2026 WORKSHOPS
At the heart of the conference are small, intimate workshops designed for talented writers looking to take their craft to the next level. Our workshop faculty includes some of the best in the industry.
Each workshop is capped at 12-13 participants. You will meet with the same group every day of the conference, fostering strong relationships and gaining deeper insights into each other’s work.
For July 15-19, 2026, workshop sessions will consist of five morning meetings held over five days.
Workshop Schedule:
Day 1 – 11AM-1PM (2 hours)
Day 2 – 10AM-1PM (3 hours)
Day 3 - 10AM-1PM (3 hours)
Day 4 - 10AM-1PM (3 hours)
Day 5 - 10AM-1PM (3 hours)
Of course, workshop participants also have access to all afternoon and evening programming. This includes all lectures, readings and panels with our guests and faculty.
2026 Workshops
Megan Giddings - Speculative Fiction
In this intensive workshop our focus will be to open the doors to further revisions. Expect to continue refining and cultivating questions that will help you consider the mechanics of your work. It's best to not go into this workshop with the viewpoint that there is a right or wrong way to write fiction; Craft does not operate under the laws of what is correct to a general audience but what is correct for you and your work (or correct for your workshop mates' work and aesthetic principles). Expect to talk through your fiction and aesthetics of speculative fiction both via conversations you will have in your workshop proper, the letter you turn in that introduces your work, and potential follow-up writing activities that we may do if time allows.
For the purposes of this workshop, speculative should be understood expansively as anything from fabulism to science fiction to literary-speculative to magical realism to an exciting multi genre mix. If it's weird, bring it here.
Matthew Klam - Moving Past Doubt - A Workshop for Creative Writers (fiction/nonfiction)
Doris Lessing said, “Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
The right workshop will help you start, and persevere, and reignite the spark when you’ve lost your way. A good workshop is affirming and stimulating. For five days we’ll gather together to write and read and discuss essays, chapters of memoirs, long and short fiction, and whatever else inspires us. We’ll explore writing that is confessional, disruptive, funny, intimate, and intense. We’ll spend the rest of our time carefully reading and examining your writing in a helpful, constructive manner. Your creative side demands time and energy to develop a story, and that creative part is somewhat mysterious and powerful, and in our discussions we’ll debunk some of the mystery, as we engage the part that creates, that fills the page with words, that doesn't look back or edit or second guess.
Frederic Tuten - The Short Story
I love fiction of all kinds. I have no belief in the hierarchy of fiction. For me, there is only good or poor writing, interesting or uninteresting work. Every writer has, because they want to be writers, a genuine spark. The point is how to bring that spark into a flame I will read and edit your work carefully and as constructively as possible and try to bring to fruition the intent of your writing. I expect you to treat your fellow-writers’ work with the same consideration. Of course, I know that we will have lively, passionate and helpful discussions and that we will all come out the better writers for it. So much for procedure, the rest is the unknown, mysterious chemistry of the workshop. In particular, our workshop will concentrate on short stories—flash or long exposure. I shall be sending you a reading list of a variety of stories, some of which we shall consider in class. But the focus is, finally, and always your work.
Susan Minot - The Novel -Description Forthcoming
Matthew Klam - Moving Past Doubt - A Workshop for Creative Writers (fiction/nonfiction)
Doris Lessing said, “Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
The right workshop will help you start, and persevere, and reignite the spark when you’ve lost your way. A good workshop is affirming and stimulating. For five days we’ll gather together to write and read and discuss essays, chapters of memoirs, long and short fiction, and whatever else inspires us. We’ll explore writing that is confessional, disruptive, funny, intimate, and intense. We’ll spend the rest of our time carefully reading and examining your writing in a helpful, constructive manner. Your creative side demands time and energy to develop a story, and that creative part is somewhat mysterious and powerful, and in our discussions we’ll debunk some of the mystery, as we engage the part that creates, that fills the page with words, that doesn't look back or edit or second guess.
Maya Shanbhag Lang - Memoir
The primary goal of this workshop is to foster both creative growth and the advancement of individual works-in-progress. We’ll achieve this through rigorous discussion of your submitted works, thoughtful and constructive feedback, as well as dedicated time each session for in-depth craft discussions and exploration of important topics related to the writing life, including publishing and career strategies. Submissions are capped at 25 pages, and all work must be submitted ahead of time so that everyone can come prepared. In each session, you’ll be expected to provide both marginal comments and written overall feedback for each piece.
Billy Collins - Poetry
Our gathering will be focused largely on the poems you bring to the table for discussion. I have found that a truly fine poem is apt to leave us speechless, so to encourage lively discussion, it’s best to bring in poems that you find problematic, unsatisfying, and, maybe for those reasons and others, unfinished. Poems, of course, may be approached from many angles. One angle I am fond of involves dusting off the ancient distinction between form and content so that we see content as the poem’s interest in the world (i.e. its subject) and form as the poem’s interest in itself. In most successful poems, a happy balance exists between the two; in most unsatisfying poems, one (usually content) is grossly favored over the other. My overall hope is that you will discover in our meetings ways to make your poems more interesting and have a good time while you’re at it.
Jenny Xie - The Ekphrastic Poem (generative)
The ekphrastic poem—one provoked by, or in response to, a work of art—derives energy from the friction and affinities between two mediums and modes of experience: the visual and the verbal. As such, it can act as a vibrant site of experimentation and play, liminality and subversion. How can we “translate” a work of art into a poem? What transpires in the movement between one medium and another? What gets animated in the tensions between the spatial dimension of a visual artwork and the temporal dimension of a poem? How can ekphrastic writing proceed as a mode of inquiry, a manner of investigating perception and process? Together, we’ll read through an invigorating range of poems by W.H. Auden, Jorie Graham, Robin Coste Lewis, Eduardo C. Corral, Diane Seuss, Forrest Gander, and others, and devote time to writing our own ekphrastic poems. This workshop will be primarily generative, with a focus on drafting and sharing new work.
Gayle Forman - Middle Grade/YA - Find Your Voice; Find Your Story
What do classic books for children and young adults have in common? Voice. Whether it's Beverly Cleary's Ramona books, Jerry Craft's New Kid, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, or Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X, these timeless stories all feature a compelling, clear, and utterly authentic voice of a young person that immediately draws readers into the narrative. That’s because young readers can smell BS a mile away. Paradoxically, in spite of the fact that 100 percent of all writers were once children, capturing that kid or young-adult voice can be the most challenging aspect of writing for young audiences, and is often the key to unlocking both characters and their worlds. This course will help writers at the beginning of their young-adult more middle-grade projects excavate their character's voice, while helping those further along in their projects to refine that voice. It will demonstrate how capturing this voice can illuminate all the other essential elements of a compelling story and look at how to use dialogue and narration to create indelible characters in expansive stories.
Peter H. Reynolds - Listening for YOUR Story
Peter H. Reynolds returns to the Southampton Writers Conference after ten years to lead a picture book workshop grounded in curiosity, craft, and creative courage.
This workshop welcomes writers and illustrators at all stages—from those just beginning to imagine their first picture book, to experienced creators ready to question habits, take risks, and push their work further. Peter’s teaching style is intentionally that of a guide on the side: offering structure, thoughtful prompts, and personal insights from his own creative and publishing journey, while making space for each participant to discover what their story is asking to become.
Through gentle exercises, shared reflection, and close looking, participants will explore how picture books hold big ideas, emotional truth, and simplicity at the same time. Peter will also speak candidly about process, revision, doubt, and perseverance, and about finding a sustainable, meaningful path in the publishing world.
Each participant will receive individual one-on-one time with Peter to review their work and talk through next steps—whether starting something new, re-seeing a work in progress, or letting go of what no longer serves the story.
This is a workshop for listening deeply, working bravely, and reconnecting with the quiet joy of making books that matter.