Kelli Russell Agodon

January 12, 4:30-5:30: Beneath the Covers: An Editor's Insight to the World of Literary Journals

So you've written your poem, story, or essay... now what? Independent literary journals are a great way to get your work into the world and build your career as a writer. This session explores what goes into a submitting your work and how to increase your chances of getting published. Learn the best ways to submit to journals and publishers, including how to write a cover letter and help on professional etiquette with editors. It will also cover what happens behind-the-scenes at a literary journal and offer ideas for places to submit your work. We will discuss how to handle rejections as well as publication agreements, contracts, and your rights to your work after it's been published. We will also allow a significant amount of time for questions to help each of your with your own goals as a writer.

January 13, 4:30-5:30 Many Ways to Begin: The Practice of Generating New Work

This session will focus on useful writing exercises for the writer. We will learn how to find ideas from what's around us, keep a journal that motivates you, write without being inspired, and move from an idea into a something more. As a group we will create our own unique writing exercise and will discuss how to begin without waiting to be inspired.  This session reminds us that as writers we write and the many ways to keep our writing fresh and fun.  There will be in-class writing and writers will leave with 3-5 new starts. Handouts with future writing exercises will be provided.

January 14, 4:30-5:30 Your Life as a Writer: The Inspiration of our Daily Lives

In this session we will explore how to add writing to our daily lives and notice the details happening around us. We will discuss how to generate new work by turning off our "internal editors" and learn how to move your writing forward just when you think there is nothing more to say.  By examining our own unique interests, we can create our most powerful work. Discover how to free yourself from writer's block and keep writing. We will talk about self-doubt and how not to sabotage our writing lives.  We will also discuss creating balance and how we include writing in our already full lives.

Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of two books of poems, Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Prize.  She is a recipient of three Artist Trust GAP grants, the James Hearst Poetry Prize as well as a Puffin Foundation grant for her work as an editor.  She currently edits Seattle's 25 year old literary journal, Crab Creek Review.  You can visit her website at www.agodon.com.

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Gretel Ehrlich

January 11, 4:30-5:30: A discussion of The Solace of Open Spaces with author Gretel Ehrlich

Gretel Ehrich's books include, in addition to The Solace of Open Spaces: A Match to the Heart, a memoir about being struck by lightning and her long recovery; Questions of Heaven, the result of her travels in Tibet, "a lament for a 5000 year old culture that has suffered almost complete extinction....almost, but not quite"; This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland; and seven others, including three books of poems. Her work, including essays, short stories, and poems have been included in many anthologies including: Best Essays of the Century, Best American Essays, Best Spiritual Writing, Best Travel Writing, and The Nature Reader.

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Craig English

January 9, 3:15-4:15: Inviting the Demons in: Ideas, Curiosity, Internal Truth and Writer's Block

I have written self-help books and fantasy novels—which, I believe, makes me unusually qualified to discuss demons. Several years ago, I was attending a writer's conference, taking part in a panel about "What's Keeping You From Finishing That Novel." My fellow panelists—much decorated, well published authors—were swapping war stories about the things they will do to avoid writing. It was amusing, and the audience was enjoying it, but I'm watching their faces and I'm thinking: This isn't it. This isn't 'What's Keeping You From Finishing That Novel.' So I said: "You know, I'd like to talk about what kept me from finishing projects for years. I have demons. Personal demons.

In this hour, Craig English will examine the demons that both hinder and mentor our writing.

January 10, 3:15-4:15: Co-Authoring: The Art of Collaboration

Co-authors can create a team that is incredibly effective and self-sustaining. They must agree about core ideas, be able to engage in creative conflict, and learn to leave their egos at the door. This workshop weighs the advantages/disadvantages, discusses various methods, and explores the intricacies of the co-author relationship. For the last six years, Craig English has collaborated with psychotherapist James Rapson on a nonfiction book as well as related articles and classes. Join Craig as he delves into the difficult and exhilarating world of co-authorship.

Craig English, B.A., M.F.A., is an award winning author with extensive experience in both fiction and nonfiction. He is the co-author of Anxious to Please: 7 Revolutionary Practices for the Chronically Nice, Sourcebooks, Inc., 2006 (fourth printing) (Spanish and Greek translations).

Other publications include short stories which have appeared in such magazines as Talebones, Aeon Speculative Fiction and Frigg online, as well as articles in The Writer Magazine (2007) and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published (2006). Craig has been cited in recent articles by the Seattle Times, Santa Barbara News Press and Next Step Magazine. He is currently working on a novel, The Anvil of Navarre, a gender-bending political thriller and swashbuckler.

Mr. English has been featured on such shows as The Beat with Megan Sukys (KUOW 94.9-FM, Seattle), and nationally syndicated programs such as The Health and Beauty Revolution Show with Patty Kovacs (WSRadio.com, Del Mar, CA), and Live with Dr. Alvin Jones (WCBQ-WHNC-AM, Oxford, NC). Recent television appearances include KING 5 Morning News with Joyce Taylor (NBC Seattle), Books in Review with Shari Barnes (Fort Worth), and Geraldo at Large with Arthel Neville (Fox Network).

For twenty-five years Mr. English worked as a professional actor on Seattle area and regional stages. He has done more than 50 television and radio commercials, and CD ROM game voice-overs. He has acted in more than 20 productions of Shakespeare.

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Faculty Panel

January 13, 2:00-3:00: Will Write for Food: How to Duck Starvation

Few writers have the luxury of a purist's career, making a living by writing only what they WANT to write. Most of us need to put words to work in a variety of different ways, mundane and creative. A faculty panel surveys the gigs we've tried, and candidly rates the options.

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Tess Gallagher

January S 9, 4:30-5:30 Lessons in Time

Using as the text the essay THE POEM AS TIME MACHINE the talk will examine the way poems combine different aspects of the past, present and future to create new imaginative frames for experience. (Copies of this essay will be available before the session.) We will be looking at several examples of poems making use of time structures to affect our perceptions. For instance, one poem will deal with rhythms and how they can manipulate the sense of time in the poem. Another will focus on a future-looking and future-making category of poem. Still another will be set in the present moment but tethered to events from the past which leak into the present.

By using examples we will try some time-awareness strategies in writing during the session. One contemporary notion to be challenged is that the central immediacy in poetry is attained by writing in the present tense. Rather the discussion will examine what we gain when time moves around within the poem, becomes disjunctive, and when the poem reframes events in the time it invents as it revisits an occurrence or an idea or a persisting image. The session should lead the way to giving more attention to this central well- spring of poetic energy.

January 10, 4:30-5:30: How Poetry Moves Us Beyond Forgetting: Compiling an Anthology (with Holly Hughes)

Using as their reference the anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, Tess Gallagher and Holly Hughes will discuss the role of poetry in literary/medical contexts. In a disease that is claiming one out of every two over 80, poetry can help us move "beyond forgetting" by putting a personal face on what has become a stereotype; poetry reminds us that we are more than our rational minds. They'll also discuss the process of creating an anthology: call for submissions; editorial process/decisions about arrangement; finding a publisher and negotiating the contract; marketing, obtaining a grant, developing a website, readings, and finally the response.

Tess Gallagher is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Dear Ghosts, Moon Crossing Bridge, and My Black Horse. She is presently working on her New and Selected Poems. In 2008 Blackstaff Press in Belfast and Eastern Washington Press in America published Barnacle Soup - Stories from the West of Ireland, a collaboration with the Irish storyteller Josie Gray. Distant Rain, a conversation with the highly respected Buddhist nun, Jacucho Setouchi, of Kyoto, is both an art book and a cross cultural moment. Gallagher is also the author of Amplitude, Soul Barnacles: Ten More Years with Ray, A Concert of Tenses: Essays on Poetry, and two collections of short fiction: At the Owl Woman Saloon and The Lover of Horses and Other Stories. She published The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories this fall of 2009. She has also spearheaded the publication of Raymond Carver's Beginners in Library of America's complete collection of his Collected Stories coming in Fall 2009. Jonathan Cape will publish Beginners as a single volume in the UK, also in fall 2009. Recent publications to which she is a contributor are Beyond Forgetting, an anthology of poems on Alzheimers, and Sawdust Mountain, photographs by Eirik Johnson. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in County Sligo in the West of Ireland and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington.

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Melissa Hart

January 15, 4:30-5:30: Nonfiction Articles: Putting your Passions into Print

This workshop begins by defining the various types of nonfiction articles found in magazines and newspapers, and then leads participants through the process of gathering resources, querying an idea to editors, and writing the article. We'll discuss ways in which to locate and interview experts, how to craft a compelling query letter, how to identify potential markets for your idea, and how to structure an article. We'll cover supplemental materials such as photos, SoundSlides, and video documentary to add interest and appeal. This workshop will guide participants in identifying their own fields of expertise and approaching topics from a variety of angles in order to maximize time and income.

January 16, 4:30-5:30: The Literary Essay: A Gift to Readers

In this workshop, we'll define the genre of "literary essay" and its various forms. We'll examine one essay in depth, then discuss the elements of literature that inform it. This workshop will cover the structure of a literary essay, as well as how to locate and interview experts to add weight to the piece. We'll talk about immersion journalism and the critical use of sensory details, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of first-person perspective. We'll cover supplemental materials such as photos, SoundSlides, and video documentary to add interest and appeal to writing. Participants will come away with several ideas for their own literary essays, along with information on how to identify and approach potential editors with their work.

January 17, 4:00-5:00: Fiction as Flash, Short Story, Novella . . . and so much more

This workshop will cover the exciting new forms that fiction is taking in literary journals and magazines, as well as more traditional styles. We'll look at a variety of short fiction pieces and how they're presented online and on the page with supplemental materials such as photo essays, videos, and graphics. We'll cover the basic elements of fiction, along with plotlines that propell writers out of the slush pile and onto an editor's desk. We'll discuss how to structure longer fiction, and conclude with an overview of how to approach editors and literary agents with a finished piece.

Melissa Hart is the author of the memoir Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood (Seal, 2009). Her essays, articles, and fiction pieces have appeared in Orion, High Country News, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Fourth Genre, Other Voices, The Advocate, and numerous other publications. She's a contributing editor at The Writer Magazine and teaches journalism at the University of Oregon. Website: www.melissahart.com.

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Holly Hughes

January 10, 4:30-5:30: How Poetry Moves Us Beyond Forgetting: Compiling an Anthology (with Tess Gallagher)

Using as their reference the anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, Tess Gallagher and Holly Hughes will discuss the role of poetry in witnessing/grieving/healing, moving "beyond forgetting," putting a personal face on what has become a stereotype—and that we are more than our rational minds. They'll also discuss the process of creating the anthology: call for submissions; editorial process/decisions about arrangement; finding a publisher; marketing, obtaining a grant, developing a website, readings, and finally the response.

Holly J. Hughes is the editor of Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, published by Kent State University Press as part of their Literature and Medicine Series in spring 2009. Her award-winning chapbook Boxing the Compass was published by Floating Bridge Press in 2007. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart and Arts & Letters prizes and have appeared in a number of literary journals and anthologies, among them: Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems (Random House, 2008). A graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop low-residency MFA program, she teaches writing at Edmonds Community College, where she co-directs the Convergence Writers Series and the Sustainability Initiative. She divides her time between Indianola and Chimacum, Washington.

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Lori May

January 14, 2:00-3:00: Literary Living: Building a Successful Career

Writing may be a solitary profession, but it is also one that relies on a strong sense of community. Having a successful writing career takes more than penning a great story. By taking an active role in the literary life you have chosen, you can elevate your success not only with publication opportunities, but also in the broader sense of your career. As writers, we want an audience. We need reviewers, peers, editors, and mentors. We need one another. We need to be active. We'll talk about the importance of living a literary life and what it means to take an active role in the writing community. Your writing is one contribution to the literary community; we'll talk about additional ways you can fully engage with others and control your road to success.

January 15, 2:00-3:00: Beyond Page One: Creating Your Own Opportunities

There's no denying writing is a competitive profession. How can you give yourself a competitive edge? How will you stand out against the thousands of other emerging writers? Every writer starts off unpublished and inexperienced, but you can change that by taking charge of your career and by creating opportunities for yourself and your peers. The more doors you open for yourself, the more doors are opened for you. It may sound simple, and it is. You may not be able to control the competition, but you can take control of your own efforts. Sharing examples of my own experience as a writer and editor, we'll talk about ways you can improve your competitive edge and develop a well-rounded writing career.

Lori A. May is a poet, novelist, and freelance writer who enjoys speaking at writing conferences, workshops, and MFA programs. She is Managing Editor at Marick Press, Founding Editor of The Ambassador Poetry Project, and Editor-in-Chief of Poets' Quarterly. She is also a part-time college writing instructor and a member of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Michigan College English Association, Modern Language Association, and Poetry Society of America.

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Bob Mayer

January 10, 2:00-3:00: Introduction to Warrior Writer

Warrior Writer is a holistic approach encompassing goals, intent, environment, personality, change, courage, communication and leadership that gives the writer a road map to become a successful author. Many writers become focused on either the writing or the business end; Warrior Writer integrates the two. Warrior-Writer fills a critical gap in the publishing industry paradigm. Focuses on the strategies, tactics and mindset a writer needs to develop in order to be a successful author.

January 11, 2:00-3:00: The Original Idea—The Heart of Your Story and Conflict

The Fuel of Your Story: Can you say what your book is about in 25 words of less? This is essential to writing a tight book. We'll discuss ways to find and state your original idea so that you stay on course while writing the book. Conflict drives your story. Not only must conflict escalate throughout the entire novel, every single scene must have conflict in it. The Conflict Box is an effective technique for focusing your story on the protagonist, antagonist, their goals and finding out if you have the necessary conflict lock.

January 11, 2:00-3:00: Outlining and Plot: The Events of Your Story

Before you begin writing your book, you should spend some time outlining and developing your story. We'll discuss types of outlines along with techniques for efficiently developing the strongest possible story based on your original idea. The creative process before the actual start of the book will be covered. From the exciting opening that grabs the reader through the escalating conflict to the climactic scene and ending with the resolution—the entire structure of the novel with be covered with emphasis on hooks, the remote control effect, building suspense, and having satisfying endings.

NY Times bestselling author Bob Mayer has 40 books published. He has over three million books in print and is in demand as a speaker and consultant for his Who Dares Wins concept, which he translates into Warrior Writer: a holistic program teaching writers how to be authors. For more information see www.bobmayer.org.

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George Shannon

January 14, 3:15-4:15: Writing the Picture Book Text – I

We will explore the literary and storytelling skills required to bring our best writing to the picture book for children. Topics to be covered include "Writing as the Child's Equal" and "Finding the Child's Voice".

January 15, 3:15-4:15, Writing the Picture Book Text - II

Our second session will focus on "Sound and Rhythm as Content" and "The Pleasures and Perils of Talking Animals."

January 16, 3:15-4:15 Children, Verse & Poetry

Our connection with literature begins with the sounds and rhythms of nursery rhymes. Poetry and verse written for children are primary bridges to a lifetime of reading. We'll explore the best examples through various tones and forms, and play with the vast array of subject matter.

George Shannon began his professional work with children in 1973. After experience as a children's librarian and professional storyteller, his first children's book, LIZARD'S SONG, was accepted by Greenwillow in 1979. Since then he has had 38 books published including 27 picture books (among them DANCE AWAY, CLIMBING KANSAS MOUNTAINS, WHITE IS FOR BLUEBERRY, THE SECRET CHICKEN CLUB and BUSY IN THE GARDEN). TIPPY-TOE CHICK, GO! was selected as a Charlotte Zolotow Award Honor Book for picture book writing in 2003. 2008 brought both the Washington State Book Award and the Worzalla/Burr Award for RABBIT'S GIFT, and the "Life time Achievement Award" from PNWA.

He has also published essays on various aspects of children's literature, and continues to work with children around the world on their own creative writing. Conferences, workshops, and author visits have taken him to schools from the Arctic Circle to Jakarta, and Kuwait to Japan. www.georgeshannon.org

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David Wagoner

January 9, 2:00-3:00: How Writers Get to Work

An overview of the ways and means writers (and some other artists) have kept themselves writing instead of being self-unemployed. The discussion will include a number of terrible examples as well as some good ones.

David Wagoner is the author of seventeen books of poems, most recently Good Morning and Good Night (U. of Illinois Press, 2005) which has been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He's also written ten novels, one of which, The Escape Artist, was made into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola. Wagoner won the Lilly Prize in 1991 and has won six prizes from Poetry, which has published 171 of his poems, more than any other individual. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets for 23 years and edited Poetry Northwest until its closure in 2002.

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Elizabeth Wales

How to Know the Work is Ready for Publication? And, and Once the Work is Found Ready – How on Earth Do I Get In?

January 16, 2:00-3:00: Part I, Fiction

January 17, 1:30-2:30: Part II, Nonfiction

In two separate presentations, one focused on fiction, and a separate but similar presentation to be focused on nonfiction, Elizabeth will discuss with the group first –

How does a Writer Know When He or She is Ready to Seek Publication?

What are the ways and the tools with which to approach this question? What sorts of yardsticks and help are available to answer this central question of readiness?

Then, once the writer knows he or she is ready, which is to say, the Work is ready, How Do You Break Into Print with a Book? How do you get into the Industry and connect to an agent or publisher?

A suggested reading list will be shared, as well as a few (select) handouts.

Plenty of time will be reserved for questions and answers. Instructive tales will be told of individual titles and authors. As much gossip and insider scoop as the presenter can recall will also be shared. After all, in the end, it is the stories we remember!

Elizabeth Wales, co-founder of Seattle-based Wales Literary Agency, Inc., has been in publishing and bookselling since 1980. Wales Literary Agency represents 65 award-winning writers of fiction and nonfiction, including Bruce Barcott, Karen Brennan, Rebecca Brown, Leela Corman, Curtis Ebbesmeyer, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Jean Hegland, Nancy Lord, David Mas Masumoto, Dan Savage, Eric Scigliano, Robert Spector, Bill Streever, Michelle Tea, Duff Wilson and Carol Kaesuk Yoon. Her agency's titles have appeared on the New York Times, Publishers' Weekly, and other national bestseller lists.  Elizabeth is a member of the Association of Authors Representatives, the Authors Guild, and Pacific Northwest Writers Association.  She worked at Oxford University Press, Viking Penguin and the Strand Bookstore in New York City before moving to Seattle in 1983.  She graduated with a degree in English and American Literature for Smith College and did graduate studies in Literature at Columbia College.

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