Lit Fest 2025: Full Schedule

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9:00am MDT

Live in the Layers: Mindfulness and Writing (V)

Thursday June 12, 2025 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

“Live in the layers, not on the litter,” Stanley Kunitz writes in his poem, “The Layers.” Through cultivating a practice of mindful writing, we can bring greater curiosity to the layers of our lives and more vivid, compelling, and powerful writing to the page. Writing itself can be its own path of mindfulness, training us to open our peripheral vision wider as we learn to listen to and glimpse what wants to be said. We’ll engage in some short writing and meditation exercises, and we’ll talk about writing to grow our freedom, gratitude, courage, and resilience.

Speakers

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 →

Thursday June 12, 2025 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Zoom

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir Poetry Hybrid

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

How to Write Sex Scenes without Shame

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse

Even though people think about sex all the time, and even have it occasionally, writers tend to shy away from the subject. Which is crazy. Because sex is the one experience that makes us all hopeful and horny and embarrassed and vulnerable. In this freewheeling afternoon, we’ll look at the work of Mary Gordon, James Salter, and other literary horndogs in an effort to figure out how to infuse our own sex scenes with genuine emotion and ecstatic sensation, not evasions and porn clichés. Arrive ready to lay your characters bare.

Speakers

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 →

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Imagination Station

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse

Come with an open mind, leave with pages and pages (and pages) of fresh writing! In this generative class, our magical box of props, prompts, and writing activities will infuse your writing with new energy, sending you in exciting new directions. Exercises will be in 3-5 minute sprints, each inspired by a different source of inspiration to explore. Open to writers of all genres who are looking for inspiration and fun.

Speakers

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 most recent collection of short stories, Save Me, Stranger, is out with Flatiron Books in January 2025. It has garnered starred reviews from Kirkus and... Read More →

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir Poetry Hybrid Dramatic Writing YA/Children's

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Writing the Law

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse

In this seminar, we'll infuse law into our fiction, memoir, or nonfiction, without sounding like an info dump cut from Law & Order. Explore nuances in courtroom scenes, and add social justice as a timestamp. Law is human conflict. Whether history, classic tales, speculative, or contemporary stories, we'll find strategies to imbue your work with intriguing legal dimensions while using prompts from films, nonfiction, and fiction.

Speakers

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Instructor

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an Emmy Award-winning writer, a professor of Constitutional Law and Africa Studies at John Jay College (CUNY), civil rights attorney, and playwright. She is the author of She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power; Race, Law, and American Society... Read More →

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir Dramatic Writing

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Sell Essays that Boost Your Book's Potential

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse

Trying to build your platform to sell your memoir book proposal? This seminar will give writers tools on how to brainstorm a variety of reported essay angles for their main personal story, craft pitches for reported stories that include the right balance of research and connection to readers, and find the editors’ contact and get their attention. We'll examine sample pitches that helped the instructor land research-backed essays in the New York Times, Guardian, Vogue, and CNBC which helped boost her credibility as an expert and in turn promote her book.

Speakers

Amanda McCracken

Instructor

Amanda McCracken is a freelance journalist who is passionate about experiences that highlight the intersection of wellness and relationships. A few places her work has been published include the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, National Geographic, Elle, Outside, NPR... Read More →

Thursday June 12, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205

Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Writing Cinematically: Using Moving Pictures to Tell Your Story (V)

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Zoom

Whether you are writing a novel or a memoir, your narrative is made up of moving pictures. We’ll draw on inspiration from select movies, that show how the narrative language of cinema can help you craft a vivid, cinematic narrative. Plan to practice writing.

Speakers

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 →

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Writing Fight Scenes (V)

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Zoom

Fighting—with words, fists, or guns—is an unavoidable fact of human life. Which makes it pretty much unavoidable in our stories, a necessary feature of conflict, and when done right, with skillful build-up, a source of catharsis and climax. Learning how to write successful argument and combat will be the subject of this seminar, in which we'll analyze excellent examples and reflect on our own work in progress.

Speakers

Daniel Levine

Instructor

Daniel Levine is the author of the novel Hyde, a New York Times Editor's Choice and one of Washington Post's 5 Best Thrillers of 2014. He studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Brown University and received his MFA in Fiction from the University of Florida. He has taught... Read More →

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Zoom

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading: Helen Phillips, Eileen Myles, Tony Tulathimutte, and Matthew Zapruder

Thursday June 12, 2025 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT

Lighthouse

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.

Speakers

Multiple Instructors

Thursday June 12, 2025 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Lighthouse 3870 York Street Denver, CO 80205

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir Hybrid Poetry

Audience Event

7:00pm MDT

Visiting Authors Reading: Helen Phillips, Eileen Myles, Tony Tulathimutte, and Matthew Zapruder (Livestream)

Thursday June 12, 2025 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT

Zoom

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.

Speakers

Multiple Instructors

Thursday June 12, 2025 7:00pm - 8:15pm MDT
Zoom

Fiction Nonfiction/Memoir Hybrid Poetry

Audience Event

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