Get your pens ready, poets, because Lit Fest 2025 is right around the corner! Choose intensives, seminars, and events à la carte, or sign up for one of our festival passes for the full experience. Please note that courses marked “Virtual” are held entirely on Zoom for all participants and the instructor. Virtual courses are fully participatory. Courses marked “Livestream” will be available virtually as an option, but there will be many attendees in person, and the instructor will be lecturing in person. Participation is more limited in this format, though moderators will do their best to relay questions from the chat.
Please note that workshops with a strike-through are sold out!
Two-Day Intensives
June 7-8, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM MDT
TWO-DAY INTENSIVE: BREAKING THE SURFACE—REVISION (Five spots left)
William Haywood Henderson
In this intensive, we’ll break the surface of our drafts and discover the potential for meaningful change. Writers will come away with an expanded understanding of their texts.
June 7-8, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM MDT (Virtual)
TWO-DAY INTENSIVE: FINISH IT! PERSPECTIVE AND PERSISTENCE (V)
Khadijah Queen
Working on a long poem, story, essay, play, or book? What will it take to finish? This intensive will provide solutions and strategies in the form of planning sessions, readings, discussions, writing exercises, charts, and other resources.
June 7-8, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM MDT
TWO-DAY INTENSIVE: EXPERIMENTS IN FORM—AUDRE LORDE
Suzi Q. Smith
Participants in this two-day intensive will enjoy close reading and discussion of excerpts from Audre Lorde's poems and essays, accompanied by generative exercises designed for writers to begin drafting poems and lyric essays.
June 7-8, 1:00-4:00 PM MDT
TWO-DAY INTENSIVE: ASKING THE ORACLE | DIVINATION AS DISCIPLINE
Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
In this two-day intensive, we'll experiment with the stations of “The Midwife” and “The Medium” to catch/channel the writing and reVISION to come.
June 10-11, 4:00-7:00 PM MDT (Virtual)
TWO-DAY INTENSIVE: WORD, SOUND, AND POWER (V)
André O. Hoilette
In this generative hybrid intensive, we’ll examine the power held by both written poetics/prose and the spoken word. Rather than interpreting these two viewpoints as adversarial, we’ll examine them as extensions of each other.
Craft Seminars, Business Panels, and Evening Events
Friday, June 6
Morning Session (9:00-11:00 AM MDT)
- IN RETROSPECT with Austin Segrest
- WRITING BEYOND WALLS: RESILIENCE AND DIFFICULT SUBJECT MATTER with Hillary Leftwich
- THREE PATHS TO PUBLISHING YOUR POETRY BOOK with Radha Marcum
- TUNING IN: USING MUSIC AND PLAYLISTS TO DEVELOP CHARACTER IN PROSE with Anthony D’Aries
- AUTHOR WEBSITES 101: YOUR GUIDE TO DESIGNING, BRANDING, AND LAUNCHING YOUR SUCCESSFUL SITE with HR Hegnauer
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: BEYOND BIG BOOK PUBLISHING—HYBRID, INDIE, SELF with Shana Kelly, Terri Lewis, Poupeh Missaghi, and Cynthia Swanson (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- SITE/VISIT: WRITING WITH THE LAND with Cass Eddington
- QUEER(ING) IMAGES FOR OUR FUTURES with Kanika Agrawal
- ERASURES, LACUNAE, AND VOIDS: WRITING WHAT’S NOT THERE with Sasha Geffen
- CREATING OUR PERSONAL LANGUAGE with Oso Guardiola (Virtual)
- THE ART OF CONDENSARY with Alyse Knorr
Early Evening Session (4:00-6:00 PM MDT)
DEVELOPING WRITING HABITS with Poupeh Missaghi- VOCATIONAL POETICS: WORKING, WRITING, CALLING OUT with Cass Eddington
- A TALK AGAINST GOODNESS with Solmaz Sharif
- ASKING QUESTIONS with Elizabeth Robinson (Virtual)
Saturday, June 7
Morning Session (9:00-11:00 AM MDT)
- ORACLE POETRY: PUSHING THE VEIL BETWEEN THE SPIRIT REALM AND OUR WRITING with Hillary Leftwich (Virtual)
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: YOUR AGENT ITINERARY— TIPS FOR REPRESENTATION with Nate Moscato, Haley Casey, Brenna English-Loeb, and Elizabeth Copps (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- FACING FEARS: FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, AND HYBRID FORMS with Juan J. Morales
- CHATGPT IS MY SECRETARY with Erika Krouse (Virtual— Four spots left)
- SCANSION BLAST with David Rothman
Early Evening Session (4:00-6:00 PM MDT)
- RHYME: CRIME OR SUBLIME? with David Rothman
- CULTIVATE YOUR METAPHORS with Teow Lim Goh
- LEARNING CRAFT TECHNIQUES FROM LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION with Poupeh Missaghi
- HOW TO BUILD YOUR NICHE AS A POET with Yuyutsu Sharma (Virtual)
Evening Session (7:00-8:15 PM MDT)
- VISITING AUTHORS READING with Nicole Chung, Claire Dederer, Katie Kitamura, and Solmaz Sharif (Livestream)
Sunday, June 8
Morning Session (9:00-11:00 AM MDT)
- WRITING FOOD with Poupeh Missaghi
- EQUANIMITY AND THE LONG-LINED POEM with Sawnie Morris (Virtual)
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: TRUTH OF WRITING ABOUT OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS, AND OTHER REAL PEOPLE—PERMISSION AND CONSEQUENCES with Amanda McCracken and Anna Qu (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- PERCHANCE TO DREAM: CRAFTING OUR DREAMS INTO POEMS with Sawnie Morris (Virtual)
Monday, June 9
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: GETTING PAST THE GATEKEEPERS with Jenny Shank (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- JUST TWO POEMS with Lynn Wagner
- BORDERLESS: WRITING AGAINST CONTAINMENT with Kanika Agrawal (Two spots left)
- SO YOU WANT TO GO INDIE with Cynthia Swanson
- PRACTICAL PUBLISHING: JOURNALS AS MODELS FOR YOUR WORK with Hillary Leftwich
Early Evening Session (4:00-6:00 PM MDT)
- WRITING IN COLOR PRESENTS: FINDING THE GHOST with Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- THE ART OF ITERATION: HOW TO REVISE YOUR POETRY MANUSCRIPT with Radha Marcum (Four spots left)
- CHANNELING PALIMPSEST IN YOUR WRITING with Malinda Miller
- LAMENT with Elizabeth Robinson (Virtual)
- FIRST DRAFT LIVE: THE DEBUT JOURNEY with Mitzi Rapkin, Nini Berndt, and Evanthia Bromiley (4:30-6:30 PM MST)
Evening Session (7:00-8:15 PM MDT)
- VISITING AUTHORS READING with Mat Johnson, Alex Mariano-Lesnevitch, and Elizabeth McCracken (Livestream)
Tuesday, June 10
Morning Session (9:00-11:00 AM MDT)
- THE RADICAL FOUR-ACT EASTERN STORYTELLING STRUCTURE with Henry Lien (Virtual)
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: PERFECT PAIRING with Christina Rivera, Evanthia Bromiley, Julie Stevenson, and Jennifer Lyons (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- SAY LESS: READING AND WRITING MINIMAL POEMS with Kanika Agrawal (One spot left)
- DIVING INTO THE WRECK—FINDING YOUR OBSESSIONS with William Haywood Henderson
- THE ART OF LITERARY SUBMISSION with Jenny Shank
Early Evening Session (4:00-6:00 PM MDT)
- THE RHETORICAL HALLWAY with Matthew Zapruder
- FIND YOUR UNIQUE STYLE with William Haywood Henderson
Evening Session (7:00-8:15 PM MDT)
- VISITING AUTHORS READING with Steve Almond, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Eduardo Corral, and Paul Harding (Livestream)
Wednesday, June 11
Morning Session (9:00-11:00 AM MDT)
- NON-LINEAR STRUCTURES FROM NON-WESTERN STORYTELLING with Henry Lien (Virtual)
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: BOOK LAUNCH, BEHIND THE SCENES with Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, Jan Thomas, and Samantha Shea (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- 10 PHOTOS AND A DOG with Eileen Myles
- POEMS FOR GARDEN AND FOREST with Lynn Wagner (Five spots left)
- WRITE LIVELIHOOD: MAKING A LIVING AS A WRITER with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (Virtual)
- CLOSE, CLOSE (CLOSE) THIRD PERSON with Erika Krouse
- WHY RHYME with Jodie Hollander (Virtual)
Early Evening Session (4:00-6:00 PM MDT)
- UP FRONT: EXPLORING AND MAKING POEM TITLES with Lynn Wagner
Thursday, June 12
Morning Session (9:00-11:00 AM MDT)
- LIVE IN THE LAYERS: MINDFULNESS AND WRITING with Caryn Miriam-Goldberg (Virtual)
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: LATE-BREAKING PUBLISHING WORLD with Paige Terlip, Paloma Hernando, Elizabeth Pratt, and Jennifer Chen Tran (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- USING THE EPISTOLARY TO JUMPSTART THE POEM with Emily Pérez (Four spots left)
- WRITING INTO THE TIME-SPACE EXPANSE: A PSYCHEDELIC LIT SEMINAR with Hillary Brenhouse
- IMAGINATION STATION with Erika Krouse
Early Evening Session (4:00-6:00 PM MDT)
- POETRY COLLECTIVE CELEBRATION with the Poetry Collective graduates (Livestream)
Evening Session (7:00-8:15 PM MDT)
- VISITING AUTHORS READING with Helen Phillips, Eileen Myles, Tony Tulathimutte, and Matthew Zapruder (Livestream)
Friday, June 13
Lunchtime Session (12:00-1:00 PM MDT)
- LUNCHTIME BUSINESS PANEL: LIT-MAG LANDSCAPE with Alexander Lumans, Paul M. French, Hillary Brenhouse, Lena Valencia, and Wendy Chen (Livestream)
Afternoon Session (1:30-3:30 PM MDT)
- A CIRCLE IS GOD SAYING YES: STRATEGIES FOR RETHINKING REVISION with Eduardo Corral
- HOW TO PUBLISH A BOOK WHILE STAYING (REASONABLY) SANE with Jenny Shank
- DETAILS THAT MATTER with William Haywood Henderson
