Hurston/Wright 2026 Virtual Writers Weekend July 24 – July 26, 2026

Visit Our Website Instructors: 

• Fiction Instructor: Keith Miller 

• Non-Fiction Instructor: Tieshka Smith 

• Non-Fiction Instructor: DaMaris B. Hill 

• Poetry Instructor: Miles Hardingwood 

• Research Methods for Writers: Lucy Anne Hurston 

About Us

The Hurston/Wright Foundation’s mission is to honor, discover and mentor Black writers. We do that by providing services, support, and opportunities that provide community and recognize accomplishments. Our community resources include in-person workshops and classes that have been our signature offering for more than 35 years. Workshops and courses are taught by award-winning authors and serve emerging and midcareer adult writers. More than a thousand Black writers have taken our classes since the first one in 1996, increasing diversity in the cultural community as they have gone on to create books and careers as professors, local cultural workers, and national thought leaders.   

ABOUT OUR WORKSHOPS AND INSTRUCTORS 

Workshop Highlights 

• 10+ Hours of writing seminars and discussions  
•  One-on-one time with an award-winning writer in your genre  
•  Constructive, guided feedback on your writing from your peers and workshop leader  
• For Writers at all levels

 Fiction Workshop Description:  This workshop invites writers to engage emotionally charged, memory-driven work through a healing-centered lens, exploring how to craft scenes of (re)memory, relationships, and return in ways that honor emotional complexity and unlock what makes a story truly unforgettable. Students will:   

• Acquire proficiency in fundamental aspects such as plot construction, dialogue refinement, and character development. 
• Enhance their mastery of sentence-level composition, leveraging techniques such as imagery, precise vocabulary selection, and rhythmic cadence. 
•  Cultivate the disciplined practices characteristic of seasoned fiction writers, encompassing the realms of editing, revising, and manuscript submission. 

Designed for aspiring writers at the outset of their journey or those in the process of establishing themselves, this course caters to individuals who are deeply committed to advancing their skills in the craft of writing.  

Fiction Instructor: 

Keith F. Miller, Jr., is the author of the critically-acclaimed HarperCollins "PRITTY" YA series (Pritty, 2023; Togetha, 2025). In addition to being an award-winning educator, artist, and researcher, he is the founder of Healing By Any Means (HBAM), home of Narrative Systems Design, an emerging academic and professional discipline that powers system transformation through story. Keith is an executive producer of Pritty: The Animation, and he has an MFA in creative writing from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY. 

Non-Fiction Workshop Description: 

• This course is for writers at all levels. Our instructor Tieshka Smith delves into the concept of writing as a journey back to one's origins. Students will be encouraged to engage in writing exercises that examine various facets of their heritage, such as culinary history, family customs, and community connections.  

 Students will:    

• Gain skills in effectively navigating the portrayal of family members and ancestral narratives.  
•  Explore the nuanced concept of truth as it relates to writing from personal recollection.  
•  Discover techniques for seamlessly blending personal experiences with broader universal themes.  

Nonfiction Instructors 

Tieshka (pronounced Tish-ka) Smith is a Philadelphia-based photographer, writer, teaching artist, and cultural documentarian. Her work interrogates placemaking, memory, and civic identity through the lenses of race and class. Smith is the author of Compositions of Black Joy: A Visual Chronicle of the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival (2015–2022) and is currently working on her second book, Unscripted Moments: From the Diary of a Restless Lightchaser. Her photographs have been featured online and in galleries, museums, and publications across the U.S. A Chicago native, Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Northwestern University, and a Master of Project Management degree from DeVry University's Keller Graduate School of Management. Her website is tieshkasmith.com.

Nonfiction Workshop Description  This workshop is designed for visual artists and documentarians who are ready to deepen their storytelling practice through writing. Together, we’ll explore how to move beyond simply describing your work and begin crafting a narrative that draws meaning from the themes, patterns, and questions already present in your art.      

DaMaris B. Hill is a poet and creative scholar.  Her most recent memoir-in-verse, Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood, is deemed “urgent” and “luminous” in a starred Publisher’s Weekly review. Hill’s first memoir-in-verse, A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, is a powerful narrative-in-verse that bears witness to Black women burdened by incarceration. It was an Amazon #1 Best Seller in African American Poetry, a Publishers Weekly Top 10 History Title, and 2020 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. Hill’s other books include The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow: Staking Claims in the American Heartland, and \Vi-zə-bəl\   \Teks-chərs\ (Visible Textures).  Her digital work, “Shut Up In My Bones”, is a twenty-first century poem that uses remix/pastiche/intertextuality to honor a specific cultural past, while working to construct visions of a better future.  Her next book, a memoir entitled Blood Bible: An American History, will be published with Bloomsbury in 2027.    Similar to her creative process, Hill’s scholarly research is interdisciplinary. She was a 2024-2025 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University and a fellow with the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Hill is Chair and Professor of Creative Writing and English Literature at her alma mater, Morgan State University.   

Poetry Workshop Description   Spoken Word poetry has been the emotional backbone of resistance movements across continents and throughout history. Performance poetry can connect with and move audiences in ways no other art form can replicate. Focusing on examples of historical movements and revolutions which were impacted by poetry, we will learn what strategies have been used to create effective performance pieces, as well as how we can apply those lessons to the struggles of today.

Poetry Instructor

Miles Justice Hardingwood is a poet and creative from Brooklyn, NY. He is a 2023 National Student Poet and a 2022 NYC Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. His poetry has   received a Scholastic National Gold Medal and an American Voices Medal, and he has   performed at venues such as The White House, The Schomburg Center, The Metropolitan   Museum of Art, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Vice President Kamala Harris’s Black History Month Celebration. He attended the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop and the Iowa Studio, and he currently attends Brown University, where he is pursuing a concentration in Literary Arts. You can find him on instagram @mileshardingwood 

Research Methods for Writers Workshop Description:    Utilizing her extensive background in Sociology spanning decades, Lucy Anne Hurston will guide participants through a three-day course emphasizing:   

• In-depth exploration of a chosen topic through the sociological perspective. 
• Techniques for effectively organizing large volumes of information. 
•  Ethical considerations in both written expression and presentation. 

Prior familiarity with research methods is not a prerequisite. The course will offer a gentle introduction, culminating in a modest project for each participant to showcase to their peers. 

Research Methods for Writers Instructor:

LUCY ANNE HURSTON, the niece of major 20th-century writer Zora Neale Hurston and Professor Emeritus of Sociology, is an acclaimed sociologist, biographer, and ethnographer. She has spent her life as an educator and compiled a detailed knowledge of her aunt’s life and work with a historian’s observant eye. As the owner of Hurston Research, LLC for over 25 years, Lucy has played a critical role in exploring and disseminating Hurston knowledge from her own research. She also continues to act as a voice for social change and equity in her volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity and Connecticut Foodshare, and as an advocate for literacy through events such as The Big Read sponsored by the NEA.   

Submission Format:   Please ensure that your submission aligns with the genre to which you are applying.  

For fiction, nonfiction 10 page maximum, using Times New Roman, 12-point type, double-spaced with 1-inch margins. 

For poetry applicants: Submit no more than 3 poems for consideration, no less than 2.  

All applicants

Provide a title page with the author’s name and contact information.   

• Include a cover letter with information about your writing life and citations of any published work. 
•  Applicants may apply to one workshop only. Previous attendees are eligible to apply. 

Deadline and Fees: 

• Deadline: May 30th 
•  Application fee: $40 
•  Tuition: $450 Early Bird (Until April 25, 2026) 
•  Tuition: $500 (April 26, 2026)  
•  Apply early. Hurston/Wright uses rolling admissions for a maximum of 10 slots per class. All applicants will be notified by or before June st. 
•  A nonrefundable deposit of $150 is due within 1 week of notification of acceptance into the workshop. The remaining balance is due by July 1st. 
•  Cancellation Policy: All registration fees are nonrefundable. If you are unable to attend, the full amount paid will be credited toward another Hurston/Wright Foundation (HWF) workshop. Hurston/Wright reserves the right to close the submission period early or cancel a session based on the number of applications received. In the event that a session is canceled, all applicants will be notified promptly, and any payments made will be fully refunded. 
•  Workshops begin Friday 6pm - 8pm, Saturday 9 am - 3pm EST, Sunday 10am - 1pm. A detailed schedule will be provided upon acceptance. 

 DISCLAIMER: Applicants must not contact instructors directly about the application process or send queries regarding other projects, unless invited by the instructor directly. If these actions occur, applicants will be ineligible to attend our writing workshops.