Lit Fest 2024: Full Schedule

Welcome to Lit Fest, eight days dedicated to you, our literary community.

9:00am MDT

Hey, I Can Be Fun! Reapproaching the Nonfiction Book Proposal

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

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

Type Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

The Poetry of Play

As Diane Ackerman says, “The spirit of deep play is spontaneity, discovery, and being open to new challenges.” Playing with meaning, sound, punctuation, titles, cliches, and absurdities can provide both blissful relaxation and help sharpen poetic craft. In this class, we’ll enjoy a rollicking good time by responding to poetry’s call to do just that. Students will read a wide variety of playful poetry, then experiment with in-class writing prompts designed to awaken freedom and enjoyment.

Speakers

Joy Roulier Sawyer

Instructor

Joy Roulier Sawyer holds an MA from New York University, where she received the Herbert Rubin Award for Outstanding Creative Writing. The author of several nonfiction books, she's also published two poetry collections, Tongues of Men and Angels (White Violet Press), and Lifeguards... Read More →

Friday June 7, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215

Poetry

Type Craft Seminar

8:30am MDT

Advanced Weekend Nonfiction Intensive with Sloane Crosley

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

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

Type Advanced Weekend Workshop

1:30pm MDT

Milieu: The World of Your Story

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

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

Type Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Fault Lines

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

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

Type Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Contemporary American Women Poets

Many living, breathing American women poets have written spectacular books in the last two years. Now, in its sixth edition, your instructor samples over three dozen poetry collections from large and small presses. This year, Evie Shockley, Jenny Xie, and Sharon Olds are in the running, plus a long list of new poets to come. Continuing a tradition, we'll explore the work of Joy Harjo as foremother. All are welcome.

Speakers

Lynn Wagner

Instructor

Lynn Wagner is the author of No Blues This Raucous Song, which won the Slapering Hol Chapbook competition. She received an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where she won the Academy of American Poets prize. She has earned fellowships to the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts... Read More →

Tuesday June 11, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215

Poetry

Type Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

I'll Follow You Into the Dark: Letting the Unknown Drive Your Personal Narrative

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

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

Type Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Deeper Character Descriptions

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

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

Type Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Collaging the Draft

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

Nazli Koca

Instructor

Thursday June 13, 2024 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
215

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir Hybrid Poetry Dramatic Writing

Type Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Just Two Poems

In this class, we’ll experience the power of deep reading. Before class, you’ll be given two poems that serve as jumping-off points to explore and be inspired by master poets of exceptional craft. We’ll explore both the measured unfolding of a longer poem and the lyric compression of another. Exercises, experiments, and your own poems will follow.

Speakers

Lynn Wagner

Instructor

Thursday June 13, 2024 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
215

Poetry

Type Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Evoking Our Haunts: On Persons, Places, and Finding Voice

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

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

Type Craft Seminar

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