Lit Fest - Lighthouse Writers Workshop 2026: Full Schedule

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9:00am MDT

The Creative Act: Finding Flow in Flaw (V)

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Inspired by Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act, this generative workshop will loosen your sense of perfectionism and open the door to creative possibility. Through the practices of stillness, attention, and mindful observation, we’ll quiet the inner critic, welcome flaws on the page, and make them part of the creative process. Guided exercises will turn mistakes into unexpected openings and reveal new textures in your writing. Leave with pages that surprise you and a renewed sense of creative freedom.

Speakers

Ladane Nasseri

Faculty

Ladane Nasseri is a journalist and writer. A former Middle East correspondent for Bloomberg News where she led Iran’s news coverage, Ladane has reported for a decade and a half from Tehran, Dubai, and Beirut. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Businessweek... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Virtual

All Genres

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Desire and Power

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Desire is a fundamental element of character-building, yet in too many drafts, character desires lack urgency or are too easily thwarted or fulfilled. In this seminar, we’ll discuss different ways to pump up the stakes and, even better, consider the sparks that can fly when multiple characters have multiple, competing desires. How can tension be built through power dynamics? What are the ways in which power might manifest? How might it be applied? And how and when might it shift, so that your characters—and your reader—are kept on their toes?

Speakers

Dino Enrique Piacentini

Faculty

Dino Enrique Piacentini grew up in Los Angeles, lived in San Francisco for twenty years, and has also, at various times, set down stakes in Houston, Oaxaca, Champaign, and Prague. His debut novel, Invasion of the Daffodils, about a Mexican-American family living on an island off the... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Haunted Landscapes: Writing Place as Presence

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

In this generative workshop, we’ll go about the project of animating setting as character. Through prompts and discussion, we’ll explore how landscape can embody memory, loss, and the uncanny—whether rural, urban, or imagined. Come ready to write!

Speakers

Hillary Leftwich

Faculty

Hillary Leftwich is a neurodivergent, multimedia writer and the author of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (CCM Press, 2019 and Agape Editions, 2023 new edition), Aura (Future Tense Books and Blackstone Audio Publishing, 2022), and Saint Dymphna’s Playbook (forthcoming... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Say Less, Mean More: Writing with Subtext

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Learn how to layer meaning beneath dialogue and description so your characters reveal as much in silence as they do in speech. We’ll analyze short examples, then practice writing scenes where the real tension simmers beneath the words.

Speakers

Rachel Weaver

Faculty

Rachel Weaver is the author of the novel Point of Direction, which Oprah Magazine named a Top Ten Book to Pick Up Now and which won the 2015 Willa Cather Award for Fiction. She is on the faculty at Wilkes University’s low-residency MFA program in addition to teaching Lighthouse... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Revision is the Doorway to a Poem's (R)evolution

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

This seminar will begin with an artist talk focused on revision. We’ll look at the (r)evolution of selected poems and lyrical essays from personal archives—from their raw and earnest first attempts into their final forms. We’ll explore the process of research and material collection; intellectual/emotional considerations; and the detachment from initial ideas and embrace of new directions and forms. We’ll also watch a few short videos of other poets discussing their revision processes. We’ll think about the ways that revision opens the doors for our poem’s liberation and freedom. Together, through group discussion and hands-on exercises, we’ll develop our own set of “best practices” for revision.

This is the in-person version of this event.

Speakers

Layli Long Soldier

Visiting Author

Layli Long Soldier is author of the collection Whereas (Graywolf Press, 2017), which won the National Books Critics Circle award, the 2018 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her poems and critical work have appeared in POETRY Magazine, The New... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Poetry

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Revision is the Doorway to a Poem's (R)evolution (Livestream)

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Virtual

Speakers

Layli Long Soldier

Visiting Author

Saturday June 13, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Virtual

Poetry

Type advanced, intermediate, intro
Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Is My Character An Asshole?

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

WWE Hall-of-Famer Scott Hall famously said, "Bad times don't last, but bad guys do." Is it true that bad characters last longer in our imaginations than the good ones? How does this compete with conventional wisdom that encourages likeable characters? We’ll examine common character tropes in fiction and nonfiction, as well as the mandate that characters can (or should?) change over the course of the story. Collectively, we’ll explore character arcs and how to create lasting relationships between readers and characters. Each writer will leave this seminar having developed an archetype for one of their characters.

Speakers

Pardeep Toor

Faculty

Pardeep Toor's writing has appeared in the Best Debut Short Stories 2021, The PEN America Dau Prize, Catapult, Electric Literature, Longreads, and Southern Humanities Review. His short story collection, Hands, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press.

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Literary Ephemera

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

In this generative, multi-genre course, we’ll explore alternative approaches to storytelling, such as erasure, literary collage, photo captions and image-text hybrids. We’ll create narratives relying less on plot and more on association, juxtaposition and negative space. This seminar will be run like an art studio – with live prompts and plenty of cutting, pasting, erasing and replacing. Through examples, discussion and exercises, we’ll learn how everyday ephemera can jumpstart your writing, help you approach a project from another angle, or simply see your world differently. Bring your inner child, an open mind, and be prepared to play.

Speakers

Harrison Candelaria Fletcher

Faculty

Harrison Candelaria Fletcher is the author of the essay collection, Descanso for My Father, the memoir, Presentimiento: A Life in Dreams, and his newest, Finding Querencia: Essays from In Between. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, Autumn House... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Sentence Surgery: Another Live Editing Seminar

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Sentences in fiction are subject to different demands than sentences in nonfiction, and thus (perhaps) must be constructed and revised differently. In this multi-hour live-edit session, we'll collectively play with various sentences and paragraphs as a means of exploring this idea, beginning with a sentence that every typist knows by heart, then mauling passages from some famous/infamous works, and concluding with examples submitted by participants (from their own work or from well-known writers, preferably dead). Where, exactly, we go will be driven by the examples selected and the questions that arise. Emphasis will be on exploring the phenomenal plasticity of language, design tradeoffs in sentence structure, and the cognitive processes involved in reading, rather than issues of correctness, style, or rhetorical strategy.

Speakers

David Wroblewski

Faculty

David Wroblewski is the author, most recently, of the novel Familiaris, his followup to the internationally bestselling The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle, an Oprah Book Club pick, Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, winner of the Colorado Book Award, Indie Choice Best... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Structure through Motif

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

A motif is a recurring element in a piece of art—an object, action, idea, sensation, or just a word or line. Saris. Doors opening and closing. Variations of the word “small.” And, like characters, motifs can develop over the course of a narrative, adding layers of suggestion and meaning. They can even serve as a narrative’s primary structural element. In this seminar, we’ll consider motifs that call to us; locate potential motifs in our own drafts; identify ways to tease out arcs for our motifs; and maybe even figure out how to use those motifs to build an entire story or essay around. Bring something short you’d like to play around with.

Speakers

Dino Enrique Piacentini

Faculty

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

The Laundry Line (V)

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Virtual

In his writing workshops, the journalist Michael Pollan says that every piece of writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, needs a "laundry line": a main conceptual through-line that is strong yet flexible enough to hold the various vignettes, reflections, and analyses that make up the piece. This craft seminar will provide an opportunity for writers to begin developing a sturdy laundry line for their current projects, focusing on the difference between narrative and chronology, how voice evolves across structure, how to braid personal reflection with reportage and analysis, and much more.

Speakers

Natalie Hodges

Faculty

Born and raised in Denver, Natalie Hodges has performed as a classical violinist throughout Colorado and in New York, Boston, Paris, and the Italian Piedmont, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival and the Stowe Tango Music Festival. Her first book, Uncommon Measure: A Journey Through... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Virtual

Fiction, Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Sell Essays That Boost Your Book's Potential

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Trying to build your platform to sell your memoir book proposal? I was in that situation last year. This seminar will help writers brainstorm a variety of reported essay angles for their main personal story, and craft pitches for reported stories that include the right balance of research and connection to readers. We’ll talk about finding contacts for editors and then grabbing their attention. We'll examine sample pitches that helped me land research-backed essays in the New York Times, Guardian, Vogue and CNBC, all of which boosted my credibility as an expert, which in turn promoted my book.

Speakers

Amanda McCracken

Faculty

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, ESPN... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

I Shot the Sheriff: Writing True/Untrue Confessions

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Literary confessions generate sympathy, create immediacy, and solidify the confessor’s relationship with an empathetic reader. But how do you navigate the trickier aspects of confession: drama vs. self-indulgence, getting the reader to care, and scariest of all, what your mother might think? In this class, we’ll examine how the experts navigate their real and imaginary confessions, and plunder their secrets for our personal use. And then confess to it. Privacy will be respected; open to all genres.

Speakers

Erika Krouse

Faculty

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 →

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Literary Swagger: Writing Prose that Makes Readers Take Notice

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Have you ever read a passage in a book that made you want to applaud, howl, laugh, and most of all, underline? Some writers have literary swagger, and don’t think that people don’t notice! Swagger can arrive through confidence, humor, decisiveness, or intensity of feeling. Swagger happens when the voice of the prose rises to meet the pitch of the story in an important moment. In this class we’ll read examples from writers including Miranda July, Deborah Jackson Taffa, Olga Tokarczuk, Damon Young, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Kevin Wilson, and Hanif Abdurraquib and try writing knockout prose of our own.

Speakers

Jenny Shank

Faculty

Jenny Shank's short story collection, Mixed Company, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and the Colorado Book Award and her novel, The Ringer, won the High Plains Book Award in fiction.

Jenny's stories, essays, satire, and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, McSweeney's, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Poets & Writers, Bust Magazine, The Guardian, Santa Monica... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Out of Character

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

TBA

Contrary to everything writers are told about crafting credible characters, this workshop will explore when and why your characters should do something “out of character.” Practicing techniques we’ll discuss in class, we’ll further develop characters, build tension, create conflict, and/or work toward revelation and resolution. We will use low-stakes fiction-focused writing exercises to explore the idea but creative nonfiction writers and memoirists will learn how to use the same concept in their work. All participants will learn who the people populating their pages really are.

Speakers

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz is a writer living on the East Side of Old Town Longmont in a Victorian bungalow one alley away from the train tracks. Her first novel Fig debuted from Simon & Schuster in 2015 and was selected by NPR as A Best Read of the Year before going on to win a 2016... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Unspooling Local Lore: Bringing Your Setting to Life

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Even as many of us can quickly identify the eccentricities and mythology of places we’ve called home, it can be enormously challenging to fully capture a place on the page. In this two-hour, generative craft seminar, writers will have the opportunity to name, map, and explicate the urban legends, suburban gossip, and local lore that defines the towns and cities we call home, and, in doing so, bring the settings of our fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction to life in more vivid detail.

Speakers

Chris Vanjonack

Faculty

Chris Vanjonack is a writer and educator from Fort Collins, Colorado. A recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, his fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in One Story, Barrelhouse, Electric Literature, Ninth Letter, DIAGRAM, Quarterly West, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. In... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Lyric Essay: Gathering Fragments

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

In this workshop, we will read examples and begin drafting our own lyric essays. The lyric essay is a form that brings together elements of poetry, memoir, and creative nonfiction to invite a reader to an experience. Sometimes fragmented, the lyric essay allows us to draw from our own memories, impressions, ideations, questions and research to weave a narrative about our individual and collective experiences. We will write fragments in response to prompts and find strategies to weave them together into lyric essays.

Speakers

Suzi Q Smith

Faculty

Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, organizer, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. She has created, curated, coached, and taught in Denver for over 20 years, managing the largest poetry festivals that Denver has seen to date. A TEDx speaker multiple times, Suzi has performed... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Nonfiction/Memoir, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Rhapsody (V)

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Virtual

Rhapsody: an expression of ecstasy or uncontrolled emotion. This is not a genre we hear much about in poetry classes, but this workshop invites writers to play in language and sing out their most unbridled feelings. We will look at how sound and image—and even the use of punctuation and the page—can open the poem to articulate what we might otherwise hesitate to express.

Speakers

Elizabeth Robinson

Faculty

Elizabeth Robinson is the author of over a dozen volumes of poetry. Her most recent books are Three Novels (Omnidawn), Counterpart (Ahsahta), and Blue Heron (Center for Literary Publishing). Robinson’s mixed genre meditation, On Ghosts (Solid Objects), was a finalist for the Los... Read More →

Saturday June 13, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Virtual

Poetry