The Cypress Writers’ Workshop is a creative writing program supporting writers who seek to master their craft and cultivate the unity between art and reverence.
We are working to preserve and advance the cultural tradition of writing, to offer models of excellence through literary art to people of all backgrounds, making widely available the wisdom and vision required of a responsible people.
Words We Stand By
We are not ashamed to stand by the conviction that life is a miracle, that we have been entrusted with precious things, and that do justice to the human condition requires humility, kindness, and responsibility.
Responsibility
We believe freedom cannot be severed, without damage, from responsibility. Therefore, we seek a chastened artistic freedom, reconciling reverence for God and the world with the discipline to write truthfully and well.
Kindness
We seek a living definition of kindness as good work, doing well that which needs to be done, in love of a place and a community. This is no paltry niceness, but a discipline of excellence in truth, in beauty, and in affection, with fidelity and imagination in the care of precious things.
Humility
We are committed to the indispensable wisdom of understanding ourselves in perspective of a knowledge greater than we can comprehend or control, that we are inexorably connected to one another, and that humility elevates the care of others above self-interest and liberates our vision for perennial discovery and reverence.
Our Vision
Now go into the world in peace.
Have courage.
Hold onto what is good.
Honor all men and women.
Strengthen the faint hearted.
Support the weak.
Help the suffering.
And share the Gospel.
Love and serve the Lord
in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all.
Our Work
We seek to expand the context of serious training in art beyond the university, returning creative writing to local initiative, apprenticeship, and one’s needful responsibilities and obligations. Our work, drawing from the aspirations set forth in the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, aims to support storytellers, essayists, and poets, as well as a broad general audience, with “a better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better view of the future.”
A Better Understanding of the Past
Cy.Press Studios: On Good Writing
“On Good Writing” is a podcast, hosted by Bret Lott. By sharing the words of those writers from the past who have mastered their craft, Bret Lott guides a broad audience in the long apprenticeship in writing truthfully of the human condition. “On Good Writing” is a Cy.PressStudios production.
A Better Analysis of the Present
Cy.press
Cy.press is a new online literary publication that aims to make widely available the wisdom and vision required of good work, demonstrating models of excellence through creative writing, to support a better analysis of the present for a wide general audience.
Cypress Conversations
Through public lectures and online forums, Cypress welcomes a long conversation on the meaning of living as fully as one can, of good work, of reverence, allowing distinguished writers and leaders to serve as our teachers and guides.
A Better View of the Future
Cypress Fellowship
This is our cornerstone program. The Cypress Fellowship is a creative writing program for emerging storytellers. Fellowships shall be awarded to writers who demonstrate a serious, thoughtful, and attentive vision for their craft with a talent that can be developed. Up to 3 fellows will be accepted into the program each year. A full cohort consists of 3 first year fellows and 3 second year fellows. As an art fellowship, program costs are underwritten.
Fellows are afforded the opportunity to spend two years refining their work in community under the guidance of skilled writers. Though similar to a low-residency Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, the program offers no degree.
• 2 years of work in community under the guidance of experienced writers
• 4 terms of writing, reading, and instruction
• 4 writing residencies
Bret Lott serves as the founding member of the writing faculty. He is a distinguished author and creative writing teacher. He taught creative writing at the College of Charleston, as well as other notable institutions, for many years and has published numerous works of fiction receiving national recognition. Bret Lott has served as the editor of The Southern Review as well as a member of the National Council on the Arts.
