Workshops

Writing Fiction for Children with Patrick Jennings

Tuesdays, September 27th -October 11th
10:00am to 12:00pm
Cost: $150
Limited to 6 Participants
Where: Online

Do you have a story guaranteed to delight young readers (ages 6-12)? This three-week workshop will help you bring it to life, with vivid characters, solid structure, narrative sweep, and thematic clarity. We will also discuss the various forms of children's literature, as well as finding and working with agents, editors, illustrators, and art directors.

Patrick Jennings is the author of 25 books for young readers - published by Scholastic, Random House, HarperCollins, et al - including Guinea Dog, We Can't All Be Rattlesnakes, and Odd, Weird & Little. He is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award, Booklist Editor's Choice Award, Smithsonian Magazine Notable Book for Children, New York Public Library Best Book, and was a PEN Center USA Literary Award finalist as well as a PNW Booksellers Association Award nominee. Jennings has been a presenter at schools and libraries all over the US and abroad for over twenty years.

The Ongoing Poetry Workshop with Gary Copeland Lilley

Dates: Thursdays, September 29th - December 8th
Time: 5:30pm to 8:00pm
Cost: $250
Limited to: 8 participants
Where: Online

A weekly poetry workshop open to writers of any skill level or genre, a gathering of writers coming together in a supportive environment to work on the development and refining of our personal aesthetics. Yes, free to do your poetic thing with a focus on the crafting of poems, and on not judging poets. That is exactly the attitude this ongoing workshop has always maintained, while working the literary elements we use to create poems: gaining an understanding of poetry’s major operating modes, discovering ways to build the sharper images, enhance the poem’s musicality, and to convey those subtle meanings and significant statements uncovered in the poetic process. Each week, bring 9 copies of a poem in progress. Simply put, this workshop rocks as much as you want it to.

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.

Poetry in Progress: New Poems in Your Pocket with Peter Quinn

Dates: Tuesdays, October 4th - November 8th
Time: 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Limited to 6 participants
Cost: $150
Where: online

“Write nothing that can’t, in the stress of the moment, actually be said.” - Ezra Pound

Poetry is how our mind speaks. We write these conversations down. The ones we like best we share them with others. In groups like this one. This class is optimized for remote learning. The experience should be uniquely rewarding in this format. We don’t critique, we react to each other’s poems. We tell the poet what we have heard, what we liked, how it made us feel.

You will email a poem to other participants at least 3 days prior to the session. The idea is to receive feedback to a poem then read a new poem at the end of each session to be reacted to at the next session. Each session will end with a prompt and time to give it a go. You’d be amazed what starts when you let your mind hear the prompt. Really hear it. Be brave. It’s safe. The goal of each session is to have us leave wanting to write more. And to find our selves writing better.

Peter Quinn is the Washington State author of two books of poetry; Painting Circles on Straight Highways (Irenicon Press, 2012), and small things due to be published in March of 2023 by Turning Point Press. He is currently working on his first book of fiction Lady, Lucifer and Coward, the unwritten journal of his grandfather brought to the page through the alchemy of fiction.

Blow Your Mind: A Generative Workshop with Anna Quinn

Dates: Wednesdays, October 5th - November 9th
Time: 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Limited to 12 participants
Cost: $150
Where: online

“The creative imagination is what drives us, nourishes us, gives us the taste and capacity for life. The imagination poses searching riddles, and the moment it does, poetry and science, philosophy and cosmology are born.” - Rikki Ducornet

All writers crave inspiration, yearn to breathe in new ideas, shake things up and swim through new portals of imagination. This generative workshop for both fiction and non-fiction writers will offer intriguing exercises and fresh approaches to loosen your imagination, open up new possibilities, cultivate experimentation and basically, blow your mind. All you need to do is show up with an open and playful intention and explore the extraordinary places that exist within your inventive, original self.

Anna Quinn is a writer and teacher based in Washington State. She is the author of two novels, The Night Child, (Blackstone, 2018), and forthcoming ANGELINE (Blackstone, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Psychology Today, Writer’s Digest, Medium, Washington 129 Anthology, and the Alone Together Anthology. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading, biking or hiking somewhere on this beautiful planet.

The Art and Craft of Poetry: A Generative Workshop with Kathryn Hunt

Dates: Fridays, October 7th - November 11th
Time: 2:30pm to 4:30pm
Cost: $225
Limited to: 10 Participants
Where: Online

This six-week workshop offers a chance to strengthen your writing practice and begin new poems. We’ll read and discuss poems by contemporary writers, you’ll write new drafts based on prompts, and I’ll provide feedback (if you’d like) while your workshop mates listen. We’ll explore forms like persona poems, sonnets, braided poems, and prose poems, with an eye to the art and craft of poetry, and consider revision, music and rhythm, and the act of listening deeply for what the poem under the poem is trying to say. The weekly workshop will foster a supportive atmosphere that encourages and builds a community of poets on the Olympic Peninsula and beyond.

Kathryn Hunt makes her home on the coast of the Salish Sea, on the ancestral lands of the S’Klallam, Chemakum, and Suquamish. Her poems have appeared in Orion, Radar, Terrain, Missouri Review, and Narrative, among other journals. Her second collection of poems Seed Wheel was published by Lost Horse Press in 2021 and a chapbook The Country I Come From was published by Refugia Press in 2022. She’s recently completed a memoir, The Matter of All Things. Kathryn Hunt has worked as a waitress, shipscaler, short-order cook, bookseller, food bank coordinator, filmmaker, and freelance writer. kathrynhunt.net

Blah, Blah, Blah: When Dialogue Falls Flat (And How to Fix It!) with Nicole Persun

Date: Saturday, October 15th
Time: 10:00am to 1:00pm
Cost: $95
Limited to 12 Participants
Where: Online

Dialogue isn’t just about propelling the plot or allowing your character to voice her thoughts—it’s about power struggles, emotions, backstory, and more. Good dialogue is nuanced, multi-layered, and intentional. It grips the reader’s attention and subtly conveys the unspoken inner lives of our characters. In this class, you will learn how to take your dialogue to the next level. If you’ve been struggling to make your characters sound different from one another, want to add layered tension and unspoken intrigue to your dialogue, or simply want to write conversations that flow smoothly and pack a punch, this class is for you.

Nicole J. Persun is an award-winning and internationally bestselling author with a master's degree in Creative Writing & Instruction. Nicole has written and published in multiple genres, most notably book club fiction under the pen name Jennifer Gold. The Ingredients of Us was a 2020 Book Excellence Award Winner and a two-time finalist for the 2020 International Book Award. Her latest release, Keep Me Afloat, received five award recognitions, including a 2020 CIBA Somerset First Place honor. Learn more at nicolejpersun.com and jennifergoldauthor.com.

Demystifying Book Contracts with Conner Bouchard-Roberts (Winter Texts) and Christina Vega (Blue Cactus Press)

Date: Saturday, October 22nd
Time: 11:00am to 3:00pm
Cost: $100
Limited to: 15 participants
Where: Online

Conner and Christina will lead participants through the ins and outs of book publishing contracts. Topics we will pay particularly close attention to include understanding publishing rights, royalties, advances, and free and discounted author copies, negotiating expanded participation in editorial and design components of the book-making process, understanding how and why authors and publishers can advocate for their needs, and embedding equitable and reasonable checkpoints for contractual and relationship reevaluation into contracts.

Christina Vega (they/them) is a Queer Chicana poet from New Mexico. They're the publisher at Blue Cactus Press, a hybrid publishing house making books by Queer and BIPOC authors. Christina is also a board member at Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. They have been teaching creative writing, book making, and publishing workshops in the Pacific Northwest for the last five years. Christina self-published their debut poetry collection, Still Clutching Maps, in 2017. Their poetry has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Frontera Vol. 3: estados silvestres // natural states, International Poetry Review, Papeachu Issue 3, Timberline Review, WA129+, and Milk Gallery. Christina’s journalism has appeared in City Arts, Grit City Magazine, Hilltop Action Journal, OLY ARTS, The Ranger, VOICE Magazine and Weekly Volcano. Follow Christina on Twitter @bluecactuspress and Instagram @ccthemighty.

Conner Bouchard-Roberts is a Pacific Northwestern author, bartender, gardener, and publisher from Qatáy/Port Townsend, WA. Winter texts is his publishing practice, and the Green Room is his bookshop and bar. He has worked with writers of all types as an editor, collaborator, designer, and publisher. @winter_texts

Objects to Shape a World: A Nonfiction Workshop with Sonya Lea

Dates: Saturdays, November 5th - 19th
Time: 9:00am to 1:00pm
Cost: $300
Limited to: 8 participants
Where: Online

We resonate with the objects, natural and cultural, that inform our world. Whether it’s our teenage diary, a rock collected on a hike, a treasured Polaroid, a postcard from faraway, these are forces that guide our writing and help us shape the world of our books and essays.

This online nonfiction course will explore techniques for writing about those things we are in relationship with, the ones that transcend being objects alone, those entities that influence our narratives. We’ll explore stories of childhood relics, fungal webs, animal interactions, mountain erosions, long-lost letters, and more, asking how nonhuman engagement informs our knowing. Over three weeks, students will write a piece composed of a living (and dying) world for their books, essays and other work, new or in progress.

Each session, we’ll consider a piece of writing with a more-than-human focus, as in Lacy M. Johnson’s history of slime mold and the threat of climate change, or Lauret Savoy’s essays on national parks, race and identity. Through close readings and a series of generative exercises, we’ll hone our craft for creating complex, living worlds, working with personal objects. This class is suitable for all levels, and especially for writers who may have a focus in mind: bring your objects, research and thinking about what it is you’re exploring, whether that’s a family photo or a cherished plant or an image of a landscape.

Weekly preparatory readings (10-25 pages), and an optional writing project (an essay up to 3000 words). Students will share their writing, and our final class will be focused on feedback of our work.

Sonya Lea’s memoir, Wondering Who You Are, (Tin House) about what happened after her husband lost the memory of their life, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and an Artist Trust Award. She has received a Canada Council Award and a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for her essay collection, in progress. Her essays have appeared in Salon, The Southern Review, Brevity, Guernica, Ms. Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and more.

Personas and Point of View in Creative Nonfiction with Anne Liu Kellor

Dates: Tuesdays, November 29th and December 6th
Time: 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Cost: $120
16 Participants (minimum of 8)
Where: Online

All of us have many layers, roles, or parts of ourselves we can inhabit. Whether we are with family, with friends, in public, in private, at home or traveling, our identity is malleable and shifting. In this generative workshop, we will explore writing from our different personas from a range of points of view—including 3rd person, 2nd, 1st person, past and present tense— experimenting with how point of view allows us to access a multitude of voices. Which part of you needs permission to come alive on the page? Together we will free-write, share, and listen in a supportive, non-judgmental environment.

Anne Liu Kellor is a mixed-race Chinese American writer, editor, and teacher based in Seattle. Her memoir, Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging, was praised by Cheryl Strayed as "insightful, riveting, and beautifully written" and was a 2021 Foreword Indie Book of the Year Finalist and Independent Publisher’s Book Award Winner in multicultural nonfiction. Anne's essays have appeared in publications such as YES! Magazine, Longreads, Fourth Genre, Witness, The Normal School, and New England Review. She is the recipient of fellowships from Hedgebrook, The Seventh Wave, Jack Straw Writers Program, 4Culture, and Hypatia-in-the-Woods. Anne facilitates a seasonal generative writing workshop series, as well as a yearlong creative nonfiction program for women and nonbinary writers seeking mentorship and community. www.anneliukellor.com

Sorrow's Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief with Sheila Bender

Date: Saturday, January 7th
Time: 10:00am to 3:00pm
Cost: $150
Limited to 10 Participants (minimum of 5)
Where: Online

Using writing exercises with models from published work, we will explore not only writing from grief (coming at the truth slant as Emily Dickinson advises) but many joyful memories in hiding during grief. Many of the exercises are based on my book Sorrow's Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief and my new collection Since Then: Poems and Short Prose through which I learned patterns for writing the conversation one most wants to have while in grief and after the rawness has healed over. Participants will be encouraged to share the writing they do in class for response (not critiquing) aimed at helping the writer write more.

Sheila Bender has written many instructional books on writing, several volumes of poetry, and a prose memoir. Writing is her passion but her passion for facilitating others is as large. Since the death of her 25-year-old son in 2000, Sheila has written the words she has needed to come to terms with loss and the life she wants to live with love and joy. These writings culminated in her memoir, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief, Sorrow's Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief, as well as her newest poetry collection, Since Then: Poems and Short Prose. You may already know the way she values writing and those who write from her long-running KPTZ FM program "In Conversation: Discussions on Writing and the Writing Life."

Exploring the Surreal in Prose Poetry with Jose Hernandez Diaz

Dates: Mondays, January 9th - 30th
Time: 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Cost: $100
Limited to: 15 participants
Where: Online

Exploring the Surreal in Prose Poetry. First, we will take a look at what is surreal prose poetry? Through close readings of established masters we will gain insight into prose poetry. Next, with use of the instructor's own prompts we will write drafts of prose poems in class. Poems from the instructor's class have been published in The Georgia Review, Crab Creek Review, Honey Literary, Brazos River Review, and elsewhere.

Jose Hernandez Diaz holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from the University of California, Berkeley, and Antioch University Los Angeles. He is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) and Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Nation, Poetry, The Progressive, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011. He teaches creative writing for various organizations including Beyond Baroque, Litro Magazine, The Writer’s Center in DC, Hugo House, Roots/Wounds/Words, and elsewhere.

WORKSHOPS