About

Summer Writing Workshops

For more than 50 summers, the Community of Writers has brought together poets and prose writers for separate weeks of workshops, individual conferences, lectures, panels, readings, and discussions of the craft and the business of writing. Our aim is to assist writers in the refinement of their craft and thus, in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual support, move them closer to achieving their goals. The Community of Writers holds its summer writing workshops in Olympic Valley in the ski lodge at the foot of the ski slopes. Panels, talks, staff readings and workshops take place in these venues with a spectacular view up the mountain.

The Community has a competitive admissions procedure and the level of writing is high, but interested writers of poetry and prose should not hesitate to apply.


Other Projects

The Writers’ Annex

Online, and year-round, The Writers’ Annex is composed of short courses, seminars, workshops, and more. Our vision is to bring the creative insight and experience of our staff poets and prose writers to our community in all seasons, not just in the summertime, and not just here in our Valley.  Our online offerings will address such topics as eco-poetics, translation, and generative sessions. Some will be one or two days, some will be weekend intensives, and some will meet weekly for a month or so. 

Our offerings are for writers, poets, readers and others who study the written word. We learned from our two years of offerings from the Virtual Valley that opportunities like this can be crucial for participants who aren’t in an academic setting, and who can’t make a week-long trip to the Sierra whether because of mobility, financial, employment, or familial constraints. We see The Writers’ Annex as a bridge for them.

Published Alumni Reading Series

Each summer, recently published Writers Workshops alumni are invited to return to Olympic Valley to read from their books and talk about their journey from unpublished writers to published authors. If you would like to be considered, please  contact us and send details about your book.

OGQ: The Omnium Gatherum Quarterly

Omnium Gatherum Quarterly (OGQ) is an invitational online quarterly magazine of prose and poetry, founded in 2019 as part of the 50th Anniversary of the Community of Writers. OGQ seeks to feature works first written in, found during, or inspired by the week in the valley. Only work selected from our alums and teaching staff will appear there. Conceived and edited by Andrew Tonkovich. Details

Alumni News: Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News

Chronicling the publishing and other successes of its participants. Details

The 50th Anniversary Poetry Anthology

The Community of Writers celebrates fifty years of its annual poetry workshop with an extraordinary collection by some of the country’s most prominent contemporary poets. “Why To These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers” includes over 140 poems inspired by or written in High Sierra during the annual workshop week.

Edited by Lisa Alvarez, and introduced by long-time poetry director and former Poet Laureate, Robert Hass. Why to These Rocks tells part of the story of the Community of Writers through work produced in the valley by both staff and participant poets, using three self-explanatory lenses: Over the Mountains: Poems about the Place; Scrupulous Mercy: Poems about the Process; and After Surfacing: Poems Produced by the Process in the Place. Details

Writers Workshop in a Book

An anthology of craft talks from the workshops edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez. Details

 Notable Alumni

A directory devoted to a list of our notable alumni. Details

Facebook Alumni Groups

Social media alumni groups keep the community and conversation going.
Writers Workshops Facebook Alumni Group
Poetry Workshop Facebook Alumni Group

Annual Poetry Anthology

Each year an anthology of poetry is published featuring poems first written during the Poetry Workshop in Olympic Valley. Details