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Writing By Writers GET THE LEAD OUT! is an online generative workshop that brings all levels of writers together for a weekend of inspiration, craft and the generation of new work.
When: January 19 - 21, 2024 online over Zoom.
Tuition: $750 includes one three-day workshop, admittance to all craft talks and readings.
Format: Workshops will begin in the afternoon of Friday, January 19, 2024, at 1:00pm Pacific and end on Sunday, January 21, 2024, at 4:30pm Pacific. Each day will feature a craft talk by one of our faculty members and participants will split into small groups where they will dissect the art and craft of writing through lectures, writing exercises and class discussions. We won’t be reading and critiquing manuscripts, but rather closely examining elements of craft with the intention of allowing participants to see their work with deeper insight while also generating new material. Each participant will have the opportunity to work in a small group setting with all three faculty members. Whether you are just getting started or have projects that need new life, this workshop will offer inspiration and insight to take you to the next level.
Faculty: Pam Houston, Keenan Norris and Lidia Yuknavitch
GET THE LEAD OUT!
Faculty
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.
Keenan Norris
Keenan Norris is a novelist, essayist and scholar. His latest novel is The Confession of Copeland Cane, the winner of the 2022 Northern California Book Award. His essays have garnered the 2021-22 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award in Music, Theater and Performing Arts and the 2021 Folio: Eddie Award. His debut novel Brother and the Dancer received the James D. Houston Award in 2012. In 2023, Keenan has published Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings, a non-fiction blend of essay, history and memoir, and he has published the novella Lustre. In January, Keenan served as Lannan Visiting Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts and in fall 2021, he was Rea Visiting Writer at the University of Virginia. He is coordinator of the Steinbeck Fellows Program at San Jose State University and serves as California guest editor and contributing scholar to the Oxford African-American Studies Center. In 2013, Keenan edited the seminal Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape. His feature pieces and articles have appeared in numerous forums, including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TED-ED and Alta, while his short fiction has been published in several anthologies of California literature. He is an Associate Professor at San Jose State University.
Lidia Yuknavich
Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, and a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk, was published by TED Books, and her new collection of fiction, Verge, was released in 2020. Lidia’s new novel, Thrust, is forthcoming from Riverhead Books on June 28th, 2022. She has also had writing appear in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Corpse, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus. Writing by and through the body, one workshop at a time. She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.

Workshop Schedule*
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19
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 20
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 21
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
Registration Details
GET THE LEAD OUT! is open to all levels of writer and is limited to approximately 20 participants per small group to ensure and intimate setting. All the session will be held over Zoom. The total cost of the workshop is $750.
Cancellation Policy: If you cancel by December 1, 2023, your tuition will be refunded minus a $150 cancellation fee. Refunds for cancellations made after December 1 are contingent upon filling your place and will be made only if your place is filled. In the unlikely event that we must cancel a workshop and you do not wish to transfer to another workshop, you will receive a full refund.