Thomas Wolfe MFA at Lenoir-Rhyne University

02/24/2026

A lot of journals are open to submissions!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16i4NLpMBG/

We can't wait to read your poems!

02/17/2026

We are excited to be launching our first MFA Literary Salon. We have listened to Alastair McIntosh and Mildred Barya and will soon share the video recordings. Our upcoming guest is Nathan Balingrud.

Nathan Ballingrud - Feb. 23, 6 p.m.
Nathan Ballingrud is an American writer of horror and dark fantasy fiction whose work blends the uncanny with the deeply human. He is the author of "Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell" and "The Strange." His novella "The Visible Filth" was adapted into the feature film "Wounds," and his story collection "North American Lake Monsters" was adapted as the Hulu series "Monsterland." Ballingrud has won two Shirley Jackson Awards and has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award.

Future guests (we go on alternating Mondays)
Michael Knight - March 16, 6 p.m.
Michael Knight is an American fiction writer whose work spans novels, short stories and novellas. He is the author of "The Typist" — named a Best Book of the Year by The Huffington Post and The Kansas City Star and featured on Oprah’s Summer Reading List — and "Eveningland," winner of the Truman Capote Prize for Short Fiction. Knight’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Ploughshares, and he teaches creative writing at the University of Tennessee.

Cornelius Eady
Cornelius Eady - March 30, 6 p.m.
Cornelius Eady is a poet and playwright whose work explores music, family and the lived experiences of African American life. He is the author of "The Gathering of My Name," a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and "Brutal Imagination," a National Book Award finalist later adapted into an award-winning off-Broadway play. Eady is a professor at the University of Tennessee and a co-founder of the Cave Canem Foundation, a nationally recognized organization supporting the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.

Kelly Link
Kelly Link - April 13, 6 p.m.
Kelly Link is an American writer whose work blends fantasy, horror and literary fiction. She is the author of the novel "The Book of Love" and the story collections "Get in Trouble" and "Stranger Things Happen." A Pulitzer finalist and recipient of a Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award and a MacArthur Fellowship, Link is the co-founder of Small Beer Press, co-editor of the literary magazine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and co-owner of the independent bookstore Book Moon in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

For additional details and Zoom access, visit calendar.lr.edu.

https://www.lr.edu/news/lenoir-rhyne-mfa-launches-writers-salon-acclaimed-guest-authors

The series brings acclaimed guest authors into dialogue with students and the community to explore craft, process and the writing life.

02/17/2026

Asheville novelist and short story writer Nathan Ballingrud will be joining us for the next MFA Writers’ Salon at Lenoir-Rhyne Univeristy on Monday, February 23rd, from 6-8pm.

Nathan’s most recent book is Cathedral of the Drowned, the second volume in a trilogy of lunar gothic novellas. He is also the author of The Strange and Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell, both from Saga Press, and North American Lake Monsters, from Small Beer Press. He’s won two Shirley Jackson Awards, and has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards. His novella “The Visible Filth” was adapted for motion picture as Wounds, now available on Hulu, and his short-story collection North American Lake Monsters was adapted into the Hulu television series Monsterland.

You can join us on Zoom at: https://Lenoir-Rhyne.zoom.us/j/93705067054?pwd=NUFRYkx2NGhsNk1JWmpQQllzUE85QT09

Meeting ID: 937 0506 7054
Passcode: 068625

02/17/2026

We are already looking ahead to Summer and Fall. Here is a description of Fall's Poetry Workshop led by Laura Hope-Gill.

WRI522 Opening the World with Poetry

U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze writes, “Poetry necessitates that we slow down, deepen our attention, practice care with language and with each other; poetry is an essential language…and it affirms our shared humanity.” We live in a very fast culture that almost seems designed to prevent us from experiencing the full richness of moments and insights. We will reclaim slowness in this workshop. This slowness will adjust our seeing and thinking in beautiful and natural ways as we engage it with language and allow it to lead us deeper into ourselves, our worlds, our lives. We will use class-time to practice and develop “Skills of Slowness” and reframing workshop as collaborative creativity while also providing appreciations and “invited critique.” Wednesday 3:30-5:30. Professor Laura Hope-Gill

01/20/2026

Coming up on Monday at 4 pm, we welcome Alastair McIntosh via Zoom from Glasgow, Scotland. Alastair, whose books feature frequently in MFA and Narrative Healthcare students' courses, will speak on Depth, Discernment and the Carrying Stream. A message will contain links and more details. For now, this is my favorite short video of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6VrZfSMsv0 and here is a wonderful article: https://besharamagazine.org/arts-literature/poachers-pilgrimage/

A Journey with Alastair McIntosh reviewed by Jim Griffin. “The Western Isles are often referred to as ‘thin places’ – places where the separation between the divine and the human easily breaks down.”

10/05/2024

I’ve got a warm, full belly after getting the fire breathing. Now, I resume my after-dinner practice of sitting here in the post-curfew silence and no-electricity quiet while the generous embers die.

My collection of solar landscape lights have come on in their new location if the fallen boxelder on my deck. These will provide reading light when I go inside.

I look up and see many stars since the city is dark now. The surrounding trees form a circle, like an eye and I’m its pupil.

I drove today and turned back. Nothing should ever look like that.

I hear a helicopter then see it, still searching perhaps.

I have long suspected that we love looking at screens because deep within us all, there dwells an ancestor sits and gazes at the fire, and it’s speaking. I feel her now.

10/04/2024

I made these cards a month or so ago. This simple practice takes just 15 minutes a day for four days with lifelong benefits. As the article (a collection of many studies distilled) says, science doesn’t know how it heals so deeply and so successfully. We poets know. It’s the soul. We can’t live without it.

Please share. We can prevent the trauma from taking hold as pathology. By Writing.

Here is the science: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/emotional-and-physical-health-benefits-of-expressive-writing/ED2976A61F5DE56B46F07A1CE9EA9F

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/emotional-and-physical-health-benefits-of-expressive-writing/ED2976A61F5DE56B46F07A1CE9EA9F9F

Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing - Volume 11 Issue 5

06/17/2024

Remap humanity.

www.storysangha.org