13th Annual
Harvester Island Writers’ Workshop
With Leslie Leyland Fields
Dates: Aug. 30 - Sept. 6, 2025
(Labor Day Weekend)
Calling all Adventurous Writers…
Harvester Island is a stunningly beautiful private island off the west coast of Kodiak Island, Alaska offering refuge and adventure, contemplation and activity, solitude and community. It's wild, remote (population: no one but us) and a remarkable place to grow your writing. Leslie knows: she has written most of her books here over the last 44 seasons she's lived here and worked with her family in commercial salmon fishing.
Whether you’ve been writing and publishing for decades or you’re just beginning, we’re ready to propel your writing to the finish line. Leslie and Gary are not only award-winning writers, but they are also professors and teachers with decades of teaching experience. Each day, they’ll guide and teach participants in this profound means of public witness and transformation: discovering, crafting and sharing stories—- whether they’re memoir, essays, a novel, travelogue, Y/A, short stories, devotionals, or some other form of fiction and nonfiction.
Each day, Leslie and Gary will teach 4-5 hour intensive interactive classes and workshops. Afternoons we schedule (optional) Alaskan adventures including whale watching and boat rides across the bay. We’ll see sea lion and seal rookeries, as well as otters, puffins, bald eagles, and more. We also have beautiful beaches for beachcombing and hiking. Evenings, over dessert, we enjoy readings, movies, and discussions.
Where Is Harvester Island?
Your Hosts
Leslie Leyland Fields
Leslie is the multi-award-winning author of 14 books including Your Story Matters and Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers. Other books include Crossing the Waters, which won Christianity Today's 2017 Book Award in Christian Living. Her books have been translated into eleven languages. Her essays have appeared in Christianity Today, Belief.net, The Atlantic, Orion, Best Essays and many others earning her a number of Evangelical Press Awards, Pushcart nominations and a Genesis Award.
With three graduate degrees (in English, Journalism and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction) she has taught extensively in undergraduate and graduate programs both as faculty member and guest lecturer. Her Memoir Masterclass program has over a thousand students around the world, and many of her students have gone on to publish their manuscripts, (which makes her incredibly proud!)
Gary Schmidt
Gary is a professor of English at Calvin College and a multi-award winning author of more than 20 books.
He received two Newberry Awards from the American Library Association, the first in 2005 for his novel Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and the second in 2008 for his novel The Wednesday Wars. Schmidt's novel Okay for Now, the 2011 sequel to The Wednesday Wars, was a National Book Award finalist. It also was the winner of a 2012 Children's Choice Book Award. a Gary recently worked with Susan Felch to edit two volumes on religiously themed fiction called The Emmaus Readers. Originally from New England, he regularly leads the New England Saints interim course in January.
Previous guest writers have included:
Ann Voskamp, Philip Yancey, Luci Shaw, Jeanne Murray Walker, Scot McKnight, Marilyn MacEntyre, Bret Lott, Paul Willis, and Gina Ochsner.
What to Expect
The Food
The workshop is all-inclusive! Our chefs provide fresh, abundant gourmet snacks and meals (many including fresh Alaska seafood and locally grown produce.) We can also accommodate dietary restrictions; please let us know in the application.
The Excursions
The first excursion is our adventure in getting there! We’ll take a flight from the town of Kodiak across the spectacular wilderness to Harvester Island. Once at Harvester, we’ll have daily activities including whale watching and boat rides across the bay. We’ll see sea lion and seal rookeries, as well as otters, puffins, bald eagles, and more. We also have beautiful beaches for beachcombing and hiking.
The Travel
Alaska, American, and Delta all fly into Anchorage.
From Anchorage, Alaska Airlines flies into Kodiak.
Leslie will meet you in Kodiak. From there we’ll take a floatplane across the spectacular wilderness of Kodiak Island to Harvester Island.
The Spirit
The wilderness can’t be scripted! The weather can be unpredictable and dramatic, preventing air or water travel at times. If your schedule is sacred, and missing a flight due to weather is devastating, this is not your workshop! An attitude of cheerful flexibility is the first necessary attribute to making the week spectacular, through sun, rain, and storm.
What’s Included?
-
Private Flight
Round trip, private flight from Kodiak Island to Harvester Island
-
Housing
New, clean, comfortable, heated rooms, many with mountain and ocean views.
-
All Meals
7 nights, 8 days of fresh, abundant gourmet meals prepared by professional chefs.
-
Workshop
All instruction, including a one-on-one session with Leslie or Gary.
-
Excurisions
Whale watching, boat rides, wildlife viewing, beachcombing, hiking, etc.
-
Scandinavian Steam Bath
Traditional, authentic sauna experience! Provided every other night.
Accommodation & Pricing
-
$5950
-
$4950
-
$7950
-
Please remember this is a wilderness island. We mostly use outhouses, but some rooms (the singles) have flushing toilets. Any room without access to a flushing toilet is equipped with a chemical toilet, to save night-time trips to the outhouse! Both outhouses are clean and new, offering the best outhouse experience you've ever had--- I promise!
-
For bathing, we use a sauna, a Scandinavian-style wood-fired steambath in a separate building. Saunas (which many describe as “heavenly”) are available every other night.
What Past Guests Are Saying…
A Closer Look
