Key: (beg) beginning level; (int) intermediate level; (adv) advanced level

8:30am | Conference Welcome & Orientation

9:15am | Saturday Morning Sessions

Research for Creative Writers with Andrea Karin Nelson (beg-int) - Explore how to effectively use research to strengthen our writing and spark our creativity. Participants will walk away understanding how to use research to deepen their world-building, improve their plot, create accurate dialogue and action, and get unstuck from writer’s block. Key take-away points include learning at what stages of the writing process research is beneficial and what elements to include; understanding effective methods of research, including what tools to use, how to verify the accuracy of information, and tips for engaging with experts; how to use research to spark creativity, generate new ideas, and get unstuck from writer’s block.

This 20-point Checklist Will Strengthen Your Work with Shirin Yim Leos (int) - Over a dozen years of coaching writers, editing their work, facilitating group critiques, and teaching writing craft, Shirin Yim Leos has developed a checklist that she now implements with all her writers when it is time to consider, critique, and revise. In this workshop she will take you through that checklist, point out how to spot each item, why it is important, and how it should be fixed. She will shed new light on challenges and foibles you may have thought familiar, and introduce opportunities for improvement you may never have even considered. At the end of the class, walk away with a 20-point revision guide that you can use for the rest of your writing life!

Bricks and Sticks: Building Your Story with Kate Ristau (int) - How do you create a story that resonates with readers? How do you get them to turn the page, over and over again? Join this session to explore how to use concrete details to cement your reader’s attention and build out your world in thoughtful and meaningful ways. Take-away points include how to build in concrete details to flesh out your scenes; nuanced dialogue tricks that build your world and advance your plot; learning how to determine the limits of detail: when is too much, well, too much?

Your Story, Your Voice: A Memoir Session with Colleen Foye Bollen (beg-int) - Discover the art of memoir writing. Explore techniques for capturing vivid memories, discovering your unique voice and structuring your stories. Learn to cull through past memories and craft compelling narratives from your life experiences. Perfect for writers looking to transform their personal stories into captivating memoirs. Attendees will learn how to focus on specific events, create specific themes for their memoir and how to weave sensory details and narrative into a compelling story.

10:45am | Saturday Morning Sessions

Distinctive Dialogue with Robin Jeffrey (beg-int) - Many writers struggle with dialogue, but it can be one of the most memorable and useful parts of your work. In this session, you’ll learn tricks for crafting dialogue that supports character, moves the plot forward, and keeps your reader turning pages.

First Draft as an Improvisation with Curtis Chen (all levels) - Words don't cost a thing, so any writing is better than no writing. Besides, you can’t see what’s wrong with a scene that doesn’t exist, right? To take the pressure to be perfect from the outset, Curtis Chen has found it helpful (especially when starting novels) to approach the first draft as an improvisation. In this session attendees will adapt elements actors use in an improvised performance to our writing by starting with a story prompt and going from there. (No performing required! Honest!) Each scene will have a different goal, both emotionally and plot-wise. Attendees will discover how to stretch their creativity muscles and maybe have a little fun along the way.

Ordinary Time, Extraordinary Time with Anne Elliott (int-adv) - What makes today different from all other days? How do we establish the ordinary for characters, then interrupt it to reveal new depths of personality, relationships, and worlds? Exposition can feel inert. We’ll consider how to make it feel alive, then transition to the “story” part of the story. Attendees will leave with a foundation in the idea of “ordinary” vs. “extraordinary” time for characters, and why those things matter, learn specific maneuvers that can break open the ordinary, some classic and some contrarian, and obtain a list of some strong models to read for inspiration, including craft texts.

The Romance of Travel Writing with Nick O'Connell (all levels) - Travel writing sounds too good to be true. You head off to France, Hawaii, or the Swiss Alps, take some notes, shoot some photos and then write articles that sell for enough to pay for the entire trip. But the reality is that only a handful of writers get these really choice assignments. This course will help you become one of the lucky few. It will introduce you to the fundamentals of travel writing, including scene, character sketches, dialogue, and point of view, as well as how to pitch those stories to an editor at an appropriate publication.

12:00 | Lunch Break

1:30 | Keynote: Jonathan Evison | Edmonds Theater (415 Main St)

2:45 | Saturday Afternoon Sessions

Critique Panel with April Dávila, Anne Elliott & Ray Rhamey (all levels) - Attendees may have up to 3 pages of their fiction, nonfiction or memoir anonymously read aloud by the panel. The panel will then discuss the work and provide comment, outlining what they find compelling and where they feel there is room for improvement with concrete examples.

A Beginner's Guide to Marketing with Andrew Buckley (beg) - A beginner's guide (or, a refresher course!) to help authors market themselves and their work effectively. This presentation covers essential marketing strategies including social media presence, website development, public speaking opportunities, and proven methodologies to reach a target audience.

Building Suspense in Any Genre with Matthew Sullivan (beg-int) - This session will focus on ways that writers can use suspense to create more compelling fiction and intensify the reader’s experience, regardless of genre. Topics will include pacing, plot, character, and structure.

How to Craft Better Villains Based on Real Life Experiences with Sara Lunsford (all levels) - Curious what it would be like to chat with a serial killer? Want to know how some offenders choose their victims? How they see themselves? Interact with their loved ones? Get ready to up your villain game with juicy morsels straight from an author and former officer in a men's maximum security prison.

This is the Place: The Power of Setting in Your Poetry with Christy Lee Barnes (all levels) - Poets are invited in this session to focus on the poetry of place and the power of a strong setting. Context will draw upon both the presenter's chapbook, Commodore Rookery, and relevant examples by well-known poets. Take away points include tips to revitalize the emotional landscape of attendees' poems by considering the power of setting; identifying places they feel drawn to and explore the themes inherent in these strong connections to place and landscape; and examples from modern poets to help strengthen and revise their drafts.

4:15 | Saturday Afternoon Sessions

It's All About Character with Jonathan Evison (all) - We tend to think of character development, plot, and theme as three different narrative aspects. But they’re really three sides of the same objective—the story you’re telling. Both plot and theme are sublimated in character. Plot is predicated upon the decisions that your characters make. It’s not events that drive the plot, it is the decisions precipitating the events. Theme is predicated on your character’s learning curve. The themes develop as your characters develop. The key to cohesion, unity, and a palpable conclusion in your story is fine tuning this development.

Working with Opposites in Poetry with Ken Letko (int-adv) - This workshop will illuminate opposites in poetry. Intermediate and advanced participants will develop awareness of how a whole includes opposites. Through examples and discussion, the presenter will comment on and engage the audience in a dialog focused on four topics: definitions, history, examples, and implementation.

Nature Journaling with Cara Stoddard (int) -Nonfiction writers will learn how to jump-start their own nature journaling practice. Through looking at examples and guided writing prompts, writers will begin to shape the “raw material” of their observations into lyric prose that enhances the sense of place in their creative-nonfiction.

Your Path Through Today's Publishing Labyrinth with Shirin Yim Leos & Lisa Manterfield (all levels) - This session will stimulate participants to consider what they want out of publishing, and which of today’s many paths is best suited for their personally defined success. As any journey to publication is long, even beginning writers will benefit from this session to set themselves up early for success; and advanced writers who are ready to submit will benefit from taking away in hand, focused and actionable next steps. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the complex but exciting state of today’s publishing industry. Attendees will learn how to evaluate which path is best for them and next steps.

5:30 - 7:00pm | Book Signing & Contest Awards Reception

Sessions/Workshops/Program subject to change

City of Edmonds - Washington

Conference Schedule