Hollins University

One of the oldest women's colleges in the country sits on the banks of the creek that Annie Dillard made famous. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary, Hollins became a proving ground for American women writers at a time when the literary establishment largely ignored them. The graduate creative writing program, established in 1960, is consistently ranked among the nation's best—a quiet institutional fact that translated into Pulitzer Prizes, major novels, and screenplays that reshaped how Americans understood their own landscapes. Dillard's *Pilgrim at Tinker Creek*, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1974, was written about the actual Tinker Creek that borders the campus. The book turned a modest Roanoke Valley waterway into a national meditation on attention, wildness, and what it means to see the world closely. Novelist Lee Smith, poet Margaret Gibson, and screenwriter Kasi Lemmons are among the alumnae who learned their craft here, in a place where the institutional commitment to women's voices predated the culture's willingness to listen. The Hollins College Quadrangle is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The campus, at 7916 Williamson Road north of downtown Roanoke, is open to visitors. Walk the creek. It's still the same water Dillard watched.