Since 2014, The Porch has been fortunate to work with an incredible roster of nationally-recognized writers. Ada Limón, Kiese Laymon, Ross Gay, Jericho Brown, Silas House, Maggie Smith—these dedicated artists, among others, have shared their vision and skills with the community through our Visiting Writers Series. In support of our mission, this series aims to connect The Porch with authors and poets, both well-established and emerging, for inspiring, intimate learning opportunities. Some of the most engaging contemporary writers in the country—folks like Rebecca Gayle Howell, Jami Attenberg, Joshua Mohr, and Maurice Ruffin—have shared their well-honed expertise and belief in the literary arts as a powerful tool for furthering human connection. Over the past dozen years I’ve seen roomfuls of writers and readers motivated to keep writing, to continue sharing stories, to polish and submit their work for publication, to prioritize working in community with other writers—all thanks in part to the brief but powerful time they spent learning from these master teachers. The cumulative effect is quite honestly astonishing. 

I’ve heard many times from people who have been moved by our classes. Recently, at the Southern Festival of Books, a local author—who is also a woodworker, a father, a songwriter—stopped by The Porch’s table to tell us how a class he’d taken back in 2015 changed his writing life. Because of that class with Visiting Writer Kim Cross, Trapper told me he’d gone on to write a book and self-publish it. Crooked Old River has since sold more than 800 copies. (Which, if you know a bit about publishing, independent or otherwise, is nothing to sniff at.) He credited that class with making him the writer he is today. 

In the past twelve months, we’ve welcomed up-and-coming talent such as Martha Park, who helped us think about how to write about faith and the environment and the fascinating, holographic endurance of stories over time--the way meaning shifts for readers even as the words may stay the same. We’ve welcomed professor David James Poissant, who brought his deep, lifelong re-reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway to our students. Most recently, we’ve enjoyed time spent with Megan Mayhew Bergman, who helped us express the sacred on the page. 

It cheers me to think of our Middle Tennessee writers getting to know these Visiting Writers’ works, suggesting them to writer-friends, maybe even teaching these stories and poems and essays in their own classrooms. We’re creating a circuit, a powerful necessity for the literary culture at large, especially given that the literary arts represent less than 2% of all arts funding. I like to think of our Visiting Writers Series as a road—imagine, if you will, a winding, scenic drive, rather than an interstate highway—connecting our humble, Middle Tennessee-based organization to that broader literary community. The road has two lanes; energy traveling both directions. In keeping this scenic byway open and well-trafficked, we’re contributing to a sharing economy in which ideas, passions, energy, and skills flow back and forth. Those writers who make their way to The Porch to spend a day or two with us? They need people, new minds, brave minds. They need us. And we need them. 

If we believe writing is a worthwhile pursuit for all, we must also believe that a critical part of The Porch's work is to support the livelihoods of professional writers. We must help support the bodies and minds who give our culture so much by way of their devotion to their work. 

In the first half of 2026, we’ll welcome award-winning writers Jamie Quatro, Justin Taylor, Roseanne Cash, and Beth Ann Fennelly. These artists will make us ponder, seek, laugh, contemplate. They will encourage us to write; they will lead us to sharing new work with others. While festivals and bookstores do Nashville’s readers an immense service, The Porch carves out its niche in providing classroom opportunities to learn, face-to-face, from writers who are also generous and talented teachers. 

Please help us keep the path in and out of The Porch community well-traveled by gifted and hardworking artists. Please help us continue to share their gifts here in our homeground of Middle Tennessee, and send a bit of The Porch’s good energy with them when they take their leave of us.