Lit Fest - Lighthouse Writers Workshop 2026

Engaging in play strengthens our linguistic abilities and our capacity to imagine other ways to move through a day (or a life). This workshop will bring people together to play with language as a group and as individuals. We will work to lift ourselves and each other out of ruts worn into our minds. We will pick up strings of words and ask "What would happen if we took this in a different direction?" We will surprise and be surprised in turn.

Through games and other playful writing exercises, you will generate language that you can bring home with you to spark new work. In some cases you may create an entire poem during the workshop itself. The games and exercises are designed to delight and to be shared widely. You can play them later with friends when you (or they) need to connect with a wildness within.

It is probably going to be weird and it is almost certainly going to be fun.

Engaging in play strengthens our linguistic abilities and our capacity to imagine other ways to move through a day (or a life). This workshop will bring people together to play with language as a group and as individuals. We will work to lift ourselves and each other out of ruts worn into our minds. We will pick up strings of words and ask "What would happen if we took this in a different direction?" We will surprise and be surprised in turn.

Through games and other playful writing exercises, you will generate language that you can bring home with you to spark new work. In some cases you may create an entire poem during the workshop itself. The games and exercises are designed to delight and to be shared widely. You can play them later with friends when you (or they) need to connect with a wildness within.

It is probably going to be weird and it is almost certainly going to be fun.

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.