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Lit Fest 2024
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Welcome to Lit Fest, eight days dedicated to you, our literary community.
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Nonfiction/Memoir [clear filter]
Friday, June 7
 

9:00am MDT

Culturally Expansive Approaches to Plot and Story Structure
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U.S. fiction and nonfiction writers have been trained to follow “universal” rules of story structure: The Aristotelian plot arc. Three-Act Structure. The Hero’s Journey. In recent years, diverse voices in prose writing and craft have called for expanding these norms. In this class for prose writers of all levels, we'll deconstruct both western and non-western story structures and storytelling conventions to better understand how our own work might draw from, and fit into, a literal world of stories. We’ll read stories and watch short films as examples, and experiment with both generative writing and restructuring. Bring an informal outline of a piece you’re working on (either short story, essay, or book), or I’ll provide you with sample outlines of other authors’ work to use for the exercises if you don’t have anything handy.
Speakers
avatar for Angie Chuang

Angie Chuang

Instructor
Angie Chuang is an associate professor of journalism at University of Colorado Boulder who writes and teaches a wide range of nonfiction forms. Her memoir, The Four Words for Home (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2014),won an Independents Publishers Award for Multicultural Nonfiction... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
315
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Narrative Strategy in Fiction and Memoir
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Possibly, the biggest decision you’ll make, usually right at the start of your project, is who the narrator will be. “It’s Fred's story,” you’ll say, and you’ll start telling Fred's story in either first or third person. Along the way, though, you might discover that it’s someone else’s story. In this class, we'll examine the narrative choices we make in fiction and memoir and discuss a range of different options. This class will be a mixture of lecture, discussion, and in-class writing.
Speakers
avatar for William Haywood Henderson

William Haywood Henderson

Instructor
William Haywood Henderson earned a BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley, an MA in creative writing from Brown University, and attended Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing. He is the author of three novels: Native, The Rest of... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
216
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Tapping Into Your Weirdness (V)
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George Saunders says, “Fiction at its best is not supposed to just be this flat, perfectly reflective mirror that presents a linear position of ‘life as it is.’ We should expect and enjoy some distortion in the baseline representation.” This craft seminar will be geared toward allowing that distortion—that weirdness—into your own writing. By close-reading examples of distorted realities, practicing written exercises, and sharing our results, we’ll address how and why “tapping into the weird” might be the best thing for your work at both the generative and revision stages. Come ready to get weird.
Speakers
avatar for Alexander Lumans

Alexander Lumans

Instructor
Alexander Lumans was awarded a 2018 NEA Creative Writing Grant in Fiction. He was also awarded a fellowship to the 2015 Arctic Circle Residency and was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

9:00am MDT

Fiction for Nonfiction Writers
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Learn from the instructor's mistakes! As a nonfiction writer writing for academic journals, blogs, and online magazines, the transition to fiction was far more challenging than he had expected. In this seminar, participants will explore some of the pitfalls specific to journalists, academics, and other nonfiction writers also striving to create fiction. Some topics include narration (aka, turning off that authoritative voice), show vs. tell (aka, it’s a story, not an essay), and interiority (aka, we don’t always say what we mean or mean what we say). We'll also complete a writing exercise if time allows.
Speakers
avatar for Andrew Hernandez

Andrew Hernandez

Instructor
Andrew Hernandez, PhD, is a writer and teacher. Born in the Chicagoland area, Hernandez’s work has taken him to Puerto Rico, New York, Mali, New Zealand, and now Colorado. A former Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism magazine, his narrative nonfiction has also appeared in... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
304
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

To Meander, Spiral, Explode
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This generative class will explore the narrative structures of meandering, spiraling, and exploding by paying homage to Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison (no need to read/have). We'll employ divinatory poetics for prompts to get us started and to keep going; specifically, the instructor will use the art of bibliomancy, turning to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig as the Muse (also no need to read/have). Come with an open mind! You might start something new or dive deeper into a work-in-progress. There’s no telling if you'll meander, spiral, or fracture, but you will come away with more knowledge about these structures.
Speakers
avatar for Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Instructor
Sarah Elizabeth Schantz is primarily a fiction writer living on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado in a Victorian-era farmhouse where her family is surrounded by open sky and century-old cottonwoods. She literally grew up in a bookstore with parents who worshipped all things literature... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
204
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

9:00am MDT

Hey, I Can Be Fun! Reapproaching the Nonfiction Book Proposal
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Does writing a nonfiction book proposal rub you as a daunting, dry, and restrictive task? What if crafting the proposal could be approached as the opposite—as an act of nuance, discovery, and creativity? In the instructor's experience, drafting a book proposal was an opportunity to step away from the frustrations of writing, play with structure, and infuse "pizzazz" (an actual component of the proposal) into an idea that might otherwise not have become a completed book. In this class, the instructor will share excerpts from her own proposal, and we’ll start working on the sections that can go into yours. Please come with a solid idea for a nonfiction book or memoir.
Speakers
avatar for Megan Nix

Megan Nix

Instructor
Megan Nix’s medical memoir, Remedies for Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother’s Pursuit of the Truth, was published by Doubleday in 2023. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, where it won the Editor’s Prize. She holds an MFA in Nonfiction from the University of Alaska... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
215
  Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Research As Writerly Practice: Nonfiction Writing from Inquiry and Fact (V)
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Are you working on a nonfiction project? The myth of artistic genius often suggests that inspiration is mainlined from the heavens and that one's imagination is the only creative source. And yet, it's often an inquiry into the world outside of ourselves that offers the most potent inspiration. How can research serve as a generative practice and a portal to the written word? This seminar will support nonfiction writers in incorporating rich factual inquiry into current or future nonfiction projects, rendering research into luminous prose, and creating a research roadmap moving forward.
Speakers
avatar for Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham

Instructor
Lauren Markham is a writer based in California whose work has appeared in outlets such as Guernica, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Freeman's, Lithub, Best American Travel Writing, The New Republic, Narrative, The New York Review of Books, and VQR, where she is a contributing... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Agents 101
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Have you ever wondered how an agent reads the slush pile? Are you querying to no avail? Or just curious about how it all works? Join four agents as they tell the candid story of what they do. They’ll share tips and strategies for successfully targeting and querying agents and give you insights into what not to do. Each agent will share one thing you absolutely must know; you’ll leave with an understanding of the inner workings of publishing and how you can best begin your publishing journey.
Speakers
avatar for Paige Terlip

Paige Terlip

Agent
Paige Terlip represents all categories of children’s books from picture books to young adult, as well as select adult fiction, including thrillers/psychological suspense, fantasy/sci-fi, horror, upmarket fiction, romance, and mysteries. Regardless of genre, she is seeking inclusive... Read More →
avatar for Mira Landry

Mira Landry

Agent
Mira Landry is an Associate Literary Agent with Corvisiero Literary Agency. She’s dedicated to building writing and literary communities through events and educational programming, and co-hosts a podcast analyzing recently published books using Literary Forensics called Writers... Read More →
RS

Rebecca Shaevitz

Agent
Rebecca Shaevitz is a literary agent at Verve Talent & Literary Agency, a full service Entertainment and Publishing agency with offices in New York and Los Angeles. On the nonfiction side, Rebecca specializes in narrative and platform-driven works, and on the fiction side she’s... Read More →
avatar for Renée Jarvis

Renée Jarvis

Agent
Renée Jarvis is an agent at Triangle House Literary. Born and raised in New York City, she graduated from Brooklyn College with a BFA in Creative Writing. She previously worked as an assistant and agent at MacKenzie Wolf Literary and spent two years as a writing teacher at the non-profit... Read More →
avatar for Shana Kelly

Shana Kelly

Instructor
Shana Kelly started her career as a literary agent at the William Morris Agency in New York and London, where she sold foreign and British rights for the agency for ten years. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   YA/Children's   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Agents 101 (Livestream)
Register
Have you ever wondered how an agent reads the slush pile? Are you querying to no avail? Or just curious about how it all works? Join four agents as they tell the candid story of what they do. They’ll share tips and strategies for successfully targeting and querying agents and give you insights into what not to do. Each agent will share one thing you absolutely must know; you’ll leave with an understanding of the inner workings of publishing and how you can best begin your publishing journey.
Speakers
avatar for Paige Terlip

Paige Terlip

Agent
Paige Terlip represents all categories of children’s books from picture books to young adult, as well as select adult fiction, including thrillers/psychological suspense, fantasy/sci-fi, horror, upmarket fiction, romance, and mysteries. Regardless of genre, she is seeking inclusive... Read More →
avatar for Mira Landry

Mira Landry

Agent
Mira Landry is an Associate Literary Agent with Corvisiero Literary Agency. She’s dedicated to building writing and literary communities through events and educational programming, and co-hosts a podcast analyzing recently published books using Literary Forensics called Writers... Read More →
RS

Rebecca Shaevitz

Agent
Rebecca Shaevitz is a literary agent at Verve Talent & Literary Agency, a full service Entertainment and Publishing agency with offices in New York and Los Angeles. On the nonfiction side, Rebecca specializes in narrative and platform-driven works, and on the fiction side she’s... Read More →
avatar for Renée Jarvis

Renée Jarvis

Agent
Renée Jarvis is an agent at Triangle House Literary. Born and raised in New York City, she graduated from Brooklyn College with a BFA in Creative Writing. She previously worked as an assistant and agent at MacKenzie Wolf Literary and spent two years as a writing teacher at the non-profit... Read More →
avatar for Shana Kelly

Shana Kelly

Instructor
Shana Kelly started her career as a literary agent at the William Morris Agency in New York and London, where she sold foreign and British rights for the agency for ten years. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   YA/Children's   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

The Exquisite is in the Details
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In this detail-oriented class, we'll examine three different types of detail crucial to the craft of creative writing—the concrete, the significant, and the specific—as well as how, when, and why to use them.
Speakers
avatar for Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Instructor
Sarah Elizabeth Schantz is primarily a fiction writer living on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado in a Victorian-era farmhouse where her family is surrounded by open sky and century-old cottonwoods. She literally grew up in a bookstore with parents who worshipped all things literature... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
304
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Stealing from Suspense
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What makes a story "unputdownable"? What keeps readers turning pages late into the night? We’ll examine the tools of the suspense writer and learn how we can use them to make our own stories more compelling, whether we’re working on a traditional mystery or a literary tour de force. We'll take inspiration from writers including Donna Tartt, Megan Giddings, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Shirley Jackson and others. Writers should come prepared to write.
Speakers
avatar for Tiffany Quay Tyson

Tiffany Quay Tyson

Instructor
Tiffany Quay Tyson is the author of two novels, The Past is Never and Three Rivers. The Past is Never is the recipient of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the 2019... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
304
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

Hopeful Monsters
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In evolutionary biology, a “hopeful monster” is an aberrant organism flawed by the usual norms of its species but with the potential to be unexpectedly well-adapted to the world into which it is born. This term can help us to challenge received notions about what "good writing" should do and turn the workshop into a laboratory where we explore, reconsider, and give functional meaning to newness. Through the reading of texts by Amos Tutuola, Philip K. Dick, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, we'll explore notions of malformation and mutation and interrogate the relationship between "structure" and "form." This talk will urge you to build completed pieces from your abandoned or unwanted works and spend time revisiting "monsters" and mistakes.
Speakers
avatar for Alexandra Kleeman

Alexandra Kleeman

Visiting Author
Alexandra Kleeman is the author of the novel Something New Under the Sun, Intimations, a short story collection, and the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, which was awarded the 2016 Bard Fiction Prize and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2020, she was awarded the... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Hopeful Monsters (Livestream)
Register
In evolutionary biology, a “hopeful monster” is an aberrant organism flawed by the usual norms of its species but with the potential to be unexpectedly well-adapted to the world into which it is born. This term can help us to challenge received notions about what "good writing" should do and turn the workshop into a laboratory where we explore, reconsider, and give functional meaning to newness. Through the reading of texts by Amos Tutuola, Philip K. Dick, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, we'll explore notions of malformation and mutation and interrogate the relationship between "structure" and "form." This talk will urge you to build completed pieces from your abandoned or unwanted works and spend time revisiting "monsters" and mistakes.
Speakers
avatar for Alexandra Kleeman

Alexandra Kleeman

Visiting Author
Alexandra Kleeman is the author of the novel Something New Under the Sun, Intimations, a short story collection, and the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, which was awarded the 2016 Bard Fiction Prize and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2020, she was awarded the... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Mining Memories (V)
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Flannery O'Connor once said that anyone who lives to age 18 has enough stories to last them an entire lifetime. But how do we access all those memories for use in our writing, and how do we turn them from memory into art? This class explores techniques for retrieving old memories and employing them in our writing projects, both prose and verse.
Speakers
avatar for Alyse Knorr

Alyse Knorr

Instructor
Alyse Knorr is an assistant professor of English at Regis University and, since 2017, co-editor of Switchback Books. Her most recent book of poems, Mega-City Redux, won the 2016 Green Mountains Review Poetry Prize, selected by Olena Kalytiak Davis. She is also the author of the poetry... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Inside Out: Turning Life into Compelling Nonfiction
Register
In this generative seminar, we’ll explore different techniques that help us write about our past in a way that’s accessible or even entertaining to our readers. Where do we begin and how do we approach such a task? We’ll consider excerpts from works by great essayists and memoirists from the past fifty years, and try our hand at writing scenes and passages inspired by what we’ve learned.
Speakers
avatar for Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley

Visiting Author
SLOANE CROSLEY is the author of The New York Times bestselling books Grief Is for People, How Did You Get This Number, and I Was Told There’d Be Cake (a 2009 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor). She is also the author of Look Alive Out There (a 2019 finali... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
316
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

The Art of Speculation
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There are gaps in facts and reality, be it our private memories or the historical record. Speculation helps us interrogate these gaps and bring to light stories that have been hidden or suppressed. In this class, we'll discuss some examples, techniques, and ethical considerations around speculation in writing nonfiction, and consider how we access truth in the face of erasure. There will be plenty of time for discussion as well as playing with strategies to access your unspoken truths.
Speakers
avatar for Teow Lim Goh

Teow Lim Goh

Instructor
Teow Lim Goh is the author of two poetry collections, Islanders (2016) and Faraway Places (2021), and an essay collection Western Journeys (2022). Her essays, poetry, and criticism have been featured in The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, PBS NewsHour... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
315
  Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

6:15pm MDT

Advanced Weekend Workshop Orientation
Register
Writers taking workshops with Alexandra Kleeman, Vanessa Hua, Jane Hirshfield, and Sloan Crosley, join us on Friday evening for quick introductions to your instructor and fellow classmates and a tour of the Lit Fest campus. Stay for the New Fiction Showcase: Our Yesterdays, Today!

Friday June 7, 2024 6:15pm - 6:45pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry
 
Saturday, June 8
 

8:30am MDT

Advanced Weekend Nonfiction Intensive with Sloane Crosley
Register
In writing personal narratives, how do we approach subjects about which we have mixed feelings—which is to say, how do we write about the majority of our past? How, especially, do we write about life’s sudden ruptures in a unifying and unique way, in a way that gestures toward the universal in addition to the individual? In a sense, this question applies to all personal writing, since it involves dramatizing a self that is often still shifting. But it can feel especially daunting to tackle material that haunts or even just irks us, and to create a story that readers actually want to immerse themselves in. Where do we begin? How do we gain purchase in our own story? In this generative workshop we’ll read essays and excerpts from memoirs that attempt to get at truths using the techniques of storytelling, humor, tone, and fiction-like pacing. We’ll consider excerpts from works by great authors of the past fifty years, including Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, Joan Didion and David Rakoff.
Speakers
avatar for Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley

Visiting Author
SLOANE CROSLEY is the author of The New York Times bestselling books Grief Is for People, How Did You Get This Number, and I Was Told There’d Be Cake (a 2009 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor). She is also the author of Look Alive Out There (a 2019 finali... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 8:30am - 12:00pm MDT
215
  Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Clocking In: How to Write about Jobs (V)
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Mortician. Rodeo Clown. Stormchaser. We've all had unique jobs that dramatically affected the framework through which we experience the world. This holds doubly true for characters' perspectives. What are the differences in how a professional tarot reader examines an oak tree versus a microbiologist intern? In this seminar, we'll read and discuss examples of writers who write jobs that influence character development, voice, and language. And we’ll write about our characters’ jobs too. You'll soon discover how much your characters' jobs matter to the heart of their stories.
Speakers
avatar for Alexander Lumans

Alexander Lumans

Instructor
Alexander Lumans was awarded a 2018 NEA Creative Writing Grant in Fiction. He was also awarded a fellowship to the 2015 Arctic Circle Residency and was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Building a Memoir
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How can we build memoirs that accommodate the messiness of life—the uncertainty, guesses, and missed chances—in composed and legible shapes? How can we guide readers down trails where we ourselves still get lost? We'll study excerpts from contemporary memoirs with astonishing shapes and patterns and share lots of exercises to experiment with new narrative strategies. Together, we’ll find new forms for the stories of our lives.
Speakers
avatar for John Cotter

John Cotter

Instructor
John Cotter is the author of a memoir, Losing Music, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions, and Under the Small Lights, winner of the Miami University Press novella contest. His essays, theater pieces, and fiction have appeared, or will appear soon, in New England Review, Raritan, Georgia... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 9:00am - Sunday June 9, 2024 12:00pm MDT
204
  Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Funny Personal Essays (V)
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Why do you laugh when you read? Because you relate? Because you’re surprised? Because life is an absurd farce? In this two-day intensive, we’ll discuss the many ways to make a reader laugh and how to turn an anecdote into an essay that’s funny and publishable. On day one we’ll gossip about the funny personal essays we read before class and what we can steal from them, and we’ll brainstorm essay topics and angles. We’ll also cover how to make a funny personal essay transcend the personal and how to isolate “the unusual thing” in our situations to carve out our stories. Day two you’ll bring in a crappy first draft that we’ll punch up with in-class writing assignments and nonreligious prayer.
Speakers
avatar for Elissa Bassist

Elissa Bassist

Instructor
Elissa Bassist is the editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and author of the tragicomic memoir Hysterical, a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism since the website... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 9:00am - Sunday June 9, 2024 12:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Debuts
Register
Hear several debut authors with recent first book publications talk about their journeys from page one to page done. What’s it like to finish and publish a debut work in the contemporary literary landscape? What do published authors wish they knew when starting out? What mysteries still remain going forward? Discussion will also take on recent trends in publishing, what makes a stand-out debut, and what writers can learn from debuts that have blown up.
Speakers
avatar for Elizabeth DeMeo

Elizabeth DeMeo

Agent
Elizabeth DeMeo is an Editor at Tin House, where she acquires and edits books of fiction and literary nonfiction. Books she's edited have won the Pacific Northwest Book Award and CALIBA Golden Poppy Award; been short- or longlisted for the LA Times Book Prize, Carol Shields Prize... Read More →
avatar for Joel H. Morris

Joel H. Morris

Panelist
Joel H. Morris is the author of All Our Yesterdays, his debut novel. He has worked most recently as an English teacher and, for the past twenty years, has taught language and literature. He is the recipient of a year-long Fulbright Research Scholarship for archival research in Germany... Read More →
avatar for Gina DeMillo Wagner

Gina DeMillo Wagner

Instructor
Gina DeMillo Wagner is the author of Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss, and Finding Home. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, Modern Loss, Self, Outside, CRAFT Literary, and other publications. She is a Yaddo fellow... Read More →
avatar for Minda Honey

Minda Honey

Instructor
Minda Honey’s (she/her) essays on politics and relationships have appeared in Harper’s Baazar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.Her work is featured in “Burn It Down: Women Writing About Ange... Read More →
avatar for Christine Lai

Christine Lai

Instructor
Christine is a novelist and essayist based in Vancouver, Canada. She holds a PhD in English literature from University College London in the U.K. Her debut novel, Landscapes, was published by Two Dollar Radio in September 2023, and was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Debuts (Livestream)
Register
Hear several debut authors with recent first book publications talk about their journeys from page one to page done. What’s it like to finish and publish a debut work in the contemporary literary landscape? What do published authors wish they knew when starting out? What mysteries still remain going forward? Discussion will also take on recent trends in publishing, what makes a stand-out debut, and what writers can learn from debuts that have blown up.
Speakers
avatar for Elizabeth DeMeo

Elizabeth DeMeo

Agent
Elizabeth DeMeo is an Editor at Tin House, where she acquires and edits books of fiction and literary nonfiction. Books she's edited have won the Pacific Northwest Book Award and CALIBA Golden Poppy Award; been short- or longlisted for the LA Times Book Prize, Carol Shields Prize... Read More →
avatar for Joel H. Morris

Joel H. Morris

Panelist
Joel H. Morris is the author of All Our Yesterdays, his debut novel. He has worked most recently as an English teacher and, for the past twenty years, has taught language and literature. He is the recipient of a year-long Fulbright Research Scholarship for archival research in Germany... Read More →
avatar for Gina DeMillo Wagner

Gina DeMillo Wagner

Instructor
Gina DeMillo Wagner is the author of Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss, and Finding Home. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, Modern Loss, Self, Outside, CRAFT Literary, and other publications. She is a Yaddo fellow... Read More →
avatar for Minda Honey

Minda Honey

Instructor
Minda Honey’s (she/her) essays on politics and relationships have appeared in Harper’s Baazar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.Her work is featured in “Burn It Down: Women Writing About Ange... Read More →
avatar for Christine Lai

Christine Lai

Instructor
Christine is a novelist and essayist based in Vancouver, Canada. She holds a PhD in English literature from University College London in the U.K. Her debut novel, Landscapes, was published by Two Dollar Radio in September 2023, and was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

1:00pm MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Modulation—Your Voice and How to Use It (V)
Register
Your literary voice is like a fingerprint, individual to you alone—it has grown from what you’ve lived, what you’ve read, how you understand the world, and how you hope to shape the world on the page. In this intensive, we’ll steal from excellent examples, add layers and new tricks to your voice, and learn how to modulate your voice for pacing, mood, variety, and complexity. You’ll leave with an understanding of how your voice sets you apart and how you can use aspects of your voice for different effects on the page.
Speakers
avatar for William Haywood Henderson

William Haywood Henderson

Instructor
William Haywood Henderson earned a BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley, an MA in creative writing from Brown University, and attended Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing. He is the author of three novels: Native, The Rest of... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 1:00pm - Sunday June 9, 2024 4:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

1:00pm MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Two-Day Story/Essay
Register
Ready, set, write! In this generative intensive, we’ll write a short story or essay over two days. Using targeted exercises and a few insider tricks, we’ll work on particular elements of short stories/essays (both traditional or nontraditional) to form new characters, settings, story arcs, dialogue, action, interiority, and more! Come with a basic story idea and leave with a complete(ish) story to continue perfecting on your own. Open to all short prose genres.
Speakers
avatar for Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse

Instructor
Erika Krouse has taught at Lighthouse since 2008; she is a Book Project mentor and a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award. Erika's recent memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, won the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the 2023 Colorado Book Award... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 1:00pm - Sunday June 9, 2024 4:00pm MDT
304
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   YA/Children's

1:00pm MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Entryway into Speculative Nonfiction
Register
Metaphor, speculation, and imaginative play can enliven your writing, help you examine your values, fascinations, imaginings, and capture the slippery quality of the individual writer’s passage through time and the sometimes surreal quality of existence. Over two days, we’ll focus on beginnings and endings within the speculative nonfiction form. The intensive will explore the elastic quality of the nonfiction form through the speculative, with goals of mapping the territories of inner worlds and the possibilities of the world we share.
Speakers
avatar for Anna Qu

Anna Qu

Instructor
Anna Qu is a Chinese American writer. Her critically acclaimed debut memoir, Made In China: A Memoir of Love and Labor, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick. Her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Lumina, Kartika, Kweli, and Vol.1 Brooklyn, among others. She was... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 1:00pm - Sunday June 9, 2024 4:00pm MDT
204
  Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

Sharpening Your Sentences
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In this two-hour seminar we'll talk about ways to structure our sentences for maximum impact, how to trim adjectives without losing your meaning, how to make verbs do the work, and the ways punctuation can push a point home. There's music in good prose writing, as we know, and that music is what this class is all about.
Speakers
avatar for John Cotter

John Cotter

Instructor
John Cotter is the author of a memoir, Losing Music, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions, and Under the Small Lights, winner of the Miami University Press novella contest. His essays, theater pieces, and fiction have appeared, or will appear soon, in New England Review, Raritan, Georgia... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

4:00pm MDT

Hysterical: A Voice Finding Seminar
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Q: When is writing bad? A: When anyone could have written it.
Q: Has anyone ever called you “too much”? Have you ever been accused of being “dramatic”? A: Good. We’ll use that.
Having a “voice” and a writing “style” is like having a fingerprint. Readers should hear your voice in their heads. A speaker (or narrator or character) can’t be “just anyone,” and in writing, "too much" is exactly enough. In this once-in-a-lifetime seminar, we’ll cover every element of style and how you can use each one to sound like you on the page. We’ll also cover concrete ways to find your voice if you’ve lost it (we’ve all lost it at some point). We’ll read voicey examples and gossip about what to steal from them. And then we’ll brainstorm and do writing exercises to make your voice so distinctive that any reader could pick it out of a police lineup.
Speakers
avatar for Elissa Bassist

Elissa Bassist

Instructor
Elissa Bassist is the editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and author of the tragicomic memoir Hysterical, a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism since the website... Read More →

Saturday June 8, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
216
  Nonfiction/Memoir

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Jane Hirshfield, Vanessa Hua, Alexandra Kleeman, and Sloane Crosley
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookshop operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward. (Sloane Crosley replaced Meghan O'Rourke as of March 2024 due to a last-minute scheduling conflict.)
Saturday June 8, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Jane Hirshfield, Vanessa Hua, Alexandra Kleeman, and Sloane Crosley (L)
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookshop operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward. (Sloane Crosley replaced Meghan O'Rourke as of March 2024 due to a last-minute scheduling conflict.)
Saturday June 8, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry
 
Sunday, June 9
 

9:00am MDT

Homing in: Uncovering the Arc your Memoir (V)
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In this experiential class, we'll work to define arc and then narrow in on the scope of your memoir by evoking memory and key scenes. Plan to write a lot.
Speakers
avatar for Karen Auvinen

Karen Auvinen

Instructor
Karen Auvinen (she/her/hers) is poet, mountain woman, life-long westerner, writer, and the author of the memoir Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living, a finalist for the 2019 Colorado Book Award. Her body of work traverses the intersection of landscape and place, examining... Read More →

Sunday June 9, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Contests, Residencies, and More—Ways to Get Out There
Register
Book contests with publication as a prize are a major way that all kinds of books make it into print, especially story collections, poetry, unconventional memoirs, and hybrid books. Artist residencies can increase your writer profile and lead to new opportunities. From reading series to juried workshops, there are more ways than ever to get your writing in front of those who can help make a career. Hear from authors with diverse experience in the literary world on how achieving a writing career isn’t a straight line but a journey with lots of day trips, rest stops, and double-booking.
Speakers
avatar for Angie Chuang

Angie Chuang

Instructor
Angie Chuang is an associate professor of journalism at University of Colorado Boulder who writes and teaches a wide range of nonfiction forms. Her memoir, The Four Words for Home (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2014),won an Independents Publishers Award for Multicultural Nonfiction... Read More →
avatar for Jenny Shank

Jenny Shank

Instructor
Jenny Shank's short story collection, Mixed Company, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award (General Fiction). Jenny Shank's novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent... Read More →
avatar for Radha Marcum

Radha Marcum

Instructor
Radha Marcum, MFA, won the 2023 Washington Prize for her forthcoming collection, Pine Soot Tendon Bone (2024). She was also awarded the New Mexico Book Award in 2018 for her first collection of poems, Bloodline (3: A Taos Press), about her grandfather's work building the first atomic... Read More →
avatar for Jenee Skinner

Jenee Skinner

Instructor
Jeneé Skinner is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She also went abroad to the University of Oxford to study Renaissance Literature and the Italian Renaissance. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Catapult, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, Missouri Review, and elsewhere... Read More →

Sunday June 9, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Contests, Residencies, and More—Ways to Get Out There (Livestream)
Register
Book contests with publication as a prize are a major way that all kinds of books make it into print, especially story collections, poetry, unconventional memoirs, and hybrid books. Artist residencies can increase your writer profile and lead to new opportunities. From reading series to juried workshops, there are more ways than ever to get your writing in front of those who can help make a career. Hear from authors with diverse experience in the literary world on how achieving a writing career isn’t a straight line but a journey with lots of day trips, rest stops, and double-booking.
Speakers
avatar for Angie Chuang

Angie Chuang

Instructor
Angie Chuang is an associate professor of journalism at University of Colorado Boulder who writes and teaches a wide range of nonfiction forms. Her memoir, The Four Words for Home (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2014),won an Independents Publishers Award for Multicultural Nonfiction... Read More →
avatar for Jenny Shank

Jenny Shank

Instructor
Jenny Shank's short story collection, Mixed Company, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award (General Fiction). Jenny Shank's novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent... Read More →
avatar for Radha Marcum

Radha Marcum

Instructor
Radha Marcum, MFA, won the 2023 Washington Prize for her forthcoming collection, Pine Soot Tendon Bone (2024). She was also awarded the New Mexico Book Award in 2018 for her first collection of poems, Bloodline (3: A Taos Press), about her grandfather's work building the first atomic... Read More →
avatar for Jenee Skinner

Jenee Skinner

Instructor
Jeneé Skinner is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She also went abroad to the University of Oxford to study Renaissance Literature and the Italian Renaissance. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Catapult, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, Missouri Review, and elsewhere... Read More →

Sunday June 9, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

Milieu: The World of Your Story
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Too often, early drafts read as if they are set in a generic nowhere-land with little-to-no history, few concrete details, and a fuzzy sense of the social system within which characters operate. In this seminar, we’ll consider the question of milieu—the physical, social, and historical world of stories. We’ll identify different elements that create a story’s milieu, discuss how milieu might affect characters’ perceptions and actions, and then play around with writing exercises that help you uncover and capitalize on the unique world of your own stories. Bring a project you’d like to work on.
Speakers
avatar for Dino Enrique Piacentini

Dino Enrique Piacentini

Instructor
Dino Enrique Piacentini grew up in Los Angeles, lived in San Francisco for twenty years, and has also, at various times, set down stakes in Houston, Oaxaca, Champaign, and Prague. His writing has been published in Gulf Coast, Confrontation, Pembroke, The Globe & Mail, The Atticus... Read More →

Sunday June 9, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

Birth of Style
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We all know (sort of) what makes a good sentence, but where and when did that consensus emerge, and how has it changed? How is our idea of what makes “good writing” historically determined? How can we trace the history of the English language in every line we write today, and how would it improve our style if we did? In this class, we’ll tour the last 300 years of English prose writing—from lush romanticism to postwar minimalism to the witty urbanities of the fin de siècle—and we’ll emerge with a new sense of how time works on words (and how time is working on us).
Speakers
avatar for John Cotter

John Cotter

Instructor
John Cotter is the author of a memoir, Losing Music, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions, and Under the Small Lights, winner of the Miami University Press novella contest. His essays, theater pieces, and fiction have appeared, or will appear soon, in New England Review, Raritan, Georgia... Read More →

Sunday June 9, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
216
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

The Laundry Line (V)
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In his writing workshops, author Michael Pollan talks about every piece of nonfiction needing a "laundry line": a main conceptual throughline that is strong yet flexible enough to hold the various vignettes and analyses that make up the piece. This craft seminar will provide an opportunity for writers to develop a sturdy laundry line for a current project. We’ll brainstorm pivotal moments in each piece’s structure and then craft our own laundry lines, all while discussing the difference between narrative and chronology, identifying thematic and emotional “turns” in a piece, braiding personal reflection with reportage and analysis, and much more.
Speakers
avatar for Natalie Hodges

Natalie Hodges

Instructor
Born and raised in Denver, Natalie Hodges has performed as a classical violinist throughout Colorado and in New York, Boston, Paris, and the Italian Piedmont, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival and the Stowe Tango Music Festival. Her first book, Uncommon Measure: A Journey Through... Read More →

Sunday June 9, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

5:00pm MDT

Advanced Weeklong Workshop Orientation
Register
Writers taking workshops with Steve Almond, Emily Rapp Black, Mark Doty, Danielle Evans, Amitava Kumar, T Kira Māhealani Madden, Claire Messud, Beth Nguyen, Jenny Offill, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin, join us on Sunday afternoon for quick introductions to your instructor and fellow classmates and a tour of the Lit Fest campus. Stay for the Lit Fest Kickoff Party!
Sunday June 9, 2024 5:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry
 
Monday, June 10
 

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: The BS Detector with Steve Almond
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Writing is decision making, nothing more and nothing less. What word? Where to place the comma? How to shape the paragraph? Join Steve Almond for a workshop focused on improving the decisions you make in your writing. By looking critically and carefully at other people’s work, you’ll walk away with a better sense of how to improve your own. The idea is not to slow your rate of composition via compulsive revision, but to instead make better decisions in the first place and to recognize quickly when you haven’t. Accepted participants will submit short pieces of up to 15 pages by May 13, and will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with Steve during the week of class.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Visiting Author
Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football, and the forthcoming Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, a book on the writer's craft. After many failed efforts, his debut novel, All the... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 9:00am - Friday June 14, 2024 11:30am MDT
TBA
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Prose Workshop: How to Be Authentic with Amitava Kumar
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Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, the writer is always striving for authenticity, a sense of the real on the page. (William Maxwell: "After forty years, what I came to care about most was not style, but the breath of life.") This workshop will look at brief examples of fiction (Arundhati Roy, Sheila Heti, Zadie Smith, Claire Messud, Denis Johnson, Lydia Davis), memoir (Maggie Nelson, Annie Ernaux, Joy Williams), travel writing (Ryszard Kapuscinski, Ian Jack), journalism (Janet Malcolm, Svetlana Alexievich), mixed-genre writing (John Berger, Claudia Rankine, Carolyn Forche) to learn how to create in our writing a certain effect of solidity or at other times dazzling impermanence or instability and even doubt. There is no one way to be authentic, there is no single, fixed notion of authenticity: instead, the richness of literature, regardless of genre, is the ability to use language to portray the richness of life itself. Each workshop meeting will be devoted to 10-minute writing exercises, an hour of discussion about the readings for the day (10-15 pages), and the rest of the time to a close reading of any one workshop-participant's work. Open to nonfiction and fiction writers, accepted participants will submit up to 15 pages by May 13, and will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with Amitava during the week of class.
Speakers
avatar for Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar

Visiting Author
Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist who has published several works of nonfiction and three novels. His most recent title, The Blue Book: A Writer's Journal, is a collection of drawings and journal entries. Kumar's writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Harper’s... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 9:00am - Friday June 14, 2024 11:30am MDT
TBA
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Nonfiction Workshop: Mapping the Memoir with Emily Rapp Black
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Art is architecture; art is artificial; art is...? The biggest challenge for any writer of narrative is finding the map from beginning to end. This workshop is designed for writers working on a book-length memoir and wish to delve more deeply into issues of structure, style, and voice: these three craft points will be our focus, as these make up the net that holds a narrative together in a propulsive, engaging, immersive, and beautiful way. The goal of this workshop is to take your completed manuscript to the next level. We'll also discuss different avenues of publication. Accepted participants will submit up to 15 pages by May 13, and will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with Emily during the week of class.
Speakers
avatar for Emily Rapp Black

Emily Rapp Black

Visiting Author
Emily Rapp Black is the author of four books of nonfiction: Poster Child; The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor's Choice, and a finalist for the PEN USA award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor's Choice; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 9:00am - Friday June 14, 2024 11:30am MDT
TBA
  Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Nonfiction Workshop: Nonfiction Think Tank with Beth Nguyen
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This nontraditional workshop serves as a kind of supportive think tank for writers of memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collections, or any other form of nonfiction. We’ll explore everything from the writing process to key elements like structure, character, and perspective, and then delve into ethical concerns (how do we write about other people? What should we or shouldn’t we write?). Our mission will be to clarify our stories and emerge with a greater sense of focus, forward progress, and inspiration as we get back to them. Writing nonfiction creates its own particular concerns and tensions, and this workshop’s mission is to address those together so that we can also reap nonfiction’s many rewards. Accepted participants will submit up to 15 pages by May 13 and will have the opportunity to meet with Beth one-on-one during the week of class. During workshop, emphasis will be placed on verbal feedback and group discussion, and written feedback among participants will be optional.
Speakers
avatar for Beth Nguyen

Beth Nguyen

Visiting Author
Beth Nguyen also goes by Bich Minh Nguyen. Her essay in The New Yorker explains why she has two names. Please call her Beth. She is the author of four books, most recently the memoir Owner of a Lonely Heart, published by Scribner in 2023. Owner of a Lonely Heart was a New York Times... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 9:00am - Friday June 14, 2024 11:30am MDT
TBA
  Nonfiction/Memoir

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Nonfiction Workshop: The Self, The Selves, with T Kira Māhealani Madden
Register
Our lived experiences, and our memories, are rarely understood through a tidy, "traditional" chronology. They seldom mirror a Western "hero’s journey;" and they shouldn’t have to. In this generative workshop, we'll investigate speculative structures, parallel realities, hypothetical What If’s? and honor every Self as Narrator in order to come closer to the story. We'll focus on compression, syntax, and identifying narrative heat and emotional potency in our memories, our selves, and all the selves we’ve been, discussing strategies one uses to render characters inspired by real people, and the compromises and thrills that come with that responsibility. Writers should be prepared to experiment, play, share, and offer first impression oral feedback. Writers will leave with new work every day. Accepted participants have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with T Kira during the week of class.
Speakers
avatar for T Kira Māhealani Madden

T Kira Māhealani Madden

Visiting Author
T Kira Māhealani Madden is a hapa-Kanaka Maoli writer, photographer, and amateur magician. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Tin House, DISQUIET, NYSCA/NYFA, and Yaddo. Her debut memoir... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 9:00am - Friday June 14, 2024 11:30am MDT
TBA
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Selling Your Book—The Query Letter, Elevator Pitch, and More
Register
How do we turn the labors of our hearts into something that can be bought and sold? What happens when the book you've written isn't quite the book you can sell? How do you manage suggestions—in both fiction and nonfiction—that fly in the face of your original draft? Join publishing professionals and writers as they discuss the tools you need for submission (query, proposal, pitch), how to be successful in a competitive marketplace, and tips and tricks to cut down on rejections and make your work stand out.
Speakers
avatar for Marin Takikawa

Marin Takikawa

Agent
Marin Takikawa is an associate agent and the audio rights coordinator at The Friedrich Agency. Born in Tokyo and raised in Singapore and NYC, she joined TFA in early 2021 after getting her start as an assistant to three agents at Foundry Literary + Media, following internships at... Read More →
avatar for Abby Walters

Abby Walters

Agent
Abby Walters is a Literary Agent at leading publishing and entertainment agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Walters is based in the New York office and creates publishing opportunities across all agency departments. Some of her clients include Thao Thai, Honor Levy, Zoë Eisenberg... Read More →
avatar for Elissa Bassist

Elissa Bassist

Instructor
Elissa Bassist is the editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and author of the tragicomic memoir Hysterical, a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism since the website... Read More →
avatar for Anna Qu

Anna Qu

Instructor
Anna Qu is a Chinese American writer. Her critically acclaimed debut memoir, Made In China: A Memoir of Love and Labor, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick. Her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Lumina, Kartika, Kweli, and Vol.1 Brooklyn, among others. She was... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Gerard

Sarah Gerard

Instructor
Sarah Gerard is the author, most recently, of the novel True Love. Her essay collection Sunshine State was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her novel Binary... Read More →
avatar for Jan Thomas

Jan Thomas

Instructor
J.E. Thomas spent her early summers stuffing grocery bags with books at the local library, reading feverishly, then repeating the process week after week. So it's not surprising that she thinks books + imagination are the best streaming service around.  J.E. is an award-winning... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Selling Your Book—The Query Letter, Elevator Pitch, and More (Livestream)
Register
How do we turn the labors of our hearts into something that can be bought and sold? What happens when the book you've written isn't quite the book you can sell? How do you manage suggestions—in both fiction and nonfiction—that fly in the face of your original draft? Join publishing professionals and writers as they discuss the tools you need for submission (query, proposal, pitch), how to be successful in a competitive marketplace, and tips and tricks to cut down on rejections and make your work stand out.
Speakers
avatar for Marin Takikawa

Marin Takikawa

Agent
Marin Takikawa is an associate agent and the audio rights coordinator at The Friedrich Agency. Born in Tokyo and raised in Singapore and NYC, she joined TFA in early 2021 after getting her start as an assistant to three agents at Foundry Literary + Media, following internships at... Read More →
avatar for Abby Walters

Abby Walters

Agent
Abby Walters is a Literary Agent at leading publishing and entertainment agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Walters is based in the New York office and creates publishing opportunities across all agency departments. Some of her clients include Thao Thai, Honor Levy, Zoë Eisenberg... Read More →
avatar for Elissa Bassist

Elissa Bassist

Instructor
Elissa Bassist is the editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus and author of the tragicomic memoir Hysterical, a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism since the website... Read More →
avatar for Anna Qu

Anna Qu

Instructor
Anna Qu is a Chinese American writer. Her critically acclaimed debut memoir, Made In China: A Memoir of Love and Labor, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick. Her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Lumina, Kartika, Kweli, and Vol.1 Brooklyn, among others. She was... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Gerard

Sarah Gerard

Instructor
Sarah Gerard is the author, most recently, of the novel True Love. Her essay collection Sunshine State was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her novel Binary... Read More →
avatar for Jan Thomas

Jan Thomas

Instructor
J.E. Thomas spent her early summers stuffing grocery bags with books at the local library, reading feverishly, then repeating the process week after week. So it's not surprising that she thinks books + imagination are the best streaming service around.  J.E. is an award-winning... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

Funny Is the New Deep: How to Harness Your Comic Impulse
Register
Contrary to popular belief, writing funny doesn’t mean sacrificing depth. In fact, for most literary writers, the comic impulse is inextricably linked to tragedy. It’s not a conscious effort to entertain the reader so much as an unconscious effort to face some tragic moment or realization. In this informal class, suitable for all genres, we’ll look at the work of Samantha Irby, Cathy Park Hong, Lorrie Moore, and others in an effort to learn how your sense of humor can become an instrument of truth and empower work. Yes, you are allowed to make people laugh—and break their hearts at the same time.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Visiting Author
Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football, and the forthcoming Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, a book on the writer's craft. After many failed efforts, his debut novel, All the... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
316
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

Bad to the Bone: Writing Villains and Nefarious Characters
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Ahab, Nurse Ratched, Kurtz, Professor Moriarty, Cruella DeVil, Voldemort, Satan...No matter the genre, a great villain is a key ingredient to a badass story. But what if you don’t know who your villain is, or if it’s even a person at all? This class will outline types of villains and tips for creating the best (yet worst) ones. We’ll explore adversarial “worth,” antagonist agency and power, alternative value systems and character motivations, and villainous codes, quests, and wounds. Prepare to get bad so your story can get good. Open to all prose writers.
Speakers
avatar for Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse

Instructor
Erika Krouse has taught at Lighthouse since 2008; she is a Book Project mentor and a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award. Erika's recent memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, won the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the 2023 Colorado Book Award... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
216
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing   YA/Children's

1:30pm MDT

Subverting Expectations
Register
The stories that linger in our minds long after reading tend to subvert the reader's expectations. We know the golden rule: the reader likes to know more than the main characters, but you also don't want to bore the reader. We'll examine successful passages where the writer seemed to be taking the story one way and then had the characters surprise themselves and the reader in a way that feels startling but authentic and so right that it could not have gone another way. We'll also do writing exercises to see how we can apply these techniques in our writing to push our characters and ourselves to surprising outcomes.
Speakers
avatar for Jenny Shank

Jenny Shank

Instructor
Jenny Shank's short story collection, Mixed Company, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award (General Fiction). Jenny Shank's novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
204
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Dramatic Writing

1:30pm MDT

Symbolism and Metaphor: They Aren't Just for Fiction (V)
Register
So, do you think symbolism and metaphor are devices only fiction writers use? Everything humans do is symbolic. We create symbols, we use them, we misuse them. In this class, we’ll first take a deep dive into the symbolic and the metaphorical in our everyday lives. We’ll analyze several examples of literary nonfiction that use the same devices fiction writers employ. We’ll talk about ways nonfiction writers can both deepen and complicate their own narratives and, in the process, understand why and how they can be beneficial.
Speakers
avatar for Angelique Stevens

Angelique Stevens

Instructor
Angelique Stevens lives in Upstate New York where she teaches creative writing, literature of genocide, and race literatures. Her nonfiction has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, LitHub, The New England Review, and a number of anthologies. Her essay “Ghost Bread,” which... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

Time Travel: Writing Flashback and Backstory
Register
Every character has a past, and often a troubled one. But how (and where, and when) do you bring that past to the page without slowing the story down? Through lecture, discussion, examples, and exercises, we’ll study techniques for using backstory and flashback and create a question-driven past narrative that actually drives your story forward. Open to all genres
Speakers
avatar for Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse

Instructor
Erika Krouse has taught at Lighthouse since 2008; she is a Book Project mentor and a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award. Erika's recent memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, won the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the 2023 Colorado Book Award... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
304
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing   YA/Children's

4:00pm MDT

Fault Lines
Register
Too often, we put trouble and tension on top of our story instead of letting it simmer below the surface, but the best tension comes from epic problems that have been there all along. We’ll examine strong fault lines in fiction and nonfiction and then create our own for solid and stable stories with some epic problems.
Speakers
avatar for Jenny Shank

Jenny Shank

Instructor
Jenny Shank's short story collection, Mixed Company, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award (General Fiction). Jenny Shank's novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
215
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Dramatic Writing

4:00pm MDT

Tackling the “S” Word: Writing Your Book’s Synopsis
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A task that few writers savor is writing a synopsis for their novel or memoir. While the process might feel daunting (or even unpleasant), writing a one or two-page synopsis can be constructive, especially during revision. Why? Because even if no one ever asks you for it, your synopsis can help you spot structural issues, undeveloped characters, and plot holes in your narrative. In this seminar, we’ll look at the nuts and bolts of a synopsis, how to whittle our stories down to the basics, and what we can learn from synopsis development.
Speakers
avatar for Cynthia Swanson

Cynthia Swanson

Instructor
Cynthia Swanson writes literary suspense, often using historical settings. Cynthia’s debut novel, The Bookseller, was a New York Times best seller, an Indie Next selection, the winner of the 2016 WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction, and is translated into 18 languages. The... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
204
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Publishing/Career   YA/Children's

4:00pm MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Deep Revision—Using the Revision Process to Fall in Love with Your Work Again (V)
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It's easy to get stuck on a draft and not know where to go next—or even to despair that there's nowhere else to go. Revision, though, can be less of a dutiful task and more of an alchemical process of discovery that helps us bring our writing back to life and ourselves along with it. Through a combination of readings, exercises, and discussions, this course will offer insight and strategies toward revision that help writers better understand their own work and what they are trying to do—and that can help them fall back in love with their projects.
Speakers
avatar for Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham

Instructor
Lauren Markham is a writer based in California whose work has appeared in outlets such as Guernica, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Freeman's, Lithub, Best American Travel Writing, The New Republic, Narrative, The New York Review of Books, and VQR, where she is a contributing... Read More →

Monday June 10, 2024 4:00pm - Tuesday June 11, 2024 7:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:30pm MDT

Lit Fest Fellows Reading
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Help us celebrate the exceptional talent among this year’s Lit Fest Fellowship finalists and winners.
Monday June 10, 2024 4:30pm - 6:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry
 
Tuesday, June 11
 

9:00am MDT

What a Moment Holds: Essays that Capture a Spark (V)
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Writer Abigail Thomas calls them "the shock of truth" or "moments that feel like body blows"—moments that happen in a flash that, when captured in an essay by a writer, can do the same for the reader. These can be moments of insight, understanding, or vision—“aha moments.” Often found in flash nonfiction, these moments can also be found in longer essays that lead up to it. In this seminar, we'll read sections of essays and memoir that illustrate transformative moments and discuss what makes them work or not.
Speakers
avatar for Ellen Blum Barish

Ellen Blum Barish

Instructor
Ellen Blum Barish’s essays have appeared in Brevity, Tablet, Literary Mama, Full Grown People, and have aired on Chicago Public Radio. She is founding editor and publisher of the literary publication Thread which earned three notables in Best American Essays. Ellen is the author... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Literary Journals—The Inside Scoop
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You’ve made your story, essay, or poem the best it can be, and now you’re ready to get it published in a literary journal. How do you catch the eye of an editor? Our panel of journal editors from Poetry, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, Virginia Quarerly Review, and more will chat about the submission process, what they look for in a piece, and mistakes to avoid when you’re sending out your work. You’ll leave better informed and inspired to submit.
Speakers
avatar for Angela Flores

Angela Flores

Editor
Angela Flores is a trans writer, editor, and Tin House scholar. Her work has appeared with Ploughshares, Academy of American Poets, and The Normal School. She currently serves as the assistant editor for Poetry magazine, and before joining Poetry, she served on the editorial board... Read More →
avatar for Allison Wright

Allison Wright

Editor
Allison Wright is the executive editor and publisher of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian Saturday Magazine, CNN, VQR, Popular Mechanics, the Texas Observer, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She teaches media ethics and journalism... Read More →
avatar for Alexander Lumans

Alexander Lumans

Instructor
Alexander Lumans was awarded a 2018 NEA Creative Writing Grant in Fiction. He was also awarded a fellowship to the 2015 Arctic Circle Residency and was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric... Read More →
avatar for Jenny Wortman

Jenny Wortman

Panelist
Jennifer Wortman is the author of the short story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love (Split/Lip Press, 2019) and a recipient of a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. Her fiction, essays, and poetry appear in TriQuarterly, Glimmer Train, Copper... Read More →
avatar for Dino Enrique Piacentini

Dino Enrique Piacentini

Instructor
Dino Enrique Piacentini grew up in Los Angeles, lived in San Francisco for twenty years, and has also, at various times, set down stakes in Houston, Oaxaca, Champaign, and Prague. His writing has been published in Gulf Coast, Confrontation, Pembroke, The Globe & Mail, The Atticus... Read More →
avatar for Harrison Fletcher

Harrison Fletcher

Instructor
Harrison Candelaria Fletcher is the author of the essay collection, Descanso for My Father, the memoir, Presentimiento: A Life in Dreams, and his newest, Finding Querencia: Essays from In Between. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, Autumn... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Literary Journals—The Inside Scoop (Livestream)
Register
You’ve made your story, essay, or poem the best it can be, and now you’re ready to get it published in a literary journal. How do you catch the eye of an editor? Our panel of journal editors from Poetry, Colorado Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere, will chat about the submission process, what they look for in a piece, and mistakes to avoid when you’re sending out your work. You’ll leave better informed and inspired to submit.
Speakers
avatar for Angela Flores

Angela Flores

Editor
Angela Flores is a trans writer, editor, and Tin House scholar. Her work has appeared with Ploughshares, Academy of American Poets, and The Normal School. She currently serves as the assistant editor for Poetry magazine, and before joining Poetry, she served on the editorial board... Read More →
avatar for Allison Wright

Allison Wright

Editor
Allison Wright is the executive editor and publisher of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian Saturday Magazine, CNN, VQR, Popular Mechanics, the Texas Observer, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She teaches media ethics and journalism... Read More →
avatar for Alexander Lumans

Alexander Lumans

Instructor
Alexander Lumans was awarded a 2018 NEA Creative Writing Grant in Fiction. He was also awarded a fellowship to the 2015 Arctic Circle Residency and was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric... Read More →
avatar for Jenny Wortman

Jenny Wortman

Panelist
Jennifer Wortman is the author of the short story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love (Split/Lip Press, 2019) and a recipient of a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. Her fiction, essays, and poetry appear in TriQuarterly, Glimmer Train, Copper... Read More →
avatar for Dino Enrique Piacentini

Dino Enrique Piacentini

Instructor
Dino Enrique Piacentini grew up in Los Angeles, lived in San Francisco for twenty years, and has also, at various times, set down stakes in Houston, Oaxaca, Champaign, and Prague. His writing has been published in Gulf Coast, Confrontation, Pembroke, The Globe & Mail, The Atticus... Read More →
avatar for Harrison Fletcher

Harrison Fletcher

Instructor
Harrison Candelaria Fletcher is the author of the essay collection, Descanso for My Father, the memoir, Presentimiento: A Life in Dreams, and his newest, Finding Querencia: Essays from In Between. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, Autumn... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

Everything But Plot: Building Suspense on the Line Level
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In this generative session, we'll engage in close readings of work in all genres and ask: what keeps us reading and moving forward? What delivers a chill? We'll investigate constructions of the line and the paragraph, asking after subtext and staging, POV and time shifts, dangling questions, and form. Come ready to experiment.
Speakers
avatar for T Kira Māhealani Madden

T Kira Māhealani Madden

Visiting Author
T Kira Māhealani Madden is a hapa-Kanaka Maoli writer, photographer, and amateur magician. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Tin House, DISQUIET, NYSCA/NYFA, and Yaddo. Her debut memoir... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

Everything But Plot: Building Suspense on the Line Level (Livestream)
Register
In this generative session, we'll engage in close readings of work in all genres and ask: what keeps us reading and moving forward? What delivers a chill? We'll investigate constructions of the line and the paragraph, asking after subtext and staging, POV and time shifts, dangling questions, and form. Come ready to experiment.
Speakers
avatar for T Kira Māhealani Madden

T Kira Māhealani Madden

Visiting Author
T Kira Māhealani Madden is a hapa-Kanaka Maoli writer, photographer, and amateur magician. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Tin House, DISQUIET, NYSCA/NYFA, and Yaddo. Her debut memoir... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

The Messy Middle
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Your beginning rocks and has tons of forward momentum. You might even know what you want your ending to be. The problem, of course, is everything in the middle. Writing the “messy middle” can feel like trying to carry a king-sized mattress up twenty flights of stairs all alone. But you’re not alone! In this class, we’ll look at the most common messy-middle problems and how to identify them. Using strategic exercises, you’ll practice solid strategies to conquer and convert your messy middle into plot and prose that will propel you through your story. Open to all prose genres.
Speakers
avatar for Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse

Instructor
Erika Krouse has taught at Lighthouse since 2008; she is a Book Project mentor and a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award. Erika's recent memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, won the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the 2023 Colorado Book Award... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
204
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing

1:30pm MDT

Nature Writing
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What can we learn about writing and also about the world from nature writing? This craft seminar will present examples from some classic texts—Thoreau's Walden, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and others—to inspire short writing exercises that help grasp what is urgent and beautiful about nature writing.
Speakers
avatar for Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar

Visiting Author
Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist who has published several works of nonfiction and three novels. His most recent title, The Blue Book: A Writer's Journal, is a collection of drawings and journal entries. Kumar's writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Harper’s... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
316
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

1:30pm MDT

Long Night's Journey into Day: Writing About Serious Illness (V)
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Writing through and about serious illness can not only create powerful poems, memoirs, and fiction, but it can help us integrate and learn from our experiences as patients, survivors, and caregivers. We'll explore how and when to write about our experiences through innovative writing prompts, narrative medicine resources, and steady practices that steer us away from retriggering ourselves and toward insights, wholeness, and resilience. We’ll investigate approaches to widen our perspective and give us the appropriate distance to write powerful poetry and prose while also concentrating on original, vibrant, and enduring specifics in our writing.
Speakers
avatar for Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Instructor
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a nonfiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing

1:30pm MDT

How to Write a Book Proposal
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This two-hour seminar will provide comprehensive instruction on how to research, write, and pitch a book proposal to an agent from an author who has submitted seven or eight of these things and scored book deals twice.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Knopper

Steve Knopper

Instructor
Steve Knopper is Billboard editor at large, former Rolling Stone contributing editor, and author of MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson (Scribner, 2015) and Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Business in the Digital Age (Free Press, 2009). He has written... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
315
  Nonfiction/Memoir   Publishing/Career

4:00pm MDT

In These Fleeting Moments: Building Dramatic Tension
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What's a "ticking clock" in writing, and how does it add dramatic tension to your story? In this two-hour class, we'll examine how ticking clocks can work in everything from an action movie to a family drama and see how understanding this tool might help with your own writing. Expect some brief writing exercises and lots of discussion.
Speakers
avatar for R. Alan Brooks

R. Alan Brooks

Instructor
R. Alan Brooks teaches graphic novel writing at Regis University, and is the writer/creator of The Burning Metronome graphic novel, a supernatural murder mystery with social commentary. He also hosts the popular “MotherF**ker In A Cape” comics podcast, which focuses on marginalized... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
315
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Dramatic Writing

4:00pm MDT

In Other Words: Narrative Styles
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Sometimes we show, and sometimes we tell. Sometimes we’re interior, and sometimes we’re exterior. Sometimes, we describe, and sometimes we imply. But when do we use which styles, and why? In this class, we’ll explore six types of narrative styles: scene, exposition, description, interiority, dialogue, and “voiceyness.” We’ll talk about the assets and challenges of each style and explore techniques to use them to their best advantage in your writing. Writers can expect discussion, examples, and writing exercises. Open to all prose writers.
Speakers
avatar for Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse

Instructor
Erika Krouse has taught at Lighthouse since 2008; she is a Book Project mentor and a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award. Erika's recent memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, won the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the 2023 Colorado Book Award... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
216
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   YA/Children's

4:00pm MDT

Getting to the Finish Line
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All writers, from beginners to professionals, go through periods when it seems impossible to complete a project, no matter how much we love it and want to see it out in the world. In this seminar, we’ll explore what holds us back, the reasons we have trouble focusing on our writing projects (even when we easily check other items off our “to-do” list), and how to prioritize writing with a goal toward project completion. We’ll also do some exercises to help you address your specific barriers and overcome them.
Speakers
avatar for Cynthia Swanson

Cynthia Swanson

Instructor
Cynthia Swanson writes literary suspense, often using historical settings. Cynthia’s debut novel, The Bookseller, was a New York Times best seller, an Indie Next selection, the winner of the 2016 WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction, and is translated into 18 languages. The... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
304
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing   Publishing/Career   YA/Children's

4:00pm MDT

Memoir for the Anxious, Uncertain, or Scared Writer
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This craft seminar aims to demystify the process of writing memoir. We'll talk about structure, perspective, ethical concerns, and more, including how to begin and how to continue.
Speakers
avatar for Beth Nguyen

Beth Nguyen

Visiting Author
Beth Nguyen also goes by Bich Minh Nguyen. Her essay in The New Yorker explains why she has two names. Please call her Beth. She is the author of four books, most recently the memoir Owner of a Lonely Heart, published by Scribner in 2023. Owner of a Lonely Heart was a New York Times... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
316
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

Romance Your Life (V)
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So often, nonfiction is framed by trauma, but what’s so wrong with rose-colored glasses? Writers often talk about how humor can be used as a tool to tell hard stories, but leaning into the romantic can be, too. Romancing Your Life is a technique for showing your past self (and those that populated your life) some care, tenderness, and grace.
Speakers
avatar for Minda Honey

Minda Honey

Instructor
Minda Honey’s (she/her) essays on politics and relationships have appeared in Harper’s Baazar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.Her work is featured in “Burn It Down: Women Writing About Ange... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading with T Kira Māhealani Madden, Claire Messud, Jenny Offill, and Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.
Tuesday June 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading with T Kira Māhealani Madden, Claire Messud, Jenny Offill, and Rowan Ricardo Phillips (Livestream)
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.
Tuesday June 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry
 
Wednesday, June 12
 

9:00am MDT

Haiku as Mindfulness Practice (V)
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Haiku is a contemplative poetry form inspired by Zen, which emphasizes impermanence and draws attention to phenomena that may go unnoticed. In this class, we’ll talk about the Haiku within the cultural context of Japan, where it was born, and its evolution and use by Western novelists and peacemakers alike. We’ll learn from masters of the form and try our hand at writing our own. This class explores Haiku tags as the answer to hashtags and is for anyone who wants to slow down time by capturing fleeting moments in their life. You'll leave the seminar ready to use this minimalistic form both as a creative tool and a daily mindfulness practice.
Speakers
avatar for Ladane Nasseri

Ladane Nasseri

Instructor
Ladane Nasseri is a journalist and writer. A former Middle East correspondent for Bloomberg News where she led Iran’s news coverage, Ladane has reported for a decade and a half from Tehran, Dubai, and Beirut. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Businessweek... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: State of the Industry
Register
Publishing and television continue to be industries facing rapidly changing trends and challenges, so what does the landscape look like now? Join four industry experts as they discuss the latest industry news and what it means for authors and screenwriters, published and aspiring alike.
Speakers
avatar for Raluca Albu

Raluca Albu

Panelist
Raluca Albu is the communications director of the Authors Guild, the oldest and largest professional organization for published writers. They advocate for the legal rights of authors by supporting fair publishing and freelance writing contracts, copyright protection and free speech... Read More →
avatar for Kayla Lightner

Kayla Lightner

Agent
Kayla is an agent at Ayesha Pande Literary. Before joining the APL team in 2020, Kayla started her career at Liza Dawson Associates. She also managed APL’s subsidiary rights department for two years before transitioning to full-time agent. Her client list includes multi-award-winning... Read More →
avatar for Amy Bishop-Wycisk

Amy Bishop-Wycisk

Agent
Amy Bishop-Wycisk (why-zick) joined Trellis Literary Management in 2023 after eight years with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. She represents a wide-ranging list in fiction, nonfiction, and YA. Across the board, she has a special interest in underrepresented voices, especially from the... Read More →
avatar for Danielle Bukowski

Danielle Bukowski

Agent
Danielle Bukowski is a literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, representing award-winning, critically-acclaimed, nationally bestselling fiction and nonfiction.She is looking for literary fiction, upmarket fiction, nonfiction and SFF. She particularly wants to hear from writers... Read More →
avatar for Dean Bakopoulos

Dean Bakopoulos

Visiting Author
Dean Bakopoulos is the author of the novels Please Don't Come Back from the Moon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), My American Unhappiness (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and Summerlong (Ecco/HarperCollins). The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and NEA fellowships in both fiction and creative... Read More →
avatar for Shana Kelly

Shana Kelly

Instructor
Shana Kelly started her career as a literary agent at the William Morris Agency in New York and London, where she sold foreign and British rights for the agency for ten years. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career   Screenwriting

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: State of the Industry (Livestream)
Register
Publishing and television continue to be industries facing rapidly changing trends and challenges, so what does the landscape look like now? Join four industry experts as they discuss the latest industry news and what it means for authors and screenwriters, published and aspiring alike.
Speakers
avatar for Raluca Albu

Raluca Albu

Panelist
Raluca Albu is the communications director of the Authors Guild, the oldest and largest professional organization for published writers. They advocate for the legal rights of authors by supporting fair publishing and freelance writing contracts, copyright protection and free speech... Read More →
avatar for Kayla Lightner

Kayla Lightner

Agent
Kayla is an agent at Ayesha Pande Literary. Before joining the APL team in 2020, Kayla started her career at Liza Dawson Associates. She also managed APL’s subsidiary rights department for two years before transitioning to full-time agent. Her client list includes multi-award-winning... Read More →
avatar for Amy Bishop-Wycisk

Amy Bishop-Wycisk

Agent
Amy Bishop-Wycisk (why-zick) joined Trellis Literary Management in 2023 after eight years with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. She represents a wide-ranging list in fiction, nonfiction, and YA. Across the board, she has a special interest in underrepresented voices, especially from the... Read More →
avatar for Danielle Bukowski

Danielle Bukowski

Agent
Danielle Bukowski is a literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, representing award-winning, critically-acclaimed, nationally bestselling fiction and nonfiction.She is looking for literary fiction, upmarket fiction, nonfiction and SFF. She particularly wants to hear from writers... Read More →
avatar for Dean Bakopoulos

Dean Bakopoulos

Visiting Author
Dean Bakopoulos is the author of the novels Please Don't Come Back from the Moon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), My American Unhappiness (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and Summerlong (Ecco/HarperCollins). The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and NEA fellowships in both fiction and creative... Read More →
avatar for Shana Kelly

Shana Kelly

Instructor
Shana Kelly started her career as a literary agent at the William Morris Agency in New York and London, where she sold foreign and British rights for the agency for ten years. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career   Screenwriting

1:30pm MDT

Death and Life
Register
We often think about the arc of characters’ lives in our prose, but what about their deaths? How can we purposefully, responsibly, and, of course, creatively write death in a way that enlivens our stories and adds meaning to our characters’ and readers’ lives? Examining examples from fiction and memoir, in this seminar, participants will consider how other characters’ deaths might impact our protagonists/antagonists, as well as how to craft interesting and meaningful deaths without unintentionally slipping into the melodramatic or overly relying upon the retrospective voice. We'll also complete a writing exercise if time allows.
Speakers
avatar for Andrew Hernandez

Andrew Hernandez

Instructor
Andrew Hernandez, PhD, is a writer and teacher. Born in the Chicagoland area, Hernandez’s work has taken him to Puerto Rico, New York, Mali, New Zealand, and now Colorado. A former Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism magazine, his narrative nonfiction has also appeared in... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
204
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

How to Make Plot Your Friend
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Many writers (myself included!) want to believe that a gift for exciting language or narrative invention will be a substitute for a genuinely arresting plot. Alas, it’s not. Velocity, it turns out, isn’t the same as direction. It can take many years to unlock the secrets of plot. But it shouldn’t! Plot, as Aristotle wrote, consists in the “artful arrangement of incidents”—a chain of consequence that helps establish a feeling of rising action. We’ll examine the work of writers such as Cheryl Strayed, Megha Majumdar, and Jane Austen in an effort to make sure your next plot keeps the reader enthralled.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Visiting Author
Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football, and the forthcoming Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, a book on the writer's craft. After many failed efforts, his debut novel, All the... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
316
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

High Before the Low
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One of the most powerful writing tools we tend to overlook is the high before the low. Many potent stories focus on a moment of high connection and joy before the moment of the largest low. The more you want to break the reader's (and your character's) heart, the bigger the high before the ultimate low needs to be. We'll examine powerful high and low moments from fiction and memoir and how they work together. Then, we'll tackle writing exercises to flesh out the high and low moments in our stories.
Speakers
avatar for Paula Younger

Paula Younger

Instructor
Paula Younger received her MFA from the University of Virginia Creative Writing program, where she was awarded a Henry Hoyns Fellowship. She was also the Fiction Editor for Meridian and a Bronx Writers' Center Fellow. Her award-winning fiction has appeared in such literary journals... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
315
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Dramatic Writing

1:30pm MDT

On Defamiliarization: A Lesson in 10 Sentences
Register
“Art exists to help us recover the sensation of life; it exists to make us feel things, to make the stone stony again. The end of art is to give a sensation of the object seen, not as recognized.
Victor Shklovsky
In this craft seminar, we'll explore how to describe the world around us without resorting to commonplace imagery or received sentiments. Our intent will be to make the familiar unfamiliar through acts of careful attention. We'll look at the process of defamiliarization at both the sentence and the paragraph level, and then use these images and descriptions as springboards for our own writing.
Speakers
avatar for Jenny Offill

Jenny Offill

Visiting Author
Offill's 2020 novel, Weather, is the story of confronting, both directly and less so, looming climate catastrophe . The book was described as “emotional, planetary, and very turbulent, “ by the New York Times, “utterly exhilarating in its wit and intelligence” by the Boston... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

On Defamiliarization: A Lesson in 10 Sentences (Livestream)
Register
“Art exists to help us recover the sensation of life; it exists to make us feel things, to make the stone stony again. The end of art is to give a sensation of the object seen, not as recognized.
Victor Shklovsky
In this craft seminar, we'll explore how to describe the world around us without resorting to commonplace imagery or received sentiments. Our intent will be to make the familiar unfamiliar through acts of careful attention. We'll look at the process of defamiliarization at both the sentence and the paragraph level, and then use these images and descriptions as springboards for our own writing.
Speakers
avatar for Jenny Offill

Jenny Offill

Visiting Author
Offill's 2020 novel, Weather, is the story of confronting, both directly and less so, looming climate catastrophe . The book was described as “emotional, planetary, and very turbulent, “ by the New York Times, “utterly exhilarating in its wit and intelligence” by the Boston... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

I'll Follow You Into the Dark: Letting the Unknown Drive Your Personal Narrative
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When it comes to personal essay and memoir, the idea of closure can be overrated. It's not always possible (or preferable) to achieve clarity or tie up loose ends in your story. So why not embrace the unknowns instead? Some of the best creative nonfiction puts the unknown (or unthought-known) in the driver's seat, using it as a tool to build tension, create emotional resonance, and engage the reader as a fellow detective. In this seminar, we'll make a case for stumbling in the dark. We'll explore how to let questions drive your narrative and embrace discomfort on the page, dig into relevant examples, and work through a few prompts.
Speakers
avatar for Gina DeMillo Wagner

Gina DeMillo Wagner

Instructor
Gina DeMillo Wagner is the author of Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss, and Finding Home. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, Modern Loss, Self, Outside, CRAFT Literary, and other publications. She is a Yaddo fellow... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215
  Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

When Life Doesn't Live Up to the Hype: Wringing Essays from Disappointment (V)
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An essay is what's born out of the distance between our expectations and our reality and how we reconcile the two. In this class, we'll dissect essays that follow this path and construct our own work from our lives less-than-perfect moments.
Speakers
avatar for Minda Honey

Minda Honey

Instructor
Minda Honey’s (she/her) essays on politics and relationships have appeared in Harper’s Baazar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.Her work is featured in “Burn It Down: Women Writing About Ange... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

Memory Fog: Getting Lost in Order to Write and Remember
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Memory can be tricky and elusive. You can have an idea for a story arc, an image for a poem, or a telling line for the essay, but then it disappears like a vivid dream later in the day. However, what is lost can be found. In this multi-genre workshop, we'll look at short poems and prose by contemporary writers and discuss the process of incorporating reflection, authorial interruptions, flashbacks, and knowing when to leap. We'll also write and get a little lost by considering moments of question, rediscovery, and wandering with purpose.
Speakers
avatar for Juan J. Morales

Juan J. Morales

Instructor
Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father. He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Handyman’s Guide to End Times, winner of the 2019 International Latino Book Award. Recent poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, The Laurel Review... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
216
  Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Deeper Character Descriptions
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We often forget the importance of quick character descriptions. In our early drafts, we sometimes devote paragraphs describing our characters, even sliding into police-type descriptions: 6’4”, blonde, blue eyes. Yet, with all that description, we know nothing important about that character. But the best stories, novels, and essays have succinct descriptions that give us a strong sense of the character. We'll go through some examples of character descriptions in fiction and nonfiction, then do some exercises to find deeper descriptions of our characters that tell us more about who they are and help propel your story forward.
Speakers
avatar for Paula Younger

Paula Younger

Instructor
Paula Younger received her MFA from the University of Virginia Creative Writing program, where she was awarded a Henry Hoyns Fellowship. She was also the Fiction Editor for Meridian and a Bronx Writers' Center Fellow. Her award-winning fiction has appeared in such literary journals... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
215
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Dramatic Writing

4:00pm MDT

Psychoanalysis and Literature
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The world of the mind has forever mesmerized both psychoanalysts and writers. Both fields have been obsessed with understanding the human being, both as an individual/self and in relation to others. In this course we'll look at the intersections of the two disciplines and discuss how they approach questions of language, dreams, stream of consciousness, addressing trauma, and else. In class, we'll also partake in some exercises that use methods of psychoanalysis to generate writing.
Speakers
avatar for Poupeh Missaghi

Poupeh Missaghi

Instructor
Poupeh Missaghi is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, Asymptote’s Iran editor-at-large, and an educator. Her debut novel trans(re)lating house one was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
216
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

ABCs and 123s: Making the Personal Matter
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We’ll explore strategies for integrating research into our own first-person writing to answer some burning questions about creative nonfiction. How do essayists use “real” experiences to make stories that move? How do they create context that matters, turn personal anecdotes into universally applicable meanings, and write fresh perspectives into experiences and topics that are age-old: culture, travel, death, or love? What is the best way to build context and to shape essays so that they have momentum and meaning? In other words, how do we make meaning?
Speakers
avatar for Emily Rapp Black

Emily Rapp Black

Visiting Author
Emily Rapp Black is the author of four books of nonfiction: Poster Child; The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor's Choice, and a finalist for the PEN USA award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor's Choice; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

ABCs and 123s: Making the Personal Matter (Livestream)
Register
We’ll explore strategies for integrating research into our own first-person writing to answer some burning questions about creative nonfiction. How do essayists use “real” experiences to make stories that move? How do they create context that matters, turn personal anecdotes into universally applicable meanings, and write fresh perspectives into experiences and topics that are age-old: culture, travel, death, or love? What is the best way to build context and to shape essays so that they have momentum and meaning? In other words, how do we make meaning?
Speakers
avatar for Emily Rapp Black

Emily Rapp Black

Visiting Author
Emily Rapp Black is the author of four books of nonfiction: Poster Child; The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor's Choice, and a finalist for the PEN USA award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor's Choice; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

The Craft of Interviewing
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This course is all about how to make your story sing with dialogue, vignettes, and rich details provided by primary sources. We'll cover interview requests, how to talk to strangers, preparation, and, most crucially, how to ask the right questions and get the best info out of people—taught by a former Rolling Stone journalist who has interviewed thousands of sources over 30 years.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Knopper

Steve Knopper

Instructor
Steve Knopper is Billboard editor at large, former Rolling Stone contributing editor, and author of MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson (Scribner, 2015) and Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Business in the Digital Age (Free Press, 2009). He has written... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
315
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

Truth or Dare: Writing Family Stories (V)
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This class explores the twin desires to tell the truth about our lives and write about our families and loved ones who may not like what they see. How do we position ourselves so that we can honestly convey our experience? What strategies and stances can we develop so we can write open-heartedly the story we were given? Plan on vigorous discussion of a few examples and lots of time for Q&A.
Speakers
avatar for Karen Auvinen

Karen Auvinen

Instructor
Karen Auvinen (she/her/hers) is poet, mountain woman, life-long westerner, writer, and the author of the memoir Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living, a finalist for the 2019 Colorado Book Award. Her body of work traverses the intersection of landscape and place, examining... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

Two-Day Intensive: The Memory Palace—The Atlas and Architecture of Creative Nonfiction
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We'll explore the benefits of drawing maps and blueprints to re-inhabit the places our creative nonfiction recaptures. We'll use this process to create prompts to generate new writing and to locate points of re-entry for revision (“renovations”). We'll navigate any memory holes that might reveal themselves and approach the tough choices we need to make in regard to these “forgotten” places. This intensive will focus on both exterior and interior places. You do not need to know how to “draw.” While participants could use this to start a new project, this class is best suited for writers with a work-in-progress.
Speakers
avatar for Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Instructor
Sarah Elizabeth Schantz is primarily a fiction writer living on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado in a Victorian-era farmhouse where her family is surrounded by open sky and century-old cottonwoods. She literally grew up in a bookstore with parents who worshipped all things literature... Read More →

Wednesday June 12, 2024 4:00pm - Thursday June 13, 2024 7:00pm MDT
304
  Nonfiction/Memoir

5:30pm MDT

Musical Story Hour
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Our signature Story Hour returns: this year kick back in the floral courtyard next to Lighthouse HQ and listen to local singer/songwriters perform and then tell the story behind the song(s). We'll have on hand some inspiring appetizers (meat and veggie tacos, churros for dessert) and drinks (margaritas, soft drinks, and wine/beer). This year's lineup is Kayla Marque, Joshua Abeyta from Los Mocochetes, and Martin Gilmore.
Wednesday June 12, 2024 5:30pm - 6:45pm MDT
Lighthouse HQ
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Author Reading with Dean Bakopoulos, Mark Doty, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Amitava Kumar
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.
Wednesday June 12, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Author Reading with Dean Bakopoulos, Mark Doty, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Amitava Kumar (Livestream)
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.
Wednesday June 12, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry
 
Thursday, June 13
 

9:00am MDT

Art of Creative Research (V)
Register
Research is a fundamental part of long-form writing projects. Knowing where to find the info and how to access it (whether through research or interviews) is a key skill for writers across genres. Background information, facts, anecdotes, and different perspectives all make a story richer and more authoritative. Drawing from journalism and the oral history tradition, this class provides tools for writers working on essays, profiles, memoirs, or novels. We'll create a road map for our research and discuss how to prepare and conduct interviews with relatives or strangers to collect information professionally, responsibly, and ethically.
Speakers
avatar for Ladane Nasseri

Ladane Nasseri

Instructor
Ladane Nasseri is a journalist and writer. A former Middle East correspondent for Bloomberg News where she led Iran’s news coverage, Ladane has reported for a decade and a half from Tehran, Dubai, and Beirut. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Businessweek... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Online Landscape for Writers
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Amidst the death throes of print media, the overnight rise and fall of legacy websites, trend-chasing on social media, and the proliferation of subscription-based newsletters, it’s as difficult as ever for authors to know where to put their energy and what to avoid. Join three writers and an agent for a conversation on the different ways of being online and how they can benefit you during different stages of your career, from learning about what agents are looking for to spreading the word about your work.
Speakers
avatar for Simone Stolzoff

Simone Stolzoff

Panelist
Simone Stolzoff is an author and journalist from San Francisco. A former design lead at the global innovation firm IDEO, his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and various other publications. His debut book The Good Enough Job: R... Read More →
avatar for Mitzi Rapkin

Mitzi Rapkin

Podcaster
Mitzi Rapkin is the host and producer of the literary podcast, First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing.  This June marks the 11th anniversary of the show.  First Draft features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and essay writers.  Rapkin and her guests explore literary craft, the decisions... Read More →
avatar for Robbie Couch

Robbie Couch

Panelist
Robbie Couch writes young-adult fiction. If I See You Again Tomorrow, his New York Times bestselling third novel, has received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Robbie's debut, The Sky Blues, was a Barnes & Noble... Read More →
avatar for Courtney Maum

Courtney Maum

Panelist
Courtney is the author of five books, including the groundbreaking publishing guide that Vanity Fair recently named one of the ten best books for writers, Before and After the Book Deal and the memoir The Year of the Horses, chosen by The Today Show as the best read for mental health... Read More →
avatar for Erika T. Wurth

Erika T. Wurth

Erika T. Wurth’s publications include three novels, White Horse, Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend, and You Who Enter Here, two collections of poetry and a collection of short stories, Buckskin Cocaine. A writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, she teaches creative writing at Western... Read More →
avatar for R. Alan Brooks

R. Alan Brooks

Instructor
R. Alan Brooks teaches graphic novel writing at Regis University, and is the writer/creator of The Burning Metronome graphic novel, a supernatural murder mystery with social commentary. He also hosts the popular “MotherF**ker In A Cape” comics podcast, which focuses on marginalized... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Online Landscape for Writers (Livestream)
Register
Amidst the death throes of print media, the overnight rise and fall of legacy websites, trend-chasing on social media, and the proliferation of subscription-based newsletters, it’s as difficult as ever for authors to know where to put their energy and what to avoid. Join three writers and an agent for a conversation on the different ways of being online and how they can benefit you during different stages of your career, from learning about what agents are looking for to spreading the word about your work.
Speakers
avatar for Simone Stolzoff

Simone Stolzoff

Panelist
Simone Stolzoff is an author and journalist from San Francisco. A former design lead at the global innovation firm IDEO, his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and various other publications. His debut book The Good Enough Job: R... Read More →
avatar for Mitzi Rapkin

Mitzi Rapkin

Podcaster
Mitzi Rapkin is the host and producer of the literary podcast, First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing.  This June marks the 11th anniversary of the show.  First Draft features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and essay writers.  Rapkin and her guests explore literary craft, the decisions... Read More →
avatar for Robbie Couch

Robbie Couch

Panelist
Robbie Couch writes young-adult fiction. If I See You Again Tomorrow, his New York Times bestselling third novel, has received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Robbie's debut, The Sky Blues, was a Barnes & Noble... Read More →
avatar for Courtney Maum

Courtney Maum

Panelist
Courtney is the author of five books, including the groundbreaking publishing guide that Vanity Fair recently named one of the ten best books for writers, Before and After the Book Deal and the memoir The Year of the Horses, chosen by The Today Show as the best read for mental health... Read More →
avatar for Erika T. Wurth

Erika T. Wurth

Erika T. Wurth’s publications include three novels, White Horse, Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend, and You Who Enter Here, two collections of poetry and a collection of short stories, Buckskin Cocaine. A writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, she teaches creative writing at Western... Read More →
avatar for R. Alan Brooks

R. Alan Brooks

Instructor
R. Alan Brooks teaches graphic novel writing at Regis University, and is the writer/creator of The Burning Metronome graphic novel, a supernatural murder mystery with social commentary. He also hosts the popular “MotherF**ker In A Cape” comics podcast, which focuses on marginalized... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

Characterization Through Contrast
Register
In this craft seminar, we'll explore complex characterization through a series of brief readings and short writing exercises on developing character through contrast. We’ll consider various kinds of passing and performance: when does a character understand themselves to be putting on an act? What kinds of structural or personal relationships compel performance? What can a character’s performance for an external audience tell us about characters themselves, the settings they inhabit, and their potential narrative arcs?
Speakers
avatar for Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans

Visiting Author
Danielle Evans is the author of the story collections The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Her first collection won the PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Hurston-Wright award for fiction, and the Paterson Prize for fiction; her... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

Characterization Through Contrast (Livestream)
Register
In this craft seminar, we'll explore complex characterization through a series of brief readings and short writing exercises on developing character through contrast. We’ll consider various kinds of passing and performance: when does a character understand themselves to be putting on an act? What kinds of structural or personal relationships compel performance? What can a character’s performance for an external audience tell us about characters themselves, the settings they inhabit, and their potential narrative arcs?
Speakers
avatar for Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans

Visiting Author
Danielle Evans is the author of the story collections The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Her first collection won the PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Hurston-Wright award for fiction, and the Paterson Prize for fiction; her... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

How to Survive Writer's Block
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Have you ever suffered with the Black Plague of writers? In this fast-paced and potentially incoherent class, we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty when it comes to writer’s block and ask a radical question: Is it possible to view moments, and even eras, of creative stasis as necessary and even essential to our artistic growth? (Gasp!). The answer, for the instructor, anyway, is a resounding YES. The question is how to move from anxiety and self-loathing to a posture of forgiveness and curiosity. This class is for anyone who’s ever struggled to keep going at the keyboard.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Visiting Author
Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football, and the forthcoming Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, a book on the writer's craft. After many failed efforts, his debut novel, All the... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
316
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

Revising for Social Change (V)
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Revision necessitates change, and change is everywhere in the writing process. It happens when we give ourselves space to grapple with a topic. It emerges in workshop when others contribute opposing views. It evolves because the world in which the piece was written has been fundamentally altered. Revision isn’t always about making things “better.” Sometimes, it's just about the complication of an idea. Sometimes, it’s about allowing for the complexity and the chaos. Revision is about grappling with the material, our audience, ourselves, and the world. This seminar will focus on the art of revision for social change.
Speakers
avatar for Angelique Stevens

Angelique Stevens

Instructor
Angelique Stevens lives in Upstate New York where she teaches creative writing, literature of genocide, and race literatures. Her nonfiction has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, LitHub, The New England Review, and a number of anthologies. Her essay “Ghost Bread,” which... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

Collaging the Draft
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In this generative class, each participant will be given an envelope with fifteen magazine, news, book, art, and textile clippings. Step by step, you’ll learn how to collage a draft of a text taking form in their subconscious mind and translate the visual into the verbal through emotion, intuition, and stimulation.
Speakers
NK

Nazli Koca

Instructor

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Dramatic Writing

1:30pm MDT

Writing Desire and Sexuality
Register
Delving into the erotic is not an easy task for many writers. But as Audre Lorde notes, “The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.” In this course, we'll look at some works that directly address human desire and sexuality and discuss how their craft choices enable the writers to connect their audiences with an aspect of humanity that is more often oppressed and repressed than welcomed and embraced.
Speakers
avatar for Poupeh Missaghi

Poupeh Missaghi

Instructor
Poupeh Missaghi is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, Asymptote’s Iran editor-at-large, and an educator. Her debut novel trans(re)lating house one was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
315
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

The Devil Made Me Do It: Using Folktale Forms to Structure Your Writing
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The oldest story forms provide potent templates for structuring new work. Learn about the elements of a classic devil story and how contemporary writers such as Emily St. John Mandel and Colson Whitehead have incorporated its charms. Study notable features of ghost stories and see how writers such as Jesmyn Ward and Silvia Moreno-Garcia have crafted haunting fiction. We'll examine several folk and fairytale forms and use these as guides toward writing own new classics.
Speakers
avatar for Jenny Shank

Jenny Shank

Instructor
Jenny Shank's short story collection, Mixed Company, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award (General Fiction). Jenny Shank's novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
216
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Experimental Prose
Register
What would happen if we refused to limit ourselves to what is considered the “right” way to tell a story? Let’s move beyond traditional and mainstream modes of narrative. Let’s allow ourselves to experiment with language and the page. Let’s start from a place of flexibility and fluidity rather than rigidity and fixed rules. We'll look at some models that go beyond definitions of genre and take risks in redefining the interrelationship of content and form. There will be prompts to invite participants to start their own experimentations.
Speakers
avatar for Poupeh Missaghi

Poupeh Missaghi

Instructor
Poupeh Missaghi is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, Asymptote’s Iran editor-at-large, and an educator. Her debut novel trans(re)lating house one was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
315
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

The "I" Club: How to Write Using a Thrilling First Person (V)
Register
This class is about memoiristic, essayistic, and journalistic use of the first person. Memoirists and essayists we'll study include, but are not limited to, Emmanuel Carrère, Eduardo Halfon, Jazmina Barrera, Gabriela Wiener, Cristina Rivera Garza, Patti Smith, and David Carr. We'll see how deep they can go using first person, and we'll investigate their techniques to develop our writing skills. Writing in the first person opens the door to honesty, vulnerability, and the need to appear real in the face of everything around us. We'll try to understand why it is the ultimate attitude of the writer.
Speakers
avatar for Javier Sinay

Javier Sinay

Instructor
Javier Sinay is a writer and journalist. His books include The Murders of Moises Ville (Restless Books, 2022–Nominated for Book of the Year, 2023 CrimeCon C.L.U.E. Awards/original title: Los crímenes de Moisés Ville), Camino al Este, Cuba Stone (in collaboration), and Sangre joven... Read More →

Thursday June 13, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading with Steve Almond, Emily Rapp Black, Danielle Evans, and Beth Nguyen
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.
Thursday June 13, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading with Steve Almond, Emily Rapp Black, Danielle Evans, and Beth Nguyen (Livestream)
Register
Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.
Thursday June 13, 2024 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry
 
Friday, June 14
 

9:00am MDT

Letters to a Stranger (V)
Register
Each of us is haunted, in both great and odd ways, by the people we meet. And it so often happens that the person is a total stranger—one who then unexpectedly changes us—that we never see again. But if you had the chance to speak to this stranger today, what would you say? This class, inspired by the anthology Letter to a Stranger, will guide you through the process of considering how a stranger has impacted you. Then, we’ll draft a letter to this stranger, a letter that will explore how they unknowingly redirected the river of your life.
Speakers
avatar for Alexander Lumans

Alexander Lumans

Instructor
Alexander Lumans was awarded a 2018 NEA Creative Writing Grant in Fiction. He was also awarded a fellowship to the 2015 Arctic Circle Residency and was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric... Read More →

Friday June 14, 2024 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Nonfiction/Memoir

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Perfect Pairing
Register
As the publishing industry continues to change, the relationship between an author and her agent can make or break a career. Join authors Wendy Chen and Shelly Read and their agents, Sarah Bowlin and Sandra Bond, as they talk about how they’re navigating the choppy waters of publishing together.
Speakers
avatar for Sandra Bond

Sandra Bond

Agent
TV deprived growing up in the 60s, Sandra and her two siblings read books. Voraciously. The big event was going to the library once a week. As an adult, she wanted to be involved in the wondrous business of discovering and bringing stories to the world and, not a creative writer herself... Read More →
avatar for Shelley Read

Shelley Read

Shelley Read's internationally bestselling debut novel, Go As A River, is being translated intoover thirty languages and has been optioned for film by Mazur Kaplan in partnership withFifth Season. An instant Sunday Times bestseller, Go As A River is also a 2023 AmazonEditor's Pick... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Bowlin

Sarah Bowlin

Agent
Sarah Bowlin is a senior agent at Aevitas Creative Management which she joined in 2017. Before becoming an agent, she was an editor of literary fiction and nonfiction at Riverhead Books and Henry Holt & Company where she edited the acclaimed writers Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Sheila Heti... Read More →
avatar for Wendy Chen

Wendy Chen

Instructor
Wendy Chen is the author of the novel Their Divine Fires (Algonquin) and the poetry collection Unearthings (Tavern Books). She is the editor of Figure 1, associate editor-in-chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and prose editor of Tupelo Press. Her poetry translations of Song-dynasty... Read More →
avatar for Shana Kelly

Shana Kelly

Instructor
Shana Kelly started her career as a literary agent at the William Morris Agency in New York and London, where she sold foreign and British rights for the agency for ten years. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld... Read More →

Friday June 14, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Beacon Hall
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

12:00pm MDT

Lunchtime Business Panel: Perfect Pairing (Livestream)
Register
As the publishing industry continues to change, the relationship between an author and her agent can make or break a career. Join authors Wendy Chen and Shelly Read and their agents, Sarah Bowlin and Sandra Bond, as they talk about how they’re navigating the choppy waters of publishing together.
Speakers
avatar for Sandra Bond

Sandra Bond

Agent
TV deprived growing up in the 60s, Sandra and her two siblings read books. Voraciously. The big event was going to the library once a week. As an adult, she wanted to be involved in the wondrous business of discovering and bringing stories to the world and, not a creative writer herself... Read More →
avatar for Shelley Read

Shelley Read

Shelley Read's internationally bestselling debut novel, Go As A River, is being translated intoover thirty languages and has been optioned for film by Mazur Kaplan in partnership withFifth Season. An instant Sunday Times bestseller, Go As A River is also a 2023 AmazonEditor's Pick... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Bowlin

Sarah Bowlin

Agent
Sarah Bowlin is a senior agent at Aevitas Creative Management which she joined in 2017. Before becoming an agent, she was an editor of literary fiction and nonfiction at Riverhead Books and Henry Holt & Company where she edited the acclaimed writers Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Sheila Heti... Read More →
avatar for Wendy Chen

Wendy Chen

Instructor
Wendy Chen is the author of the novel Their Divine Fires (Algonquin) and the poetry collection Unearthings (Tavern Books). She is the editor of Figure 1, associate editor-in-chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and prose editor of Tupelo Press. Her poetry translations of Song-dynasty... Read More →
avatar for Shana Kelly

Shana Kelly

Instructor
Shana Kelly started her career as a literary agent at the William Morris Agency in New York and London, where she sold foreign and British rights for the agency for ten years. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld... Read More →

Friday June 14, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid   Poetry   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

Evoking Our Haunts: On Persons, Places, and Finding Voice
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A ghost is often created out of trauma or deep emotions—a haunting of place or person, seeking a witness to form and voice. In this seminar, we'll explore possibilities of homes for our ghosts, from sestina to erasure, lyric essays to prose poetry. What’s haunting you, and what can’t you seem to dispel? Together, let’s evoke our own powerful words to better understand what lingers beyond the veil and our own rituals for words.
Speakers
avatar for Hillary Leftwich

Hillary Leftwich

Instructor
Hillary Leftwich is the author of two books, Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023, new edition) and Aura (Future Tense Books and Blackstone Audio Publishing, 2022), and a collection of experimental forms TBA. She owns Alchemy Author Services and Writing... Read More →

Friday June 14, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid

1:30pm MDT

Your First Page: Authenticity, Vulnerability, and Voice
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In this class, we’ll examine five to ten first pages (250 words or less) to see how authors have created their voice through vulnerability, syntax, authenticity, and structure. It will be a great lesson in establishing a voice immediately.
Speakers
avatar for Kase Johnstun

Kase Johnstun

Instructor
Kase Johnstun lives and writes in Ogden, Utah. He was most recently named the 2021 Ogden Mayor’s Award Recipient for the Literary Arts. His forthcoming novel Cast Away will be published from Torrey House Press in 2024. Johnstun is the author of recently released Let The Wild Grasses... Read More →

Friday June 14, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
204
  Nonfiction/Memoir
 
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