw emotion and narrative depth to his work. As Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers Conference, Gary selects faculty who challenge and inspire writers to explore the full range of their creative voices.
Past Faculty
Kim Addonizio
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Kim Addonizio is the author of seven poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry: The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius.
Rion Amilcar Scott
Morning Workshop Faculty
Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collections The World Doesn’t Require You and Insurrections, which was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 and McSweeney’s Quarterly, among other publications.
Quenton Baker
Morning Intensive Faculty
Quenton Baker is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. Their current focus is black interiority and the afterlife of slavery. Their work has appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Vinyl, The Rumpus and elsewhere. They are a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and the recipient of the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust. They were a 2019 Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence and a 2021 NEA Fellow. They are the author of we pilot the blood (The 3rd Thing, 2021) and ballast (Haymarket Books, 2023).
Arna Bontemps Hemenway
Past Faculty
Arna Bontemps Hemenway is the author of Elegy on Kinderklavier (Sarabande Books), winner of the PEN/Hemingway Prize, finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Award, and long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize.
Claudia Castro Luna
Afternoon Workshop
Claudia Castro Luna is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate fellow (2019), WA State Poet Laureate (2018 – 2021) and Seattle’s inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2018). She is the author of Cipota Under the Moon (Tia Chucha Press, 2022); One River, A Thousand Voices (Chin Music Press); the Pushcart nominated Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) also shortlisted for WA State 2018 Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook This City (Floating Bridge Press).…
Elizabeth Colen
Past Faculty
EJ Colen is a PNW-based educator, writer, and editor interested in long-form poetry, the lyric essay, literary and visual collage, and research-based approaches to storytelling and memoir.
Gary Copeland Lilley
Artistic Director, Writers Conference
Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman’s Medicine Show (Lost Horse Press, 2017), and a chapbook, The Hog Killing (Blue Horse Press, 2018). He is originally from North Carolina and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry and is published in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, The Swamp, Waxwing, Taos Journal of Poetry and Art, and African American Review.…
Alice Derry
Past Faculty
Alice Derry is the author of five volumes of poetry, most recently Hunger (MoonPath 2018) along with three chapbooks, including translations of poems by Rainer Rilke.
Jonathan Evison
Morning Workshop Faculty; Lead Novelist, Long Form Workshop
Jonathan Evison is the New York Times Bestselling author of the award winning novels All About Lulu, West of Here, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!, Lawn Boy, Legends of the North Cascades, Small World, and Again and Again. Sherman Alexie has called Evison “the most honest white man alive.” He lives in Western Washington with his wife and three children.
Melissa Febos
Past Faculty
Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart; and three essay collections: Abandon Me, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist and Publishing Triangle Award finalist; Girlhood, a national bestseller; and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative.
CMarie Fuhrman
Past Faculty
CMarie Fuhrman is the author of Camped Beneath the Dam: Poems (Floodgate 2020) and co-editor of Native Voices: Indigenous Poetry, Craft, and Conversations (Tupelo 2019).
Tess Gallagher
Past Faculty
Tess Gallagher’s eleventh volume of poetry, Is, Is Not, was published May 2019 by Graywolf Press. Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, also from Graywolf, is the most comprehensive offering of her poems to date.
Jennifer Givhan
Morning Workshop Faculty
Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices.
She is the author of five full-length poetry collections and three novels, most recently Belly to the Brutal (Wesleyan University Press) and novel River Woman, River Demon (Blackstone Publishing) which draw from her practice of brujería.…
Derrick Harriell
Past Faculty
Derrick Harriell is the Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi.
Ravi Howard
Past Faculty
Ravi Howard is the author of two novels, Like, Trees, Walking and Driving the King (HarperCollins). In addition to being selected as a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, Like, Trees, Walking won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.
Jourdan Imani Keith
Past Faculty
Jourdan Imani Keith is Seattle’s 2019- 2022 Civic Poet. Featured in Forbes and on NPR, her Orion Magazine essays, Desegregating Wilderness and At Risk appear in the Best American Science and Nature Writing Anthology, as well as text books.…
Bettina Judd
Morning Workshop Faculty
Bettina Judd is an interdisciplinary writer, artist and performer whose research focus is on Black women’s creative production and use of visual art, literature, and music to develop feminist thought. Her book Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought (Northwestern University Press, December 2022) argues that Black women’s creative production is feminist knowledge production produced by registers of affect she calls “feelin.” She is currently Associate Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.…
Stephanie Land
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Stephanie Land is the New York Times bestselling author of “MAID: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive,” called “a testimony…worth listening to,” by the New York Times and inspiration for the Netflix series “Maid,” and its sequel “CLASS: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education.” Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and many other outlets.…
Susan Landgraf
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Susan Landgraf is a poet and journalist. She has published more than 400 poems, essays, and articles in numerous journals and magazines. Most recently her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Nimrod, Calyx, The Bellingham Review, Literary Mama, Kestrel, Margie, and The Sow’s Ear. She is the author of What We Bury Changes the Ground (Tebot Bach, 2017) as well as The Inspired Poet (Two Sylvias Press, 2019), a book of writing exercises.…
Sasha LaPointe
Morning Workshop Faculty
Sasha LaPointe is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe. Native to the Pacific Northwest, she draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city.
Kate Lebo
Morning Workshop Faculty
Kate Lebo’s first collection of nonfiction, The Book of Difficult Fruit (FSG), won the 2022 Washington State Book Award and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Atlantic, New York magazine, Electric Literature, and The Globe and Mail. She is the author of the cookbook Pie School (Sasquatch Books), the poetry chapbook Seven Prayers to Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Entre Rios Books), and co-editor with Samuel Ligon of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze (Sasquatch Books).…
Sam Ligon
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Sam Ligon’s most recent novel — Miller Cane: A True & Exact History — was serialized for a year in Spokane’s weekly newspaper, The Inlander, as well as on Spokane Public Radio.
Sebastian Matthews
Past Faculty
Sebastian Matthews’ latest books are a memoir in essays, Beyond Repair: Living in a Fractured State (Red Hen Press), and a hybrid collection of poetry and prose, Beginner’s Guide to a Head-on Collision (Red Hen Press), an Independent Publisher’s Book Award winner.
Kristen Millares Young
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Kristen Millares Young is the author of the novel Subduction, named a staff pick by The Paris Review and called “whip-smart” by the Washington Post, “a brilliant debut” by the Seattle Times and “utterly unique and important” by Ms. Magazine.
Valerie Miner
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Valerie Miner is the award-winning author of 15 books. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Triquarterly, Salmagundi, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, over 60 anthologies, and on BBC Radio 4. Winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, she has taught at Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, University of Minnesota, Arizona State University, etc.…
Matthew Olzmann
Morning Workshop Faculty
Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route as well as two previous collections of poetry: Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olzmann’s poems have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prizes, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Dawn Pichón Barron
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Dawn Pichón Barron (she/her) is a mixt-blood Indigi-Euro writer & scholar born in Southern California and primarily raised in rural Spokane. She is the academic director of the Native Pathways Program and member of the Faculty at The Evergreen State College. Dawn is thrilled to participate in state-wide artist promotion and sustainment as an Artist Trust Board Member.…
Rena Priest
Morning Workshop Faculty
Rena Priest is a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She is the incumbent Washington State Poet Laureate and Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow. Priest is also the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award and fellowships from Indigenous Nations Poets and the Vadon Foundation.
Anna Quinn
Past Faculty
Anna Quinn is the author of The Night Child, (Blackstone) listed as #1 Best Real Psychological Fiction on Goodreads, and Ingram’s 2018 Best Book Club Book. Her second novel, Angeline, (Blackstone) will be released Feb. 7th, 2023.
Laura Read
Morning Workshop Faculty
Laura Read is the author of But She Is Also Jane (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023, winner of the Juniper Prize); Dresses from the Old Country (BOA Editions, 2018); Instructions for my Mother’s Funeral (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012, winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, selected by Dorianne Laux), and The Chewbacca on Hollywood Boulevard Reminds Me of You (winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, 2011).…
Anastacia Reneé
Past Faculty
Anastacia Reneé is an award-winning cross-genre writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDX speaker and podcaster.
Shawn Vestal
Past Faculty
Shawn Vestal’s debut novel, Daredevils, was published in spring 2016 by Penguin Press. His collection of short stories, Godforsaken Idaho, published by New Harvest in April 2013, was named the winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.
Morning Intensive Workshops
Registration for a morning intensive workshop includes a writing workshop from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. July 14-16th, 18th and 19th (5 sessions with 1 break day in between). Your morning workshop will include the same cohort of up to 14 of your peer writers throughout the week who are all led by a faculty member of your choosing when you register for the Port Townsend Writers Conference. Morning Workshops also include access to all afternoon and evening programming, including craft lectures, afternoon workshops, evening faculty readings, open mics, and social gatherings at Fort Worden State Park.
Please note: Morning workshops are in-person only and capped at 14 people per workshop. If you do not see a workshop listed here offered when you registration, it is full.
2025 Morning Workshop Offerings Coming Soon!
Afternoon Workshops
Registering for afternoon workshops includes access to all afternoon and evening programming at the Port Townsend Writers Conference, including craft lectures, afternoon workshops, evening faculty readings, open mics, and social gatherings at Fort Worden State Park. Registering for a morning intensive workshop (see above) also includes access to afternoon and evening programming in addition to the morning intensive workshop. Please note, registering for afternoons only does not include access to a morning intensive workshop.
2025 Afternoon Workshop Offerings Coming Soon!
2024 Faculty
Writing Program Faculty
Gary Copeland Lilley
Artistic Director, Writers ConferenceGary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman’s Medicine Show (Lost Horse Press, 2017), and a chapbook, The Hog Killing (Blue Horse Press, 2018). He is originally from North Carolina and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry and is published in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, The Swamp, Waxwing, Taos Journal of Poetry and Art, and African American Review.…
Jonathan Evison
Morning Workshop Faculty; Lead Novelist, Long Form Workshop
Jonathan Evison is the New York Times Bestselling author of the award winning novels All About Lulu, West of Here, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!, Lawn Boy, Legends of the North Cascades, Small World, and Again and Again. Sherman Alexie has called Evison “the most honest white man alive.” He lives in Western Washington with his wife and three children.
2025 Cost
Centrum has a variety of ways to be able to attend our workshops even if you’re on a budget. If you need financial assistance, Centrum has a robust scholarship program awarded on a first-come, first-served; and as-needed basis.
Tuition:
Morning Intensive: Pricing coming soon!
Afternoon Workshops: Pricing coming soon!
First Impression 1-on-1 Writing Consultation with an Editor: Pricing coming soon!
Those who register for the Morning Intensive Workshop get access to their choice of a morning faculty member as well as access to all drop-in afternoon workshops. Morning faculty classes are limited to 14 people and registration fills quickly.
Housing:
Private Dorm Room: Pricing coming soon!
Dorm room with a view: Pricing coming soon!
Shared apartment: Pricing coming soon!
Meals:
All meals: Pricing coming soon!
Transportation:
Shuttle from Seatac 7/14: Pricing coming soon!
Shuttle to Seatac 7/20: Pricing coming soon!
Scholarships
Apply online as you register. Please note that except in rare cases, scholarships are available for tuition only, not housing and meals. Centrum requires a $50 deposit of scholarship applicants, which is fully refundable if you do not receive a scholarship and choose not to attend the conference.
If we haven’t answered all of the questions you may have, please contact Eric Greenwell at 360-385-3102, x131, or egreenwell@centrum (dot) org.
FAQ
Is financial assistance available to attend the Port Townsend Writers Conference?
Yes! Centrum is proud to offer a limited number of scholarships. We accept scholarship applications when registration for the Port Townsend Writers Conference opens in January through April 15, prior to the Conference in July. Applications are evaluated by an anonymous scholarship judge on a first come, first served bases and on a rolling schedule throughout the application period. Should Centrum not exhaust our scholarship funding by April 15, the application period will remain open until all funds are committed. Apply online as you register.
Please note that except in rare cases, scholarships are available for tuition only, not travel, housing, and meals. Applicants should be prepared for these expenses. Centrum requires a $50 deposit of scholarship applicants, which is fully refundable if you do not receive a scholarship and choose not to attend the conference.
I registered for a morning intensive workshop. Can I attend a craft lecture or afternoon workshop? What about a faculty reading?
Yes! Registration for a morning intensive workshop includes access to all afternoon and evening programming as well, including craft lectures, afternoon workshops, evening faculty readings, open mics, and social gatherings through the week. In short, if you register for a morning intensive workshop, you have access to everything on the schedule for the Conference.
I registered for afternoons only. Can I attend a morning workshop too?
Not unless you change your registration to a morning intensive workshop. Morning intensives are limited to 14 writers who meet daily throughout the week. To attend a morning intensive workshop, you must register for that workshop, which includes access to all the afternoon programming during the Conference as well. As an afternoon participant, you still have access to all the great programming in the afternoons and evenings, including craft lectures, afternoon workshops, evening faculty readings, open mics, and social gatherings. If you would like to change your registration to a morning workshop - and spots are still available in that workshop - you do so through the registration confirmation email you received or you can contact Centrum's Registrar at (360) 385-3102.
I want to share my work at the Conference. How can I do that?
We're so glad you asked! At the Port Townsend Writers Conference, one of our goals is foster a community of writers. While writing can often be a solitary in practice - as in, the act itself - there's a whole community of people out there experiencing similar challenges. At the Conference, we have open mics every evening, and anyone who registers (morning and afternoons) can come and sign up. Workshops are often generative as well, and include many opportunities to share your work with the work of your peers. If you have books, we have a pop-up bookstore every year where you can sell them, and you will receive more information after you register about how to include your books for sale. Finally, Fort Worden is a big campus with lots of open spaces to walk with the writers you meet and share thoughts, experiences, and ideas while passing through Pacific madrone forests or looking across the Salish Sea.
Do I have to register for meals and lodging at Fort Worden for the Conference too?
In short, no. You can register for a morning intensive workshop or afternoon programming only without registering for meals and lodging. However, there are important things to consider. Grocery stores and restaurants are not easily accessible from Fort Worden if you do not have a personal vehicle on campus. Downtown Port Townsend and most grocery stores, hotels, and short-term rentals are a 10-minute drive from our campus at Fort Worden State Park, and Centrum is not staffed to provide shuttle service for individual participants to and from town during the Conference. If you choose to stay off campus and/or prepare your own meals, you will want to plan accordingly. Also note, many deep connections and inspiring conversations happen over meals or walking around campus, and participants often sign up for meals because they are conveniently located on campus, just a quick walk from workshops, and because they eat with their peers and faculty, forming stronger bonds as the week progresses. Also note, Fort Worden sits right on the shores of the Salish Sea, and lodging on campus is not only a quick walk from workshops, but also located in an inspiring place with stunning views of the open water, Mount Baker, and Mount Rainier, and includes about 12 miles of hiking trails.
For questions about how to get to Fort Worden State Park, food service for on-campus meals, what to bring, and what to expect of Port Townsend and the area, you can also visit Centrum's general FAQ page by clicking here.
If we haven’t answered all of the questions you may have, please contact Eric Greenwell at 360-385-3102, x131, or egreenwell@centrum (dot) org.
Schedule
Here is how you’ll spend your time during the Conference, depending upon your desired tuition. Please note, all times are Pacific Standard Time.
2025 Port Townsend Writers Conference Schedule Coming Soon!
Online
Centrum currently does not have any online or hybrid workshops or content planned for 2025. Check back for more information.
