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Meet THe Team
This two-day creative writing workshop is designed to offer secondary-level English teachers an opportunity to exercise their own writing muses as well as gain tools to enrich their teaching.
Katie McDougall, Porch Co-founder, writer, and former high English teacher, will focus on the art and craft of story: character and plot development, point of view, descriptive detail, style, and the creation of “significance.” Poet and teacher, Virginia Henry, will offer teachers tools to integrate poetry into any classroom, providing a host of accessible poems to inspire their own work. Through writing exercises, you’ll receive fresh and flexible resources, ultimately demonstrating how poetry improves students’ (and teachers’) critical analysis and creative generation. Come hungry to write, both prose and poetry, and leave with tools, resources, and inspiration to take back to the classroom. (An optional lunch package is available for $35, which includes lunch on both days. You can add it at checkout.)
Parking at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee: To help preserve availability in the main lot for CFMT staff and their scheduled visitors, we ask that all students park in either the CFMT Lower Lot: accessible via Belmont Blvd. (look for the “Overflow Parking” sign and opened metal gates), or the YWCA Lower Parking Lot: accessible via Woodmont Blvd.
Katie McDougall, Porch Co-Founder and Co-Director, earned a BA at Colorado College and her MFA in Fiction Writing at Colorado State University. After leaving the traditional classroom, she worked as the Master Teacher in Residence at The Island School in the Bahamas. In 2025, she was the Caroll Visiting Writer at Harpeth Hall. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Hippocampus, Litmosphere, Chaper16, Barcelona Review, and Storyglossia. She was a runner-up for the Kentucky Women’s Writers; Betty Gabehart Prize in 2019 and a finalist in the 2023 Lit/South Awards.
Virginia Henry received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Obsidian, Big Muddy, and The Golliard. With over a decade of teaching experience, Virginia has taught Literature, Rhetoric, and Creative Writing at the community college and university levels, as well as English and American History in middle and high schools. She currently serves as Program Coordinator for the Educators’ Cooperative.
"Katie McDougall is a fantastic teacher who is passionate about the subject herself. She gives you all the tools you need as a beginner in fiction writing, with the comfortability of allowing for flexibility and creativity in your own work."
Virginia is new to The Porch. Welcome!
