{"id":79069,"date":"2026-09-09T08:27:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.utc.edu\/news\/?p=79069"},"modified":"2026-09-09T08:27:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:27:52","slug":"novelist-mesha-maren-to-headline-meacham-writers-workshop-sept-23-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.utc.edu\/news\/2026\/09\/novelist-mesha-maren-to-headline-meacham-writers-workshop-sept-23-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Novelist Mesha Maren to headline Meacham Writers\u2019 Workshop Sept. 23-26"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Novelist

Mesha Martin will be the featured visiting writer and Stove Works Fellow at the upcoming Meacham Writers’ Workshop.<\/p><\/div>\n

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will host the 2026 Meacham Writers\u2019 Workshop from Sept. 23-26, bringing writers, readers and students together for four days of readings, conversations and workshops focused on Appalachian and Southern literature.<\/p>\n

All Meacham Writers\u2019 Workshop events are free and open to the public. A complete schedule, including locations and event times, is available at go.utc.edu\/meacham<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Novelist Mesha Maren, author of \u201cSugar Run,\u201d \u201cPerpetual West\u201d and \u201cShae,\u201d will be the workshop\u2019s featured visiting writer and Stove Works Fellow. Maren will participate in an Appalachian writers panel, meet with public school students and lead a writing workshop at Stove Works (1250 E. 13th St.) on Saturday, Sept. 26.<\/p>\n

A South Arts grant will help bring Maren to Chattanooga. Headquartered in Atlanta, South Arts is a nonprofit regional arts organization that supports artists, organizations and communities across the South through grants, fellowships and programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is such an enormous honor to participate in the Meacham Writers\u2019 Workshop, where so many of my literary heroes, like Larry Brown, have been before me,\u201d Maren said. \u201cIt is particularly wonderful to be supported by South Arts, such a wonderful and necessary organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maren\u2019s fiction, short stories and essays have appeared in Tin House, The Oxford American, The Guardian, The New York Times, Crazyhorse, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review and Ecotone. She is an associate professor of the practice of English at Duke University.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very excited that the South Arts grant is allowing us to expand our offerings for this Meacham workshop,\u201d said Sybil Baker, UC Foundation Professor and associate department head in the UTC Department of English, who directs the Meacham Writers\u2019 Workshop. \u201cOur focus for this Meacham is Appalachian writers, and most of the visiting writers have a connection with Appalachia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The workshop will feature an Appalachian writers panel with Maren; UTC alum J. Kasper Kramer, whose middle-grade novel, \u201cSerpent on the Mountain,\u201d is set in 1970s Appalachia; and Chattanooga-based novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore, winner of the 2025 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction.<\/p>\n

Additional visiting writers include Stephen Moore, M. Randal O\u2019Wain and Jessica Alexander. Herman H. Battle Professor of African American Studies Earl Braggs and UC Foundation Assistant Professor Justin Wymer\u2014who serves as assistant director of the Meacham Writers\u2019 Workshop\u2014also will read from recently published books.<\/p>\n

“The intelligence and humanity of the writers that Meacham brings to Chattanooga never cease to amaze me,\u201d Wymer said. \u201cAppalachian literature is alive and thriving. I can’t wait for the community to meet the visiting writers this fall.”<\/p>\n

Workshop events include:<\/p>\n