Each year, celebrated writers, editors, and agents from across the country attend the Bluegrass Writers Studio™ annual Residency. Working directly with students, visiting writers/editors/agents present lectures, participate in question and answer sessions, read from their works, and engage students during informal dinners and socials.
2017
Andrea Avery—creative nonfiction (Sonata)
Amy Greene—fiction (Bloodroot; Long Man: A Novel)
Camille Dungy—poetry (Guidebook to Relative Strangers; Trophic Cascade; Smith Blue)
Ian Stansel—fiction (The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo)
Sarah McCartt-Jackson—poetry (Stonelight; Children Born on the Wrong Side of the River; Vein of Stone)
Steve Benson—editorial cartoonist (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Lisa Gallagher—agent (DeFiore and Company Literary Management Inc.)
Amanda Rotach Lamkin—small press (Line by Lion Publications)
Leila Salisbury—small press (University Press of Kentucky)
Katerina Stoykova—small press (Accents Publishing)
2015
Matt Rasmussen—poetry (Black Aperture)
John Crowley—fiction (Little, Big; the AEgypt Cycle; Lord Byron’s Novel)
Kristyn Dunnion—fiction (The Dirt Chronicles, Big Big Sky, Fits Ritual)
Jason Howard—nonfiction (A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music)
James S.A. Corey, aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck—speculative fiction (Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate, Cibola Burn)
Jeff Parker—fiction (SWhere Bears Roam the Streets, Ovenman)
James Sallis—fiction (Drive, the Turner trilogy, Death Will Have Your Eyes)
J. Allyn Rosser—poetry (Foiled Again, Misery Prefigured, Mimi’s Trapeze)
Alice Spielburg—agent, Spielburg Literary Agency
2014
Tom Franklin—fiction (Poachers, Smonk, Co-Author of The Tilted World)
Beth Ann Fennelly—poetry (Open House, Tender Hooks, Co-Author of The Tilted World)
Jan Beatty—poetry (Red Sugar, The Switching/Yard)
Rigoberto Gonzalez—nonfiction (Red-Inked Retablos, Autibography of my Hungers)
Maureen McHugh—speculative fiction (China Mountain Zhang, After the Apocalypse)
Kelly Braffet—fiction (Save Yourself, Last Seen Leaving)
Lauren Grodstein—fiction (The Explanation for Everything, Friend of the Family)
Sam Lipsyte—fiction (The Fun Parts, The Ask, Home Land)
Alissa Nutting—fiction (Tampa, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls)
Zack Wagman—editor, Crown Publishing and Hogarth
Kathy Pories—senior editor, Algonquin Books
2013
Justin Cronin—fiction (The Passage; The Twelve)
Kevin Wilson—fiction (The Family Fang)
Anne Panning—fiction (Butter)
Christina Lovin—poetry (Flesh)
Will Lavender—fiction (Dominance; Obedience)
Gwenda Bond—fiction (Blackwood)
Sarah Gorham—poetry (Bad Daughter); president, Sarabande Books
Jeffrey Skinner—poetry (Salt Water Amnesia)
Kristen Iversen—nonfiction (Full Body Burden)
Jennifer Laughran—agent, Andrea Brown Literary Agency
Sara Knight—senior editor, Simon and Schuster
2012
Kim Edwards—fiction (The Memory Keeper’s Daughter)
Sena Jeter Naslund—fiction (Ahab’s Wife; Adam & Eve)
Melissa Pritchard—fiction (The Odditorium: Stories)
Jennifer Brehl—editor, William Morrow
Nancy Jensen—fiction (The Sisters)
Glen Retief—nonfiction (The Jack Bank)
Adam Day—poetry (Badger; Apocrypha)
Lisa Gallagher—agent, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates
David Hale Smith—agent, Inkwell Management
2011
Megan Abbott—fiction (The End of Everything; Dare Me)
Frank X Walker—poetry (Affrilachia: Poems)
Connie May Fowler—fiction (How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly)
Eileen Casey—poetry (Drinking the Colour Blue)
Amanda Eyre Ward—fiction (How to Be Lost; Close Your Eyes)
Josh Gaylord/Alden Bell—fiction (Hummingbirds; The Reapers Are the Angels)
Sonja Livingston—nonfiction (Ghostbread)
2010
Joyce Carol Oates—fiction (Blonde; The Falls; We Were the Mulvaneys)
Chris Offutt—fiction (Out of the Woods; The Same River Twice)
Steve Almond—fiction/nonfiction (Candyfreak: My Life in Heavy Metal)
Margaret McMullan—fiction (Sources of Light)
Christopher Cokinos—nonfiction (The Fallen Sky)
Lee Durkee—fiction (Rides of the Midway)
Cecilia Woloch—poetry (Carpathia; Narcissus)
Charles Rafferty—poetry (A Less Fabulous Infinity)
Kathe Lison—nonfiction (Curds and Whey)
2009
Julianna Baggott—fiction (Pure; The Prince of Fenway Park)
Joanie Mackowski—poetry (The Zoo; View from a Temporary Window)
Jim Tomlinson—fiction (Nothing Like an Ocean)
Marc Fitten—fiction (Valaria’s Last Stand); editor Chattahoochee Review
Megan Sexton—editor, Five Points
Rick Hilles—poetry (A Map of the Lost World; Brother Salvage)
Nancy Reisman—fiction (The First Desire; House Fires)
Tom Hunley—poetry (The Tongue; Still, There’s a Glimmer); editor, Steel Toe Books