Well into his sixties and with a history of heart problems, Jesse Stuart continued to write and publish at an incredible pace. He also taught and directed seven creative writing workshops at Murray State University. The workshops began with fifty-eight students in 1969 and peaked at seventy-nine students, representing twenty-seven states, in 1976.
The workshop offered four courses taught by Stuart, Wilma Dykeman, Lee Pennington, and L. J. Horton. The next year, Stuart added another member to his all-star team when Harriette Simpson Arnow, famed author of The Dollmaker, replaced Mrs. Stokely in teaching the novel.
Students were drawn like moths to Stuart’s infectious light, and “The Short Story” was typically the largest class. Jesse was a brusque, passionate, and helpful teacher. In a remembrance of her first class with him, Quint T. Guier tells the story of a student who began to read her story, when her teacher stopped her and asked her to write the title on the blackboard. She did so and began again. “The title of your story is too long,” Jesse interrupted. “It’s a whole sentence. The title to a story should be short and snappy but suggestive of what the story is about.” The class volleyed suggestions for a more concise title back and forth before the story was satisfactorily renamed and the girl could proceed. “She learned…that Jesse Stuart was just as ready to acknowledge a good point…as to point out a bad one.”
At the end of the 1977 workshop, Stuart, as director, spoke to a group that included the year’s participants, along with Murray State faculty and administrators. He was recovering from a “heart stoppage followed sometime later by a heart attack” and had received doctors’ permission to attend “only three days before the beginning of this workshop.” According to his colleague and friend Harriette Simpson Arnow, his 1977 workshop class presented numerous manuscripts to read and evaluate. It was stressful, but enjoyable, work for Stuart.
Each of the classes met for two and a half hours per day, five days per week, for three weeks. Students were limited to taking only one course for three hours of college credit, but they were also allowed to audit an additional class. The workshop was well designed and well implemented, and students benefitted greatly from careful professional evaluations. The workshops concluded with a banquet and the creation of an anthology of the summer’s best pieces.
Stuart suffered a stroke in 1978 and was unable to work again. Without its star attraction, the program came to an end, but Stuart had conducted writing workshops for seven years and had trained approximately five hundred writers and teachers. Murray’s success encouraged the development of similar programs at other regional schools.
As an institutional extension of Stuart, the Jesse Stuart Foundation plans to offer a two-day, Friday and Saturday, Writers Workshop at Greenbo Lake State Resort Park on May 9 and 10, 2025. William H. Turner, author of “The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns,” will be the keynote speaker and present a breakout session. Other instructors will be Wayne Onkst, Lee Pennington, Rita S. Spalding, John W. McCauley, Keith Kappes, Stan Bumgardner, Brenda Evans, Georgia Green Stamper, Cathy Roberts, and Adam VanKirk.
If you are interested in attending, please register by phone (606-326-1667), e-mail jsf@jsfbooks.com, or visit the JSF website jsfbooks.com. The workshop agenda is displayed on the JSF website. The $50 registration fee will be payable at the workshop site on May 9.
By James M. Gifford
JSF CEO & Senior Editor
