Great Smokies Young Writers Workshop: Nature-Based Poetry & Worldbuilding 101
Hone your literary skills through workshops with experienced local authors and poets. Generate new pieces, revise works-in-progress and critique works of others in a collaborative workshop setting.
Nature-Based Poetry: What does it mean to be a nature-based poetry writer? In this creative writing workshop, participants will learn how to incorporate aspects of nature into their poems through prompts. They’ll read samples from established poets to explore the techniques that writers have used to create compelling works. In addition to craft, participants will gain knowledge in using their senses not only to write well, but also to pay close attention to the non-human beings teeming with life or endangered in the natural world.
Worldbuilding 101: You’ve got your characters developed, with compelling backstories and witty banter. You have a compelling plot, sure to keep your readers breathlessly turning pages. All that’s left is everything else: the physical, cultural, socio-economic, and temporal setting. When and where does this story take place. This class will work on world building, the process of creating a believable setting for your story. This might mean creating whole cultures and political systems for a fantasy or sci-fi story, or the intricacies of a local high school for a realistic YA. But the process and techniques are the same. We’ll analyze a range of examples of setting in fiction, and then work on our own world building skills. Students will receive feedback from the instructor and fellow writers, revising towards 5-8 pages of prose focusing on setting.
Registration Details:
- June 22-27, 2025
- $1,440
- Pre-College Programs are open to rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
- Price includes lodging, meals, all course materials, activities, and excursions
- A $500 deposit is due upon registration with remaining balance due by May 1, 2025. Click here to see our cancellation policy.
- Students reside in campus residence hall and dine in campus dining hall
- Enrollment is open until spaces are filled
- Registration is through the Camp Doc platform. Detailed registration instructions can be found here.
- Creating a believable setting for your story
- Incorporate aspects of nature in poetry
- Participating in peer workshopping sessions to give and receive feedback on work-in-progress
- Students will be encouraged to participate in an end-of-week reading for an audience of family and friends
Topics and schedules are subject to change
Sample Schedule:
Morning
- 8 a.m. – Breakfast
- 9 a.m. – Nature-based poetry – Spend time outdoors developing skills of observation to capture sensory details about the natural world
- 12 p.m. – Lunch & free time
Afternoon
- 1 p.m. – Worldbuilding 101 – Analyze the settings of well-known novels, then complete generative writing exercises to begin crafting a vivid fictional world
Evening
- 5 p.m. – Dinner
- 6:30 p.m. – Activities / Recreation / Free Time
Options could include: sand volleyball, Asheville Tourists game, game night, movie - 11 p.m. – Lights out
Topics and schedules are subject to change
Meet Your Faculty
Mildred Kiconco Barya is a North Carolina-based writer and poet of East African descent. She teaches and lectures globally, and is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Animals of My Earth School (Terrapin Books, 2023). Her prose, hybrids, and poems have appeared in the New England Review, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, Joyland, Tin House, The Forge, and elsewhere. She serves on the board of African Writers Trust and coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café. She blogs here: mildredbarya.com
Jamieson Ridenhour is the writer and producer of the popular audio drama Palimpsest, the author of the werewolf murder-mystery Barking Mad (Typecast, 2011) and writer and director of the award-winning short horror films Cornerboys and The House of the Yaga. His ghost play Grave Lullaby was a finalist for the Kennedy Center’s David Cohen Playwriting award in 2012. Jamie’s short fiction and poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, TheNewerYork, Across the Margins, Mirror Dance, and Architrave, among others, and has been podcast on Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, and Radio Unbound. Jamie has a Ph.D. in Victorian Gothic fiction. In addition to publishing scholarly articles on Dickens, LeFanu, and contemporary vampire film, he edited the Valancourt edition of Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla (2009) and wrote a book-length study of urban gothic fiction, In Darkest London (Scarecrow, 2014). He has taught writing and literature for over twenty years, currently at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. His poetry chapbook, Universal Monsters, is coming in early 2025 from Main Street Rag Press.
Questions? Please contact us at precollege@unca.edu.
