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Lit Fest 2025
Audience: Craft Seminar clear filter
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Tuesday, June 10
 

9:00am MDT

The Radical Four-Act Eastern Storytelling Structure (V)
Tuesday June 10, 2025 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
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Discussions in the West around diversity in the arts often focus on the identities of characters and creators. However, true diversity is about more than just plopping different faces into stories that are 100 percent Western in spirit; it can―and should―encompass diverse structures, themes, and values. The program explores how storytelling staples in the West, such as the three-act structure and themes of empowerment and change, are far from universal. It introduces viewers to the East Asian four-act story structure and explains how Eastern value systems such as collectivism can dictate form.
Speakers
avatar for Henry Lien

Henry Lien

Instructor
Henry Lien is a 2012 graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop, Seattle. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Peasprout Chen middle grade fantasy series, which he began writing under the guidance of George R.R. Martin, Kelly Link, and Chuck Palahniuk at Clarion... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Dramatic Writing   YA/Children's

1:30pm MDT

The Murder Book: A Roadmap to Writing Killer Fiction
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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The case file, often called the “murder book,” is used by homicide detectives to gather information about their investigation, from autopsy reports to witness interviews. In this workshop, we’ll develop our own writer’s murder book. Our case file will include tools for developing the structure of our mystery or thriller, creating our cast of characters, planting clues and red herrings, and more. Our murder books will contain everything we need to write page-turning, believable stories, including how to handle that essential requirement of the modern thriller—the twist.
Speakers
avatar for Barbara Nickless

Barbara Nickless

Instructor
Barbara Nickless is the #1 Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the “blisteringly original” Sydney Parnell crime novels featuring a railway cop and her K9 partner. About the series, Jeffery Deaver promises “you’ll fall in love with one of the best characters... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction

1:30pm MDT

The Power of Description
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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In this seminar, we'll discuss the idea that, for creative writing, it is often more fruitful to think of a poem or story or novel or whatever as a rich, elaborate, precise description—of events, of the characters' experience of those events—than to approach a work with a motive or sense of obligation to explain things for the reader. This opens onto all kinds of freeing distinctions that can disburden writers from what can be pretty paralyzing worries—e.g. of having to "understand" a work before you begin it, of having to "know" everything before you start; to know something is not the same as to understand it; to describe something is not the same thing as to explain it.
Speakers
avatar for Paul Harding

Paul Harding

Visiting Author
Paul Harding is the author of three novels, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers, Enon, and This Other Eden, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction

1:30pm MDT

Diving Into the Wreck—Finding Your Obsessions
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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Denis Johnson said, “The stories of the fallen world lay inside us. That’s the interesting stuff.” At our best, we all write about that slice of experience and knowledge that haunts and obsesses us. Does it have to be dark or fallen? No. But it has to be true to the deepest corners of your consciousness. In this seminar, we’ll look at what you write about and why. We’ll find the richest avenues for you to pursue, to set you off from the pack.
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 →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing

1:30pm MDT

The Art of Literary Submission
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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You've been polishing your writing and you're ready to submit it to literary journals, but just how do you do that? In this seminar, we'll learn about many of the journals waiting for your work. We'll discuss cover letters, tracking your submissions, useful websites, how to gauge whether you received a "good" rejection, and how to know when to keep submitting a piece, pull it for revisions, or put it in the recycle pile. By the end of this seminar, you'll be armed with a thick-anti-rejection hide and a list of journals to submit your work to.
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 →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid   Publishing/Career

1:30pm MDT

Letter to a Stranger
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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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 received fellowships in 2015 and 2024 for expeditions with The Arctic Circle Residency and he was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Nonfiction/Memoir

1:30pm MDT

How to Be Less Afraid of Omniscient Point of View
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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An omniscient narrator—that godlike knowing, the bird’s eye view—holds the potential to access characters’ minds while also panning out to observe the wider sweep of place, time, and history. For a writer, that’s a lot to juggle! In practice, omniscient narration exists in degrees, and it’s up to us to decide how all-seeing our narrators are, a task that demands not only a slew of narrative choices, but also a certain finesse to pull off. In this seminar, we’ll tackle the scope of omniscience by learning to shape it to the specific needs of our fiction.
Speakers
avatar for Andrea Bobotis

Andrea Bobotis

Instructor
Andrea Bobotis is the author of the debut novel The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt. A native of South Carolina, she holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Virginia, where she was honored with the All-University Graduate Teaching Award. Her fiction has received support... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction

1:30pm MDT

Say Less: Reading and Writing Minimal Poems
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse
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In After Lorca, Jack Spicer writes (in a “letter” to the dead Federico Garcia Lorca), “A really perfect poem has an infinitely small vocabulary.” In “The Spiral Jetty,” Robert Smithson writes that “size determines an object, but scale determines art.” How do we create and experience the life and afterlife (and perhaps even the half-life) of the “infinitely small”? How does a minimal poem negotiate a relationship between size and scale? In this discussion-based seminar, we'll explore how attention and comprehension expand, contract, and contort as we read and write toward the limits of expression.
Speakers
avatar for Kanika Agrawal

Kanika Agrawal

Instructor
Kanika Agrawal is a queer Indian writer, editor, and educator. As a mad diasporic hybrid who developed over six countries on four continents, she works between and across languages, geographies, and disciplines. She received a BS in Biology and a BS in Writing from MIT. She then earned... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Poetry

4:00pm MDT

Beyond First and Third: Playing with Perspectives
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse
Register
A book critic in The Guardian wrote, "It takes the nerve of a debutante to stray from the first- or third-person singular narrative voice." Even if you’re not a nervy debutante, what if you just wanna? Come learn about innovative ways contemporary writers tackle unusual perspectives including second-person singular, second-person plural, first-person peripheral, omniscient, and the gleefully uncategorizable. Read examples by Miriam Toews, Justin Torres, Joshua Ferris, Britt Bennett, Min Jin Lee, James McBride, TaraShea Nesbitt and more, and enjoy in-class exercises that encourage you to give offbeat perspectives a try.
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 →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction

4:00pm MDT

Short Stories Explained
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse
Register
When people struggle to write short fiction, the problem usually begins with the idea. It often leads to a story that is too long, or the beginning of a novel, or so simplistic that it is dull. In this generative workshop, we'll walk through the process of how to create and structure a short story. The class gives you tools to understand how to structure a short story coupled with exercises that puts each tool to use and builds to a complete story. Come prepared to write!
Speakers
avatar for Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal

Instructor
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winning alternate history novel The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series which continues in 2025 with The Martian Contingency. She is also the author of The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction

4:00pm MDT

Place-Based Writing (V)
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
Register
Place is deeper than setting; instead it articulates a unique landscape that is both emotional and physical. This workshop offers practices for infusing your stories and essays with a sense of place. How do we evoke it and how can we infuse our work with the power of place?
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 →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir

4:00pm MDT

How to Write Riveting Scenes
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse
Register
The key to any unforgettable work of prose resides in the quality of its scenes. In this class, we’ll examine some of the best scenes ever written by writers such as Megha Majumdar and Grace Talusan and investigate what it takes to write a scene that deepens our sense of character and conflict and escalates the action. Then we’ll work on an exercise to bring the lessons home.
Speakers
avatar for Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Visiting Author
Steve Almond [www.stevealmondjoy.org] is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His first novel, Which Brings Me to You (co-written with Julianna Baggott) was made into a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Hybrid

4:00pm MDT

Find Your Unique Style
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse
Register
Your style is yours alone. Readers will return to your writing again and again because they like the way you shape consciousness on the page. In this seminar, we’ll dig into your style, decide on what sets you apart, then hone your unique voice. You’ll come away with a clear sense of your true self 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 →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   Poetry   Hybrid   Dramatic Writing   YA/Children's

4:00pm MDT

To Outline or Blast Ahead? That is the Question
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse
Register
Many novelist and memoirists swear by the outlining method, touting its efficiency and speed. Other writers feel constricted by the outlining process and prefer to write “by the seat of their pants.” How do you determine the best method for your novel or memoir? In this seminar, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of both methods, look at how they might apply to your particular project, and explore key questions to help you determine the best path forward for your individual situation.
Speakers
CS
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Fiction   Nonfiction/Memoir   YA/Children's

4:00pm MDT

The Rhetorical Hallway
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse
Register
Writing a poem is not unlike walking down a hallway, passing many doors, almost always too quickly. Which ones might we stop and open? How exactly do we do open these doors? When we write, we are making constant choices, intuitive and conscious. In this seminar, we’ll talk about how to slow down and understand our choices in poems, and by extension any piece of writing. This way we can vastly expand our writing, and continually renew our sense of exploration and discovery. We can also become better readers. We’ll look at poems by others, and gather specific techniques of expansion and discovery. Bring a poem of yours that you know is not yet right, and if we have time, we’ll practice slowing down together.
Speakers
avatar for Matthew Zapruder

Matthew Zapruder

Visiting Author
Poet, translator, professor and editor Matthew Zapruder was born in Washington, DC. in 1967. He earned a BA in Russian literature at Amherst College, an MA in Slavic languages and literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in poetry at the University of Massachusetts... Read More →
Tuesday June 10, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205
  Poetry   Hybrid
 
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