Nation’s leading writers and artists to teach summer workshops at Provincetown’s renowned Fine Arts Work Center
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Carmen Maria Machado, Nicole Sealey, Garrard Conley, Ilana Savdie among luminaries teaching courses this summer at residency famous for nurturing celebrated writers and artists
Provincetown, MA (January 24, 2024) – Writers Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House), Melissa Febos (Body Work), Garrard Conley (Boy Erased), and Sarah Schulman (Let the Record Show: A Political History of Act Up), and artists Ilana Savdie and Simonette Quamina are among the luminaries who will lead weeklong workshops this summer at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the nation’s most enduring artist community.
Known for its off-season fellowship that nurtured the careers of Louise Glück, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Cunningham, Firelei Báez, and Jacolby Satterwhite, the Work Center welcomes the public every summer, offering 65 workshops in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drawing, painting, print-making, photography, and more.
Registration opens today for the weeklong courses, which run from June 16 to August 17. With the intimate workshops open to an average of 10 students, many sell out quickly
Many courses, such as Peter Hocking’s painting workshop, Mark Adams’s drawing course, and Jess Dugan’s photography course invite students to connect with the same Provincetown landscape that inspired artists like Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Hans Hofmann. New this year is the program’s first-ever food-writing workshop, led by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, which will include on-site visits to local cafes and restaurants. Other notable instructors include Mira Jacob (Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations), Nicole Sealey (The Ferguson Report: An Erasure), and Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City).
Returning after a successful first year, The Work Center’s second annual Queer Week (July 7 – 13) will feature workshops in printmaking, nonfiction writing, and podcast production, all curated by writer Andrea Lawlor.
“Our summer workshops offer an extraordinary opportunity to spend a week in the community that has inspired artists and writers since the early 1900s,” said executive director Sharon Polli. “We hear from students repeatedly that the freedom, camaraderie, and creative transformations they experience here follow them long after they leave Provincetown.”
This year, the Work Center is expanding its scholarship program and introducing a new tiered-tuition system for writers and artists of all levels. It also offers a wide range of scholarship opportunities for individuals from historically underrepresented communities, veterans, and Cape Cod residents through partnerships with local organizations including Provincetown Commons, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and the Center for Coastal Studies, as well as tuition reductions for K-12 and college teachers and students over 18. Reflecting a commitment to expanding access to its programming, the Work Center collaborates with organizations like UndocuPoets, Lambda Literary, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Cave Canem, aiming to fully fund 25 percent of workshop students, up from last year’s 20 percent. On-site housing is also available.
The summer workshops create a vibrant buzz at the Work Center, with around 80 new students and new instructors rotating in and out every week. Each week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, faculty host readings and artist talks that are free and open to the public and all students. Thursday night is student night, which highlights student work through open art studios and open-mic readings.
In addition to the Summer Workshop Program, which launched in 1995, the Work Center offers education programming year-round through 24PearlStreet, which offers online workshops and events that provide learning and community-building opportunities for readers and writers. Past Summer and 24PearlStreet faculty include Michael Cunningham, Cornelius Eady, Martin Espada, Andre Gregory, Terrance Hayes, Marie Howe, Major Jackson, Galway Kinnell, Yusef Komunyakaa, Norman Mailer, Michael Mazur, Grace Paley, Ann Patchett, Robert Pinsky, Paul Resika, Gerald Stern, and Elizabeth Strout.
About The Fine Arts Work Center
The Fine Arts Work Center is an international home for artists and writers in Provincetown, Massachusetts — the country’s most enduring artists’ community. Founded in 1968 by a group of luminary creators including Stanley Kunitz, Robert Motherwell, Josephine and Salvatore Del Deo, and Hudson and Ione Walker, the Work Center has given artists and writers the space and time to pursue their work within a community of peers for more than half a century. The artist-led Work Center supports emerging artists and writers through its world-renowned Fellowship program, and also offers summer workshops and year-round virtual learning opportunities to advance creative practice. Fine Arts Work Center Fellows who have arrived in Provincetown as emerging writers have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, MacArthur Fellowships, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Visual Arts Fellows have presented their work at the Venice Biennale, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and at other venues around the globe. The Fine Arts Work Center supports artistic freedom, nurtures creative connections, and makes possible artistic achievements important to the larger culture.
