W&L’s Lesley Wheeler to Host Writing Workshop The Jan. 29 workshop is open to the public and designed for writers of any genre.

By Emily Innes Stanley
January 23, 2026

Lesley Wheeler, Henry S. Fox Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, will host a writing workshop at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 29 at the Rockbridge Regional Library in Lexington. The workshop is free and open to the public and appropriate for writers of any genre and skill level.

Wheeler will open the workshop, titled “Writing from the Underworld,” with a brief reading and discussion of the fungal underworlds in her latest book, “Mycocosmic” (2025). She will also give examples of how other authors dig into such spaces, including the current U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze and novelist Lauren Groff. Participants are encouraged to bring pen and paper or any favorite writing device to use as Wheeler leads them in brainstorming, drafting and discussing new work exploring their own “underworlds” and how life begins from these overlooked grounds.

Wheeler has been a member of the W&L faculty since 1994, teaching poetry from the 19th through the 21st centuries and creative writing and also serves as the poetry editor of Shenandoah. She is the author of six poetry collections as well as a novel and an essay collection. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.