Join this free, virtual info session to learn about the 2027 Fiction Porch Year Cohort, meet the Instructor, and ask questions to see if your fiction project is a good fit. Free to attend! This event will be recorded and posted online afterwards.
About the Porch Year: The Porch Year is an online, immersive one-year manuscript mentorship program designed for committed writers that begins in January 2027 - December 2027. With a maximum of 12 participants, this fiction cohort offers personalized feedback, accountability, goal-setting, and community needed to brainstorm, write, revise, and complete a manuscript draft, all from the convenience of an online setting. It’s an ideal option for both local and remote writers looking to work closely with peers and an experienced instructor. Applications open on October 7, 2026 and close on January 11, 2027.
Zoom link provided upon registration.
William Henry Lewis has published fiction, poetry, and non-fiction in many publications, including The Washington Post, O Magazine, Higher Issues In Education, Colorado Review, New Letters, African-American Review, Blackbird, Callaloo, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Swing, and BOMB. His work has featured in conjunction with exhibitions at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn and the Baltimore Museum of Art, and his stories have been reprinted in several anthologies, domestic and abroad. His work has been honored by the Hurston/Wright Foundation, the American Library Association, Fellowship of Southern Writers, National Endowment for the Arts, Best American Short Stories, and as finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize.
He is the author of two books of stories, In the Arms of Our Elders (Carolina Wren Press; three printings), and I Got Somebody in Staunton (HarperCollins; two printings), which was listed among Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2005, and selected as the city of Richmond's Go Read book for 2006.
His work has been praised by David Eggers, Nikki Giovanni, Peter Matthiessen, Marita Golden, Edward P. Jones, and has been acclaimed by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TimeOut, and The Washington Post. The Los Angeles Times Book Review praised his fiction as "beautifully written and carefully crafted," while the Boston Globe noted his work as "moving, but unsentimental, these are stories of hard-won wisdom, potent intelligence, and compassion for the cadence of everyday life, establishing Lewis as a writer to be appreciated and admired."