Lit Fest - Lighthouse Writers Workshop 2026: Full Schedule

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9:00am MDT

Becoming a Channel

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

In drafting and editing, there are often two different drives at play: our conception of what the text is “about” vs. the story that wants to be told. How, as writers, do we dismantle our egos, transcend the clutter of the conscious mind, and surrender control—even in a rigorous editing process—to tap into the fundamental heart of a story?

In this seminar, writers will be given a toolkit for doing just that. We’ll explore meditation, archetype, myth, ekphrasis, writing in motion, somatic exercises, stichomancy, and alchemy. We’ll also discuss the outlining process from a perspective of fluidity, and how, like the ship of Theseus, an outline can evolve as we write and edit.

This is the in-person version of this event.

Speakers

Melissa Broder

Visiting Author

Melissa Broder is the author of the novels DEATH VALLEY, MILK FED, and THE PISCES, the essay collection SO SAD TODAY, and five collections of poems, including SUPERDOOM: Selected Poems. Her books are translated in over twelve languages. Broder has written for The New York Times, Harper's... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Becoming a Channel (Livestream)

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Virtual

Speakers

Melissa Broder

Visiting Author

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Virtual

Fiction

Type advanced, intermediate, intro
Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

How to Write Sex Scenes without Shame

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

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... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Creative Research: Turning Curiosity into Story (V)

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Virtual

At the start of every great story is a question and the need to explore or understand better. In this class, we’ll explore how intentional research can enrich your creative work and give it depth, texture, and authority. Drawing from my background in journalism, I’ll show you practical ways to design a research plan, find reliable sources, and conduct meaningful interviews with relatives and strangers. Whether you’re writing an essay, memoir, profile, or novel, you’ll leave with tools to approach research as a creative, ethical and enjoyable practice.

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 →

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Virtual

Nonfiction/Memoir, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Listen to the Work

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Writers of all genres are invited to take part in an experiment designed to help you listen. In the midst of creating a work, it’s necessary to invest time in dreaming what it could be. Throughout our process, we may make statements, diagram plot, lay down tidy plans for where a work will go, what it will mean, and what it will sound like. But your best-laid plans might be concealing a more exciting path you haven’t imagined yet.. Perhaps you have begun to perceive it, but you have not wholly become conscious of it. In the days leading up to this seminar, you will have an assignment: listen to your work in progress. During the seminar, we’ll abstain from editing and instead listen to what our novel, memoir, essay, or poem has to teach us.

Speakers

Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Visiting Author

Ingrid Rojas Contreras is the award winning author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree and The Man Who Could Move Clouds. She holds an MFA from Columbia College Chicago and currently teaches fiction at the University of San Francisco. Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, but... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

9:00am MDT

Re/vision: Nurture Your Inner Poetry Editor

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Revision is where mediocre poems become excellent ones—but how do you know what to change? This practical class offers concrete strategies for seeing your work with fresh eyes and revising with purpose. We'll cover five techniques for gaining critical distance from your drafts and five actionable revision approaches for poems that haven't yet reached their potential. You'll also learn how to interpret and implement workshop feedback effectively, turning even vague or contradictory responses into productive next steps for your poems.

Speakers

Radha Marcum

Faculty

Radha Marcum, MFA, won the 2023 Washington Prize for her forthcoming collection, Pine Soot Tendon Bone (2024). She was also awarded the New Mexico Book Award in 2018 for her first collection of poems, Bloodline (3: A Taos Press), about her grandfather's work building the first atomic... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Poetry

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Structure and Alchemy: Writing Climactic Transformations (V)

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Virtual

Fiction writers are conditioned to assume the climax of our novel/short story is simply the point of highest action. But this is a narrow, purely situational definition of climax. And for nonfiction writers, the necessity of a climax in our structure is mentioned as an afterthought if at all. This seminar will reconceptualize narrative climax as an alchemical transformation deeply connected to a work's motivating questions and utterly necessary to all prose works, regardless of genre. Writers will leave equipped with tools for plotting the climaxes of their own works and integrating these into their narrative structures.

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 →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Virtual

All Genres

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Beyond the Laugh: How and Why to Use Humor

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

There are serious reasons to crack a few jokes in your manuscript. In this class, we'll discuss how to use humor as a narrative tool. From deepening plot to establishing tone, we'll explore how and why comedy is an essential function in storytelling. The class will include close readings of examples from Twain to Tulathimutte, discussions of the various definitions of humor, and prompts using different joke forms. To note, the class will be focused on fiction, though all writers of all levels are welcome.

Speakers

Kathleen Boland

Faculty

Kathleen Boland is the author of the novel Scavengers. Her fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, and Gulf Coast, among other places, and she has received support from the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Vermont Studio Center. She... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Going Out in Style

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

We will explore the “baroque” and “plain song” writing styles. When we talk baroque, consider Angela Carter's adjective-heavy prose, filled with language demanding a reader have a dictionary nearby. In the case of plain song, Ernest Hemingway, a journalist, employs prose so simple it almost reads like Dick & Jane. While every writer cultivates their own style and individual voice, this class examines the impact style has on content. We’ll explore how (and when) to write a complex-compound sentence absolutely littered with modifiers and punctuation versus when to be economic, sparse, even fragmented.

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 →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Plot: A Conjuror's Guide

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

An often daunting aspect of writing fiction can be conjuring a plot that snags and keeps a reader's attention. In this craft seminar, we’ll break down different ways to think about plot, and we’ll examine how plot can be an essential element of the stories we are trying to tell. With a mix of lecture, writing exercises, and some time for Q&A at the end, we’ll work to make plot less intimidating and see it as an organic, intrinsic, and hugely satisfying part of storytelling.

Speakers

Megha Majumdar

Visiting Author

Megha Majumdar is the author of the National Book Award longlisted and Kirkus Prize finalist novel A Guardian and a Thief. Her first book, the New York Times bestselling novel A Burning, was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Hike and Write: Urban Style

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

The tradition of nature writing goes back to the Romantics and before, most likely because we are creatures of place. In this hands-on and feet-walking session, we'll explore some of the 'natural' settings just outside of Lighthouse, using the landscape as inspiration, and see what we find, and what the world around us has to say. We won't be walking miles on end, but please wear comfortable shoes, a good hat, and sunscreen. We'll walk around the 39th Avenue Greenway for a time, and then settle back into the air conditioned comfort of 3844 York Street to share and perhaps dig a little deeper.

Speakers

Michael Henry

Faculty

Michael J. Henry, MFA currently serves as Executive Director of Lighthouse, where he also teaches poetry and memoir and essay workshops. A former recipient of a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship and a PlatteForum Fellowship, his work has appeared in such places as Copper Nickel... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Nonfiction/Memoir, Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Turn your essay into a TEDx Talk (V)

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Virtual

This course will demystify the TEDx process by helping writers find a TEDx organization taking applications, understand what organizers are looking for in your application, apply for a TEDx talk to be selected, and learn the difference between writing a TED talk script and an essay. I'll provide handouts with templates and links to helpful resources. My content will include personal anecdotes and interviews I've had with three TEDx show producers and two essayists who have given TEDx talks.

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 →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Virtual

Nonfiction/Memoir, Publishing/Career

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Are Words Alive?

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

This craft talk will focus on strategies for collaborating with words as living beings. How do we make ourselves available to their arrival? How do we treat them when we meet? What do they desire? What do they hate? We'll look to possible clues from poets, writers, and critics who knew language before us, as well as theories nabbed from neuroscience and predictive coding. We may not answer all our questions, but we’ll marvel at the sensations (and writings) they can produce.

Speakers

Heather Christle

Visiting Author

Heather Christle is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Paper Crown. She has also published two works of nonfiction: In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf and The Crying Book. Her work has appeared in London Review of Books, The Nation... Read More →

Sunday June 14, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Poetry, Nonfiction/Memoir