Last week, on Sept. 19, the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference announced the names of the 2026 writing faculty on their social media. The keynote speaker for the 2026 conference will be poet and essayist, Jane Hirshfield.
Director Erin Hollowell said in an interview Monday, Sept. 22, that every year a new centering subject or principle is chosen. For 2026, she said writing will focus on and address “the landscape, the environment or the climate.”
With rotating keynote speaker disciplines landing on poetry for 2026, Hollowell said Hirshfield seemed like a great fit for the conference, as she’s been “a leading voice for science and poetry,” as a cofounder of Poets for Science.
Hollowell took over as director of the conference in 2019, but has been involved since 2011. She said she wishes more people in Homer realized what an incredible opportunity the conference presents, not only through the workshops available to participants, but also through the free, public readings that writers provide the community.
If the thought of a public reading seems daunting or too fancy, Hollowell challenged community members to think of it as attending an act of storytelling.
“These are people who are incredible storytellers,” she said. “I want our town to love it, to understand that we do it for them. We do it for everybody, not just the writers.”
The 2026 Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference will take place May 16-19.
Additional faculty members for 2026 include poets Elizabeth Bradfield, Donika Kelly, and J. Drew Lanham; fiction writers Jamie Ford, Julia Phillips, and Diane Wilson; and nonfiction writers Bathsheba Demuth, Chris La Tray, and Zoë Schlanger. Participating publishing professionals include editor Chip Blake and agent Ayesha Pande of Ayesha Pande Literary.
For more information, including full faculty bios, you can visit the conference website at writersconf.kpc.alaska.edu. Registration for the 2026 conference will open in January.
Books written by faculty members are available to purchase or order through the Homer Bookstore, located at 332 E Pioneer Ave or by calling 907-235-7496. They will also sell copies in person at the conference.
