Registration is open for our full lineup of 2009 offerings!

The 2008 Conference sold out in a matter of weeks, and 2009 promises to grow even more, with more faculty, workshops, readings, lectures, and gatherings than ever before in the thirty-seven years of literary offerings in Port Townsend.

Because of the growing community of writers, editors, readers, and translators who find, in the inspirational location of Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, new ways into work, we are expanding literary offerings to happen year-round, not just during the summer months.

The long weekend of May 7-10, poet Carolyn Forché and novelist Micheline Aharonian Marcom will be in residence, leading workshops about writing in witness to global trends. How do we, as writers, bear witness to the events of our time–or past times–through literary craft?

The 2009 Port Townsend Writers' Conference will take place the week of July 12-19, and will feature Chris Abani, Peter Orner, Mark Doty, Robert Wrigley, Kim Barnes, Tony Cohan, Denise Chávez, Liliana Valenzuela, and Adrian Castro leading workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and cross-genre prose in writing about family.

September 17-20, poet Quincy Troupe will be leading a "Jazz and the Word" workshop focusing on how to use the language of jazz as a mechanism for accessing new ways to tell stories.