Pam Houston

Pam Houston is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, which won the 2019 Colorado Book Award, the High Plains Book Award and the Reading The West Advocacy Award and more recently, Air Mail: Letters of Politics Pandemics and Place coauthored with Amy Irvine. She is also the author of Cowboys Are My Weakness, Contents May Have Shifted, and four other books of fiction and nonfiction, all published by W.W. Norton. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level on a 120-acre homestead near the headwaters of the Rio Grande and teaches creative writing at UC Davis and at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is cofounder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing by Writers and fiction editor at the Environmental Arts Journal Terrain.org. She raises Icelandic Sheep and Irish Wolfhounds and is a fierce advocate for the Earth. 

Chip Livingston

Chip Livingston is the author of the novel, OWLS DON’T HAVE TO MEAN DEATH; a collection of essays and stories, NAMING CEREMONY; and two poetry collections, CROW-BLUE, CROW-BLACK and MUSEUM OF FALSE STARTS. His writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, New American Writing, on the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Academy websites, and other journals and anthologies. Chip teaches in the low-rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. He lives in Montevideo, Uruguay. 

Sequoia Nagamatsu

Sequoia Nagamatsu is the author of the National Bestselling novel, HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK (2022), a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and the story collection, WHERE WE GO WHEN ALL WE WERE IS GONE (2016). His work has appeared in publications such as Conjunctions, The Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, Tin House, Iowa Review, Lightspeed Magazine, and One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories, and has been listed as notable in Best American Non-Required Reading and the Best Horror of the Year. Other honors include a fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and shortlist inclusions for The Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Ursula K Le Guin Prize. He was educated at Grinnell College (BA) and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (MFA), and he teaches creative writing at Saint Olaf College and the Rainier Writing Workshop Low-Residency MFA program. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, the writer Cole Nagamatsu, their cat Kalahira, their real dog Fenris, and a robot dog named Calvino. He is at work on two other novels.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20

1:00 – 1:30 pm           Welcome & Orientation

1:30 – 3:30 pm           Workshop with Chip Livingston

4:30 – 6:30 pm           Small Group Sessions

6:30 – 7:00 pm           Contest Winner Readings

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21

9:00 – 11:00 am        Workshop with Pam Houston

2:00 – 4:00 pm          Small Group Sessions

5:00 – 6:00 pm          Faculty Readings

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22

9:00 – 11:00 am         Workshop with Sequoia Nagamatsu

2:00 – 4:00 pm           Small Group Sessions

4:00 – 4:30 pm           Wrap-up

*  PLEASE NOTE: ALL TIMES ARE PACIFIC