Writing in Color Guide to Lit Fest 2024
To celebrate diverse voices at Lit Fest this year, our Community Engagement team has compiled Writing in Color, and Queer Creatives guides to Lit Fest. Our goal with these guides is to both spotlight Lit Fest workshops and events led by faculty that identify as BIPOC+ and/or part of the LGBTQIA+ community and to encourage Lit Fest attendees who share these identities to feel comfortable in a workshop, especially if it's their first time attending Lit Fest or a Lighthouse event.
Below you'll find the complete Writing in Color guide to Lit Fest 2024, including workshops and readings from BIPOC+ writers like Suzi Q. Smith, Vanessa Hua, and T Kira Māhealani Madden. Choose intensives, seminars, and events á la carte, or sign up for one of our festival passes for the full experience.
TWO-DAY INTENSIVES
JUNE 8-9
Entryway into Speculative Nonfiction
Anna Qu, 1:00 to 4:00 PM MDT
JUNE 13-14
Experiments in Poetic Form
Suzi Q. Smith, 4:00 to 7:00 PM MDT
CRAFT SEMINARS
FRIDAY, JUNE 7
MORNING SESSION (9:00 TO 11:00 AM MDT)
- Fiction for Nonfiction Writers
Andrew Hernandez
- Culturally Expansive Approaches to Plot and Story Structure
Angie Chuang
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Writing Across Difference
Vanessa Hua
EARLY EVENING SESSION (4:00 TO 6:00 PM MDT)
- Hopeful Monsters, in person and livestreamed
Alexandra Kleeman
- The Art of Speculation
Teow Lim Goh
SATURDAY, JUNE 8
MORNING SESSION (9:00 TO 11:00 AM MDT)
- Borrowing from the Greats: What Can Writers Learn from Other Artists
Dino Enrique Piacentini
- Writing the Minoritized Experience (V)
Natalie Hodges
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Desire and Power
Dino Enrique Piacentini
SUNDAY, JUNE 9
MORNING SESSION (9:00 TO 11:00 AM MDT)
- The Necessity of Darkness
Trent Hudley
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Milieu: The World of Your Story
Dino Enrique Piacentini
- Superhero Poetics (V)
Cynthia Manick
- Laundry Line (V)
Natalie Hodges
MONDAY, JUNE 10
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Documentary Poetics: The Poetry of Politics, Testimony, and Witness
Wendy Chen
- Symbolism and Metaphor: They Aren't Just for Fiction (V)
Angelique Stevens
EARLY EVENING SESSION (4:00 TO 6:00 PM MDT)
- Nature Writing
Amitava Kumar
- Creating Art in Dark Times (V)
R. Alan Brooks
- Poetry as Artivism: A Love Language for the Future (V)
Suzi Q. Smith
TUESDAY, JUNE 11
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Everything But Plot: Building Suspense on the Line Level, in person and livestreamed
T Kira Māhealani Madden
- The Excavation and Animation of Historical Fiction
Wendy Chen
EARLY EVENING SESSION (4:00 TO 6:00 PM MDT)
- In These Fleeting Moments: Building Dramatic Tension
R. Alan Brooks
- Romance Your Life (V)
Minda Honey
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Death and Life
Andrew Hernandez
- The Art of Self-Portraits (V)
Cynthia Manick
- When Life Doesn't Live Up to the Hype: Wringing Essays from Disappointment (V)
Minda Honey
- Memory Fog: Getting Lost in Order to Write and Remember
Juan J. Morales
EARLY EVENING SESSION (4:00 TO 6:00 PM MDT)
- Psychoanalysis and Literature
Poupeh Missaghi
- The Poetic Line (V)
Suzi Q. Smith
THURSDAY, JUNE 13
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Characterization Through Contrast, in person and livestreamed
Danielle Evans
- Writing Desire and Sexuality
Poupeh Missaghi
- Revising for Social Change (V)
Angelique Stevens
EARLY EVENING SESSION (4:00 TO 6:00 PM MDT)
- Experimental Prose
Poupeh Missaghi
- The 'I' Club: How to Write Using a Thrilling First Person (V)
Javier Sinay
FRIDAY, JUNE 14
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:30 TO 3:30 PM MDT)
- Collaborative Writing
Poupeh Missaghi
BUSINESS PANELS (12:00 to 1:00 PM)
SATURDAY, JUNE 8
Debuts, in person and livestreamed
SUNDAY, JUNE 9
Contests, Residencies, and More—Ways to Get Out There, in person and livestreamed
MONDAY, JUNE 10
Selling Your Book—The Query Letter, Elevator Pitch, and More, in person and livestreamed
TUESDAY, JUNE 11
Literary Journals—The Inside Scoop, in person and livestreamed
THURSDAY, JUNE 13
Online Landscape for Writers, in person and livestreamed
FRIDAY, JUNE 14
Perfect Pairing, in person and livestreamed
EVENTS
FRIDAY, JUNE 7
New Fiction Showcase: Our Yesterdays, Today, 7:00 to 8:00 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 8
- Anthology Release Celebration and Reading—We Can See Into Another Place: Mile-High Writers on Social Justice, 5:30 to 6:30 PM
- Visiting Authors Reading and Conversation: Jane Hirshfield, Vanessa Hua, Alexandra Kleeman, and Sloane Crosley, in person and livestreamed, 7:00 to 8:15 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 10
- Writing in Color Happy Hour, 6:00 to 6:30 PM
- Writing in Color Presents: Storytelling Through Jazz with Dazzle, 6:30 to 9:00 PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 11
- Visiting Authors Reading with T Kira Māhealani Madden, Claire Messud, and Rowan Ricardo Phillips, in person and livestreamed, 7:00 to 8:15 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12
- Visiting Author Reading with Dean Bakopoulos, Mark Doty, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Amitava Kumar, in person and livestreamed, 7:00 to 8:15 PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 13
- First Draft Live: Literary Friendship, Craft, and the Writing Life, 4:30 to 6:00 PM
- Visiting Authors Reading with Steve Almond, Emily Rapp Black, Danielle Evans, and Beth Nguyen, in person and livestreamed, 7:00 to 8:15 PM
*This list may or may not be comprehensive as each writer approaches identity—and whether or not to share that publicly—on an individual basis. If you are a Lighthouse instructor who is teaching at Lit Fest this year, please feel free to contact us with any questions or if you would like to be added to the list!
