Making a Scene: Writing Great Dialogue and More with Peter Mountford

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​Date: Saturday, September 26th
Time: 10:00am to 4:00pm
Cost: $150
Limited to: 12 participants
​Where: Online

Scenes are the building blocks of any story, fiction or nonfiction—where the story comes alive, which is why most novels and memoirs are mostly "in scene." On TV and in books, you can recognize a great scene. Yet, even if you've spent your career writing millions of emails or legal briefs or business plans, you've probably never written dialogue or scenes. In this class, you'll learn numerous tricks and shortcuts for making your scenes (especially your dialogue) captivate your audience's imagination, and bring readers inside your story.

Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction), and The Dismal Science (a NYT editor's choice). His work has appeared in The New York Times (the Modern Love column), The Paris Review, The Atlantic magazine, The Sun, Granta, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. Currently a creative writing professor at Sierra Nevada College's MFA program, Peter is a writing coach and developmental editor with clients around the world.

The Specific Beauty of Being Suddenly Stilled: A Generative Workshop with Pam Houston

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​Date: Saturday and Sunday, October 10th and 11th
Time: 10:00am to 4:00pm, with a two hour lunch/writing break 
Cost: $375
Limited to: 12 participants
​Where: Online
Full
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Stories begin in the physical stuff of our lives, the nouns that surround us and fill our days. The way my favorite dog sleeps with all four paws in the air, the rocky mountain bluebird that comes and perches on the small spruce tree outside my bedroom window at 7am sharp each morning, the $20.00 essential oil diffuser I bought on a whim a late last year that has, in these times, become one of favorite things. These times are extraordinary and along with all the uncertainty and sadness in our pared down lives, we might also be learning we might need fewer choices than we thought we did, we might be reacquainting ourselves with the forgotten things around the house or around our block that once made us so happy. Or there might be objects of menace here too, that we suddenly can’t run from. Those are portals into stories too.


Every artist, (even one who is inspired, as I am, by strange and far flung landscapes) understands there is great value in being still, in being given an assignment not of one’s choosing, in looking at familiar objects in new ways. In this class we will begin, as I always begin, with glimmers, the objects around you, the sights, sounds, tastes, smells that make you stop, do a double take, that vibrate inside you with resonance...hmmmm, your writer’s soul says when you are in the presence of a glimmer, that chunk of the exterior world is going to help me access something in my interior landscape. My belief is that if I can hear you describe in detail, the immune boosting stew you made for supper, or the sound the javalina’s make at night since they have reclaimed your formerly raucous neighborhood, that is the best way I have to know you, by the way you look out at the world. Once we have revealed ourselves via the physical stuff of our lives, we will also talk nuts and bolts of storymaking: point of view, tense, dialogue, scene, structure, beginnings and endings and why they weigh so much, and narrative arc. We will spend the weekend writing, reading, and talking about craft.

Pam Houston is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton. Her stories have been selected for volumes of The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Short Stories of the Century among other anthologies. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA Award for contemporary fiction, the Evil Companions Literary Award and several teaching awards. She teaches in the Low Rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is Professor of English at UC Davis, and co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers, which puts on between seven and ten writers gatherings per year in places as diverse as Boulder, Colorado, Tomales Bay, California and Chamonix, France. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level on a 120-acre homestead near the headwaters of the Rio Grande. A book of letters between Pam and environmental activist Amy Irvine will be published by Torrey House Press in October of 2020.

Developing A Sense of Place in Poems and Other Hybrid Forms with Gary Copeland Lilley

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​Date: Saturday, October 17th
Time: 10:00am to 3:30pm 
Cost: $200
Limited to: 8 participants
​Where: Online

Place in literature should be the starting point of a poem. It provides the physical aspect of an environment as well as the cultural, social, and emotional context in which we locate the lyrical and narrative of our poems and stories. Developing a sense of place is what separates one town, city, county, or region from another, and it’s what makes us, as readers, care about it. From it comes an identity that functions as a character. This is a generative workshop. Participants will create a set of drafts in which developing a sense of place is the primary consideration in enhancing the works.

Gary Copeland Lilley: is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman's Medicine Show, from Lost Horse Press (2017), and a chapbook, The Hog Killing, from Blue Horse Press (2018). He is originally from North Carolina and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the Washington DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. He is published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, The Swamp, Waxwing, the Taos International Journal of Poetry, and the African American Review. He is a Cave Canem Fellow.

Spirit in the Dark: Poetry for Hard Times with Kathryn Hunt

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Date: Saturday, October 24th
Time: 10:00am to 4:00pm 
Cost: $100
Limited to: 8 participants
​Where: Online

Outrage, remembrance, prayer, manifesto. How do poets marry the personal and the political? The lyrical and social engagement? Inner life with history? We'll consider the poetry of Joy Harjo, Cathy Linh Che, and Philip Levine, among others, and explore ways our imaginations might invite something greater than ourselves into our own poetry. Throughout the day, we’ll look at ways metaphorical language can widen and brighten (think lightning) the scope of poetry. I’ll provide writing prompts and feedback on your drafts. In the afternoon, we’ll experiment with polyphonic poetry (many voices) with Bob Francis, a biologist, musician, and writer. You’ll receive a packet of poems to read before the workshop. The workshop is open to all lovers of poetry and writers of all levels. Please come to class with a notebook or laptop and an open mind.

Kathryn Hunt’s poetry has appeared in the Sun, Radar, Orion, Missouri Review, Carolina Quarterly, Writer’s Almanac, and Narrative. Her first collection of poems, Long Way Through Ruin, was published by Blue Begonia Press. Say What a River Is, her second collection, is in manuscript. She is the recipient of residencies and awards from Ucross, Hedgebrook, Artists Trust, and Joya AIR (Spain). She recently completed a memoir, Why I Grieve I Do Not Know, a mother-daughter story. She’s worked as a waitress, shipscaler, short-order cook, bookseller, printer, food bank coordinator, filmmaker, and freelance writer. kathrynhunt.net

Alone with the Whole World: Cultivating Solitude to Deepen Character and Voice
​with Sonya Lea and Anna Quinn

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Date: Saturday and Sunday, November 7th and 8th
Time: 10:00am to 3:00pm
Cost: $375
Limited to: 12 participants
​Where: Online
​Full
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“How could I go deeper into my own vulnerability if I were to perpetually exist in a public space, if I had to perform (as we all must do, to some extent) in order to participate in society? So this charged isolation was the first step..." - Ocean Vuong

How does a writer build a life so that the imagination can exist? How do we acknowledge, nourish and give our bodies to our stories? How do strengthen our writer’s voice? What losses of our curated selves must happen in order for language to take precedence over our social or public lives? 

In this two-day workshop, twelve writers will delve into the spaces where character remains unseen, difficult or evasive. Together we will become liminal enough to allow character influence. With Anna Quinn and Sonya Lea as mentors, we will offer time for generative writing, ritual, practices to:

• take risks to write outside the bounds of how you expect your voice or your character’s voice to sound 
• write what deeply challenges us, or stays underground
• ask questions of your character’s blind spots, fears and fantasies
• write into lies, myths, obfuscations, secrets, changes in thinking
• discuss how reading, silence and observation can inform your work and settle your artistic practice
• practice removal from the public life, and discuss strategies for transitioning to a writer’s life​

​Anna Quinn is the author of The Night Child, (Blackstone Publishing, 2018). Her writing has appeared in Psychology Today, Writers’ Digest, Washington 129 Anthology, and more. Anna leads writing workshops across the country, and is the co-founder of The Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint Books in Port Townsend, WA. She is currently at work on her second novel, Confidante. Find her at annamquinn.com

Sonya Lea’s memoir, Wondering Who You Are was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Her essays have appeared in Salon, The Southern Review, Brevity, Guernica, Ms. Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, and more. She teaches writing in the United States and the Canadian Rockies. Find her at www.wonderingwhoyouare.com.

PoemLab: Techniques for Objective Revision with Peter Quinn

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​Date: Saturday, November 14th
Time: 9:00am to 12:00pm
Cost: $70
Limited to: 12 participants
​Where: Online

You have a poem. You think it has promise. Maybe the best one you’ve ever written. There’s a point where you lose the creative distance you need to keep working. How do you convince yourself it is as good as you want it to be?

This three hour session will explore techniques to take your poem through its paces, check its heartbeat, its music, the strength of its words, how it feels – to you first, then to others. Does is say what you hoped it would, does it bring out emotion, does it go there?

Using examples then 1-2 of your original poems, we will utilize specific, simple techniques intended to strengthen these elements in every line. You will see things happening you might not have seen before. Then you can decide if you like it that way or if you want to change it.

Take what you need and leave the rest. You will find at least one tool that will help you revise your poems with the creative distance an almost finished poem needs to shine.

Peter Quinn is a poet and business person. Businessman poets are odd, but it works for him. A graduate of Lewis and Clark College, he studied with poets Vern Rutsala, Tony Ostroff and William Stafford. In 1976 he received an Academy of American Poets Award. For several years following, poet John Willson and Peter convened a poetry group called Moonphases in Portland.

​Peter published ‘Painting Circles on Straight Highways’ (Irenicon Press), his first full length book of poetry, in 2012. He has published in Mississippi Mud, Foxfire, the Portland Oregonian and Pacific Northwest Magazine, Tidepools, Northwinds Anthology, and the Port Townsend Leader. His work appears in A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford, from Woodley Press. He continues to write poetry and lead workshops to feed his poetry passion.

​Poems of Gratitude: Celebrating Solstice with Lauren Davis

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Date: Monday, December 21st
Time: 1:00pm to 3:30pm
Cost: $45
Limited to: 6 participants
​Where: Online
​Full
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Welcome Winter into being with poems of gratitude. Davis will provide a variety of poetry prompts inspired by contemporary poets. You’ll walk away from this workshop with a new stack of drafts for a new season. This workshop is appropriate for all levels of experience.

​Lauren Davis is the author of Home Beneath the Church, forthcoming from Fernwood Press, and the chapbook Each Wild Thing’s Consent, published by Poetry Wolf Press. She holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. She is a former Editor in Residence at The Puritan’s Town Crier and has been awarded a residency at Hypatia-in-the-Woods. 

Her work has appeared in over fifty literary publications and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Spillway, Split Lip Magazine, Ibbetson Street, Ninth Letter and elsewhere.

​Payment and Refund Policy:

• Full payment may be made with credit card, cash, or check.
• Full payment must be made at the time of sign-up to hold your place.
  • We do offer payment plans and need-based scholarships. Email us at info@writersworkshoppe.com for more information on how to apply.
• Imprint Bookstore and The Writers' Workshoppe will offer a refund only if the workshop you're signed up for is full and we can find a replacement for your spot. This policy is necessary in order to pay and attract quality instructors.