Lit Fest - Lighthouse Writers Workshop 2026: Full Schedule

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9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: Finding the Subterranean Story with Danielle Evans

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT

Often, the process of drafting fiction is one of uncovering: What is it we actually mean to be writing about, and how can we bring that thread to the surface in revision? At the same time, one of the great pleasures of reading is the consideration of suggestions or questions that remain just beneath the surface of the text.

In this workshop, we'll consider the “layers” of a story, and we’ll explore how some of those subterranean layers can guide us toward structures and narrative arcs that serve the project. We'll negotiate the balance between what works best when said directly and what works best when it’s left to be discovered by the reader. Each workshop will open with discussion of a published short story and a brief responsive writing exercise; then we’ll move to an in-depth discussion of work submitted by participants.

Speakers

Danielle Evans

Visiting Author

Danielle Evans is the author of the story collections The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Her first collection won the PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Hurston-Wright award for fiction, and the Paterson Prize for fiction; her... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction

Audience Advanced Workshop

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: Intimate Distance with Mat Johnson

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT

TBA

Novels are long, often unruly, and inherently ambitious projects that require the writer to be both intimate with and distant from the text. It's easy to type a bunch of pages, but it’s hard to make them captivate the reader and ensure that the journey adds up to more than the sum of its parts. This course will explore the tools needed to bring your novel-length manuscript to life in its strongest form. Your novel has strengths: we'll explore how you can build on them. Your novel has weaknesses: we'll identify them and create strategies for you to overcome them. Together, we'll reveal what your novel is actually about, as opposed to what you planned for it to be. We’ll examine its hidden structures, and we’ll enable your characters and their struggles to come alive on the page.

Speakers

Mat Johnson

Visiting Author

Mat Johnson is a Philip H Knight Chair of Humanities at the University of Oregon. His publications included the novels Invisible Things and Pym, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the graphic novel Incognegro. Johnson is the recipient of the American Book Award, the... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction

Audience Advanced Workshop

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: Situation and Event with Brandon Taylor

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT

TBA

In this weeklong workshop, we’ll explore the intimate relationship between situation and event in narrative using work submitted by participants. The goal is to gain a stronger understanding of and appreciation for the underlying or pre-existing dramatic context that gives meaning to plot, character actions, and even the structure of a piece. We’ll use this stronger understanding to develop a more thorough conceptualization of our work so that we can make exciting, unexpected, and more meaningful choices in our stories.

We’ll be working with the below definitions:

Situation: All of the facts that comprise the starting condition of a character’s life at the beginning of a given story, novel, scene, or act. We may understand situation as another word for circumstance raised to the level of dramatic action and intent.

Event: The event is the happening or the trigger shot of a given scene, story, or novel. There are capital E Events and little e events. But regardless, both kinds of events should be drawn out of the very bedrock of your narrative and dramatic situation.

Speakers

Brandon Taylor

Visiting Author

Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels Minor Black Figures, The Late Americans, and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Science + Literature... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction

Audience Advanced Workshop

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: The BS Detector with Steve Almond

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT

TBA

Writing is decision making, nothing more and nothing less. What word? Where to place the comma? How to shape the paragraph? Join Steve Almond for a workshop focused on improving the decisions you make in your writing. By looking critically and carefully at other people’s work, you’ll walk away with a better sense of how to improve your own. The idea is not to slow your rate of composition via compulsive revision, but to instead make better decisions in the first place and to recognize quickly when you haven’t.

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 →

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction

Audience Advanced Workshop

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Fiction Workshop: Who's Telling Your Story? with Christopher Castellani

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT

TBA

The most important decision a writer makes is who tells their story. In this workshop, we will examine each other's manuscripts primarily through the lens of point of view and by using the concept of narrative strategy, but we will also take each manuscript as a whole and discuss how all the craft elements are working together. The primary question we will ask is, "How can the manuscript be a stronger, deeper version of itself?" This workshop is open to short story writers and novelists with stand-alone excerpts.

Speakers

Chris Castellani

Visiting Author

Christopher Castellani's fifth novel, Last Seen, will be published by Viking in February 2026. He is also the author of Leading Men (Viking, 2019) for which he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, among others. Searchlight... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction

Audience Advanced Workshop

9:00am MDT

Advanced Weeklong Generative Fiction Workshop: Starting, or Starting Over with Rebecca Makkai

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT

TBA

In this generative workshop, we’ll either begin brand new pieces, or begin a brand new version of an old piece. In either case, we’ll use our clean slates to find startling originality, optimal angles of approach, and the energies that will carry a story or novel through to the end. We’ll write both in class and outside of class and (voluntarily) share what we’ve written. In the last two days of class, we’ll squeeze in mini-workshops on everyone’s opening page. Accepted participants do not need to come in with an idea of what to write, although they may.

Speakers

Rebecca Makkai

Visiting Author

Rebecca Makkai is the author of the New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions For You as well as four other works of fiction. Her last novel, The Great Believers, one of the New York Times’ Best Books of the 21st Century, was a finalist for both the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 9:00am - 11:30pm MDT
TBA 3844 York Street, Denver, CO 80305

Fiction

Audience Advanced Workshop

1:30pm MDT

Bait the Hook: Your First Few Pages

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

The first few pages of a story are the tryout; after that, the reader makes a decision to keep reading or move on. How can you “hook” your readers and immerse them in your narrative world? What techniques do you need to create a firm writer-reader contract? In this content-heavy class, we’ll explore hooks and expositions (a.k.a. beginnings): how to introduce your characters, ground your readers in your novel/memoir/short story/essay, and begin the art of narrative intrigue. Bring your ideas to class, and leave with new beginnings you can use immediately. Open to all prose writers.

This is the in-person version of this event.

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 →

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Bait the Hook: Your First Few Pages (Livestream)

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Virtual

Speakers

Erika Krouse

Faculty

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Virtual

Fiction, Multi-Genre

Type advanced, intermediate, intro
Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Every Sentence an Ocean: Concision and Compression in Flash-Fiction

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

As anyone who’s ever sat down to write a flash story or essay knows, it can be incredibly difficult to fit an entire narrative into 1,000 words or less. Even more difficult: lacing that narrative with enough tension and emotional complexity to make your readers feel like they’ve devoured a much longer work. In this two-hour craft seminar, we’ll break down George Saunders’ 1995 flash fiction masterpiece “Sticks” on a sentence-by-sentence level to examine and emulate how he packs an entire ocean of complexity—and decades of narrative time—into just 392 words.

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 →

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

From Morally Gray to Black: Creating Flawed and Unscrupulous Protagonists

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, claims: “The best way to create a memorable character is to make them both repellent and fascinating at the same time.” Indeed, more crucial than the likability of a protagonist is his/her charisma—even if that charisma only serves to hide complicated or even depraved psyches. In this class, we’ll explore some morally questionable protagonists from authors such as Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, and Flannery O’Connor. We’ll then try our hand at creating some of these fascinating, and sometimes terrifying, characters in our own work. The class will combine readings, writings, and discussions, and when we're finished you should be comfortable writing from the POV of not-so-sympathetic characters.

Speakers

Jon Bassoff

Faculty

Jon Bassoff is the author of ten novels, including his latest, The Memory Ward (Blackstone Publishing). His mountain gothic novel, Corrosion, has been translated in French and German and was nominated for the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, France’s biggest crime fiction award... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Novel Whispering

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Have a novel that you just can’t finish, or finish well? Considering writing a novel and want an insight into how to actually complete one? In this seminar, we'll identify hurdles in completing the process of novel creation, and we’ll learn how to get over them. The seminar will provide participants with practical techniques to kickstart their manuscripts, such as applied story structuring, thematic tuning, character mirroring, and more.
This is the in-person version on this event.

Speakers

Mat Johnson

Visiting Author

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

1:30pm MDT

Novel Whispering (Livestream)

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT

Virtual

Speakers

Mat Johnson

Visiting Author

Monday June 15, 2026 1:30pm - 3:30pm MDT
Virtual

Fiction

Type advanced, intro, intermediate
Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

How to Stop Worldbuilding and Start Worldconjuring

Monday June 15, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Writers wanting to build worlds are met with difficult questions: Should I describe the city’s sewer system for ten or twenty pages? How much to explain Frontier Utah’s rural bartering system of spiderwebs? These are also the wrong questions. As writer Lincoln Michel says, “Worldbuilding imposes. Worldconjuring collaborates.” In this seminar, we’ll challenge current paradigms for worldbuilding; instead, we’ll craft settings and circumstances through the power of detail selections, rule systems, and essential mysteries. Together, we’ll ask much better questions: in your new world, what do readers need to know and what do readers want to know?

Speakers

Alexander Lumans

Editor

Alexander Lumans was awarded a 2018 NEA Creative Writing Grant in Fiction. He received fellowships in 2015 and 2024 for expeditions with The Arctic Circle Residency and he was the Spring 2014 Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in... Read More →

Monday June 15, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

To Flash Back or Not to Flash Back

Monday June 15, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Good characters come with a past, but is a flashback the only way to let readers know about essential details from before the story’s start? Not necessarily. We’ll look at examples from writers who eschew flashbacks but still give readers a rich sense of a character’s past life, including excerpts from Kent Haruf, Jane Austen, and more. If you choose to use flashbacks, how do you do it well? We’ll look at the way experts including Willy Vlautin, Susan Straight, and Percival Everett slide gracefully in and out of flashback.

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 →

Monday June 15, 2026 4:00pm - 6:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, Nonfiction/Memoir

Audience Craft Seminar

4:00pm MDT

Two-Day Intensive: Emotional Truth—Using Fiction to Tell the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Monday June 15, 2026 4:00pm - 7:00pm MDT

Lighthouse Writers Workshop

This workshop will focus on how to write what you know, taking both small and large elements of your particular human experience to create fiction. We will study other fiction writers and their techniques and do exercises based on them. This class will focus on generating new text but should be inspiring for those writers deep into a work-in-progress too. Ideally, writers will experience a catharsis as they alchemize their hard times into art.

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 →

Monday June 15, 2026 4:00pm - 7:00pm MDT
Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Fiction, YA/Children's