The West Virginia Writers’ Workshop will be celebrating its 16th year this summer when, as usual, it hosts writers from around the country (and perhaps even the world). This year’s Workshop will be held July 19 to July 22, in Morgantown, on West Virginia University’s lovely downtown campus.

The Workshop is designed to offer writers at any stage of their careers, from beginner to established author, the opportunity to share their fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction in a workshop of fellow writers. In addition to intense discussions and critiques of participants’ work, the Workshop features readings by the Workshop’s leaders, all of whom are nationally acclaimed authors, and craft talks on elements of the writing process. Furthermore, the Workshop offers a panel on publishing in which attendees are invited to ask anything about the sometimes labyrinthine process of moving from written work to published work. The Workshop’s highlight is an open-mike reading by Workshop participants.

What’s to like about the 2012 West Virginia Writers’ Workshop? Plenty. The Workshop’s director, Mark Brazaitis, a fiction writer and poet (The River of Lost Voices, The Other Language), says he could come up with a list 100 items long. But here’s his top five:

1. This summer’s Workshop will have a dynamic, exciting faculty. Faculty members include poet Faith Shearin, whom Garrison Keillor has featured twice on his program The Writers Almanac; Stephen Amidon, who had the audacity to write a history of the human heart—and pulled it off beautifully; and Michael Czyzniejewski, the editor of Mid-American Review and an up-and-coming fiction writer whose work has appeared in dozens of prestigious literary journals.

2. Workshop leaders will be accessible during the entire four days of the conference. Talk with them, learn from them, laugh with them, steal offhand remarks from them to use as opening lines of poetry or final lines of short stories.

3. Morgantown in the summer is beautiful. If I were the author of the Farmers’ Almanac, this is what I would say about the weather for this coming July 19 to 22: “Gorgeous. Inspiring. Literary.”

4. The open mic reading on Saturday night is always a blast. Workshop participants share their work in a supportive and festive atmosphere. More and more of our past Workshop participants are published authors (thanks, in some cases, to the Workshop), and this year’s reading is bound to be the best yet. Even better, you can come to the reading with a bottle of your favorite wine!

5. Because if you don’t come to the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop, you may miss learning the secret to writing the Great American Novel. You’ll certainly miss a great time.

Follow the link for more information on the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop.