Published, unpublished, and talented beginning writers are all welcome to attend Wildacres Writers Workshop.
Our writing workshops provide Masterclass-level faculty instruction. Classes combine workshopping pages of your manuscript, craft lecture, and often generative writing to provide an intensive experience in your genre. Our 2025 faculty will be listed soon.
Workshop Week : July 5-12, 2025
Arrive Saturday July 5th and stay through Saturday morning, July 12th. Your fee covers seven nights double occupancy rooming, three on-site meals per day, your workshop, and all on-site activities.(See fees and schedules for more details)
Classes
Workshop sessions run approximately two and a half hours per day, and class size is capped at 10 attendees so that your class remains small and focused. You can only enroll in one class, but you’re welcome to audit other classes during your free time.
Down Time
Your experience doesn’t end with your workshop. Between your class and meals there’s time to write or rest in your room, read, or sit out on the porches in the rocking chairs as you chat with your fellow writers about the day. There are hiking trails on the property and other activities (shopping, dining, etc.) just a short drive into town. Enjoy the beautiful setting in the Blue Ridge Mountains and let the pressures of the real world drift away as you focus on being a writer.
Evenings
The evenings offer a variety of activities to ensure that your creative inspiration and writerly camaraderie continue. After dinner each evening, we host activities such as faculty readings, student readings, music on the patio, dancing, a theme party, and the best comedy skit show since Chicago improv theater. You are not required to attend all evening activities and we understand the need to take a break for the night, but we do highly recommend that you join in as much as you’re able–especially for faculty and student readings. The more you participate, the greater your experience.
What Makes Us Special
Our combination of work and play creates a unique experience designed to strengthen your skills as an author, keep you inspired, and provide you with a network of writers that is also a family of friends. There’s a good reason most of our attendees return year after year. Wildacres Writers Workshop is truly an experience like no other.
Join Us Early for Retreat Week:
June 29th – July 5th
Prior to the workshop week we offer a week of retreat to those who would like to spend some extra time on the mountain. This week is only available to those people staying for the workshop. Retreat week (see fees and schedules for info about cost and amenities) is a time to focus on your writing as there are no classes that week and the evening schedule is much more laid-back. This is time for you to work on your manuscripts and get ready for the workshop.
Your fee covers six nights double occupancy rooming, three on-site meals per day, and all on-site activities.
Meet the Director
Amy Willoughby-Burle
Amy first attended Wildacres Writers Workshop in 1995 and fell in love immediately. Missing only one year (2013 due to the birth of her 4th child) she has attended ever since. She began working with the founder of Wildacres Writers Workshop, Judi Hill, some years later and became director in 2020 when Judi stepped down. It is Amy’s immense pleasure to keep the magic alive.
Amy Willoughby-Burle is an award winning fiction author living near Asheville, NC with her husband and five children. Her fiction focuses on the importance of family and friends and centers on the themes of forgiveness, second chances, and finding the beauty in the world around us. She is the author of the novels The Lemonade Year, The Year of Thorns and Honey, The Other Side of Certain and Even if Nothing Else Is Certain. Her short fiction has been published in numerous journals and in her collection, Out Across the Nowhere. Visit her online at https://amywilloughbyburle.com/
Contact Us
Contact Amy at Wildacres Writers Workshop questions at wildacreswriters@gmail.com