Writing By Writers...

About The Class: The best plots aren’t controlled by the author. They spring from the characters themselves. The writer masterminds all things, yes, but the more we as writers realize that our characters are sovereign beings with independent consciousnesses, the better prepared we are to create stories that are poignant, complicated, and emotionally volatile. In this generative workshop, we will ponder characters’ decision making, the causality between plot points, and how to keep a reader flipping pages. We’ll delve into specific tactics for constructing present action and folding in backstory. All of these various craft elements speak to the greatest goal we have as storytellers: imbuing our characters with the dignity of complexity. About The Faculty: Joshua Mohr is the author of several books, including Damascus, which The New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s 10 Terrific reads of 2009, and he’s won the Northern California Book Award twice. Termite Parade was an editors’ choice on the New York Times Best Seller List. His latest project is a trilogy of novels all to be published in one calendar year, starting with SAINT THE TERRIFYING in fall ‘24. In his Hollywood life, he’s sold projects to AMC, ITV, and Amblin Entertainment.

About The Class: People can be scary, especially lately, and many many of us are finding solace these days in the more than human world. In our dogs and horses, osprey and antelope, in mountains and meadows, sky and the snowflakes, maybe in some deep druidic faith in the Earth. My relationships with the more than human world are more than just a theme I turn to again and again in my work; they also comprise something like my deep spiritual center. Something I might call my soul. And yet at least in the years that I have been making my living as a writer, writing about animals, or writing in which a mountain, for example, might have a point of view, or a plot might turn on the shifting course of a river, have been few and far between among the vast numbers of stories and novels about humans working their shit out in coffee shops. Not that there is anything wrong with those. Not that I don’t love (need) coffee. In this workshop, however, we will focus on writing about animals, domesticated and wild; trees, individuals and entire forests, oceans, mountains, clouds, weather. They will become more than landscape, more than easy emotion. They will become characters, we will let them be, if they want to be, the reason the story exists at all. And if we dare we might even explore an underworld, a future world, or another world all together Workshop is open to writers in all genres. It will be mostly generative in nature, but we will share what we are working on from time to time during class. Join me in honoring the non-human beings that keep us whole. There will be a non required but recommended reading list that will accompany the course and will be given a few weeks in advance if people want to get inspired. About The Faculty: Pam Houston is the author of the memoir Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, as well as a book of essay between Pam and environmental activist Amy Irvine, called Airmail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics and Place. Her stories have been selected for volumes of The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Short Stories of the Centuryamong other anthologies. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA Award for contemporary fiction, the Evil Companions Literary Award and several teaching awards. She teaches in the Low Rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is Professor of English at UC Davis, and co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers. Pam’s passions include Icelandic Horses (especially the ones who live in Iceland, where she goes as often as possible,) Irish Wolfhounds, travel, mentoring and teaching, particularly teaching writing about the more than human world. She lives on a homestead at 9,000 feet near the headwaters of the Rio Grande in Colorado with her husband Mike and two dogs, a quarter horse, a miniature donkey, four Icelandic ewes, four hens and a rooster. Her forthcoming book, Without Exception: Reclaiming Abortion, Personhood and Freedom, will be published in September 2024.