Building a Great Publicity Campaign
Three views of how to get the word out about your books and you.

Writing Nonfiction with Co-authors
Authors come together with a common commitment, complementary knowledge, writing skills and good intentions. Then … (fill in the blank). This participatory workshop gives specific suggestions to prevent and/or address blocks to completing joint projects.

Crafting Your Pitch
The question comes at you "What is your book about?" and you’ve just been asked to pitch. You need a two-minute spiel conveying characters, plot, setting, hook, and climax, all delivered with confidence and charm. Through written and verbal exercises, you will come to understand the necessary components of the verbal pitch, practice pitching, and evaluate the results.

Nice Guys, Bastards and Soulful Men: the Psychology of the Male Character
Explore the psychology of men with psychotherapist Rapson and writer English. Working with the latest in psychological research, we examine the roots of various male personality types. An ideal workshop for the writer who wants to understand how male characters might behave in any given situation and why.

Sharing Your Passion; Finding a Support System
Some writers may be lucky enough to live with someone who understands our artistic mind, but many of us are on our own. Finding a network of like-minded people can foster a sense of actually belonging in the passion you’ve chosen, and we all need to feel we belong. We’ll discuss how to go about starting a writing group or circle of writers to share the good times and bad.

Open Mike

The Short Story: Rediscovered and Yet Never Lost -
Panel Discussion

Checking Your Novel for Power
Five ways to make your novel stronger. Participants should have a nearly completed
manuscript that they can refine and strengthen after the session using the specific suggestions offered during class. For experienced and advanced writers.

The Archetype and the Three Bears
Turn the character development process upside-down in this fun, creative workshop for all writers. See the role archetypes play in culture and how you can use the power of the archetype in your writing process. Great for brainstorming.

Illustrated Journaling: a Tool for Writers
If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine using illustrated journaling to capture ideas and images. Diagrams, quick sketches and detailed illustrations can preserve a vast array of images and feelings to enrich your writing and personal enjoyment. No talent or experience needed.

The Strategy of Poetry
This is an active creative process workshop. Participants will explore essential schematics and intricacies of remarkable design in poetry. This workshop will create a time and place where one may consider the value of purposeful approach and intentional method as profound premeditation. This course will investigate usefulness of critical set-up, skillful technique and skeletal construction while engaging participants in cogitative poetic process. Exercises modeling mindfulness devices, tactics, and maneuvers entertain a theory that in poetry, ruse is a necessary thing.

The Nine “P”s of Plotting
A fast-moving, informative workshop that will bring participants to the next level of plotting. Using the Post-It note technique she perfected, Cherry will walk the audience through plotting a book from start to finish. Using a grid to delineate chapters, and different colored Post-It Notes, you’ll learn to mark scenes. You’ll generate scene ideas; important plot points, twists and turns; character arcs and motivation. You’ll learn to improve pacing, spot holes in the plot and understand that every conversation doesn’t have to be held in the kitchen. At the end of the class, you’ll be able to apply this easy, visual, fool-proof plotting method to your own work.

Unleashing the Shameless Self-promoter Within
Most writers hate the idea of promoting their own writing, but in today¹s crowded marketplace, being comfortable tooting one’s own horn is more important than ever. The good news? There are many easy and inexpensive ways to get the job done without appearing overly immodest! This workshop, geared for both experienced and beginning writers, will provide you with ideas and techniques to get started.

Blending Fiction and Nonfiction
How to use fiction in a nonfiction work. For emerging and experienced writers.

Faking Realism in Children’s fiction (while still keeping things real)
What’s with all the dead or missing parents in contemporary children’s fiction? This workshop answers this question and it takes a look at the special problems found in writing ‘realistic’ middle-grade novels. An important look at what never to fake concludes the session. For emerging to experienced writers.

Garden Writing Basics
Drawing from her years of full-time freelancing, Seattle Times Pacific magazine columnist Easton will discuss thirteen steps to successful garden writing. This workshop information is applicable to any creative freelance endeavor.

What Makes Children’s books Become Wildly Popular?
Panel discussion.

The “Images Method” to Develop Your Writing
Refined as the focused writing method she teaches in upper level college classes, this is a craft-based, useful approach for genre writers, poets, or literary novelists. Use the power of memory to increase your concentration and build a work based on thrumming, alive images. After some initial instruction, practice a powerful new method for creating unforgettable word pictures. For all writers.

How to Write a Killer Mystery
You know you’re reading a great mystery novel when you’re up at three in the morning, unable to put it down. When you finally get to sleep, the characters go romping around in your dreams. You get to the final page and smack yourself in the head because the solution is a complete surprise, and yet so obvious in retrospect. So how do you write a great mystery? This session will demystify the art and artifice and get down to the nuts and bolts of writing a killer mystery novel. For emerging and experienced writers.

Chasing Your Dream in the Constantly Changing Business of Books
You want to write.You have a story to tell and you're unsure if the publishers and the market want to hear you. What to do? Three authors give perspectives on the dynamic book industry, a long-time wing of the often fickle entertainment industry. In an ever-changing world, publishers often don't yet know what they're looking for. The business is one of new ideas and fresh perspective, with society and trends crossing over into all facets of the business, from nonfiction to literary to commercial fiction. If you have a story you want to tell, learn how three people dealt with the challenges and rewards inherent in writing and publishing books.

Finding Subjects for Creative Nonfiction in Everyday Life
How can we keep ourselves open to inspiration through our daily lives? Participants will review examples of essays and selections from books, which take as their inspiration seemingly ordinary matters of life, and explore how they are turned into creative nonfiction through the writer’s passion and craft.

Murder by the Numbers
This is a fun and interactive way to incorporate research into the process of writing. Characters are nothing without motivation; statistics are nothing without context. A minimal amount of research can lead the writer down the path to layering motivation while building a lineal plot.

How to Write an Irresistible Nonfiction Proposal
A veteran agent breaks down the process of writing a saleable nonfiction proposal, which will help shorten the distance between writer, agent and publisher.

How to Make Your script or Novel Sizzle – How to Hook the Reader in the First Ten Pages
How do you write a killer opening, first sequence, and hook the reader right away? How do you smarten up the dialogue and prose? Craft your screenplay or novel into a juicy steak that sizzles. Learn how to create three-dimensional characters. Receive expert tips for fine-tuning dialogue, keeping the plot moving, and beating writer’s block. Elevate your material to put you over the competitive edge.

In 25 Words or Less
Piquing a reader’s interest (be it a neighbor, agent, or editor) begins the moment someone asks, “What is your book about?” In this workshop, participants will learn not only how to hone and tighten the answer to that question, but how to get readers begging for more.

Successfully Writing Publishable Fiction
Panel Discussion

How Writers Get Ideas (and what do they do with them)
Spark your creative "tool box" and learn where and how marketable and best-selling ideas are turned into stories, novels, articles, essays and nonfiction books. Ideas ARE everywhere once you have the nose to nose 'em out.

The Four Arc System for Structuring Your Novel
Plot is what happens; structure is when it happens. The four-arc system builds the reader’s interest and delivers a satisfying payoff. Use the arcs to create an outline or write a draft and restructure; either way, you’ll make the most of your material with this simple but powerful tool.

Evolution of Tradition
A discussion of the writer/storyteller’s role in the evolution of cultures. Based on the experiences of Alaska Native storyteller Jack Dalton, we’ll see how artistic and cultural evolution is tradition. For experienced and advanced writers.

Crafting Your Memoir: Finding the Theme, Finding the Structure
We will look at the ways in which theme can inform structure to enrich the overall impact and cohesion of a memoir. Students should bring sections of a memoir they are working on to workshop.

Garden Writing for Pleasure and Profit
From what to read for inspiration, to figuring out if freelancing is a viable career for you, come learn about garden writing from Seattle Times Pacific magazine columnist Valerie Easton. Whether you'd like to record your own garden in memorable prose or write about garden design for magazines, local to international, this workshop is geared to what the participants want to learn, with a dose of lessons Valerie has learned along the way of transitioning from librarian to full-time freelancer.

How to Become a Writer in Print
Steps toward moving from being a writer to being an accomplished writer. Whether you are enrolled in a writing cabin or writing from the cellar of your log cabin, this workshop focuses on steps toward improving your writing so that it moves to print. Move your ordinary language to magical and memorable. For experienced writers.

Finding True North – Part 1
A series of guided meditations and writing exercises designed to excavate the memories, sensations, feelings from which resonant writing comes. These exercises build like a pyramid; participants should attend both sessions. (For writers of all genres and levels.)

Breakthrough to Major Publishers – What Editors Really Want
Learn how the New York Times best-selling authors and first-time novelists broke through the barriers to major publishers from Ms. Booth’s first-hand interviews with these pros. She’ll show you how YOU can maximize your chances of breaking through the barriers by avoiding the ten biggest editorial mistakes writers make before you approach an editor or agent. This well-known industry insider gives the writer truthful, practical answers and hands-on examples for getting through to top agents and editors and provides tips even professional authors may have never heard.

In Search of the Exact Word
The exact word—a writer’s eternal quest. Mark Twain wrote perhaps the most famous line about this particular topic, “The difference between any word and the ‘right’ word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” This workshop will address what is the exact word, and how do we find it.

Giving Your Writing a Sense of Place
In trying to capture a specific time and place in writing, the environment becomes a major character. This session would look at why Dietrich does this in his work (we’re all a product of our time and place) and how he does it, by making the environment a major motivator for the characters.

Tell Me What You Eat and I’ll Tell You Who You Are
Il faut mettre la main àla pâte. You must put your hand to the dough. Julia Child’s dictum to the aspiring cook can serve the writer as well. Food and its possibilities in fiction and memoir. A class in rendering sensory experience in savory prose. Think of Proust and his famous madeleine.

Lousy First Drafts and What to do with Them
Nobody writes good first drafts. Well, alright, there's this one person who does, but nobody likes him. This workshop will focus on techniques to rethink and reshape that first draft piece of drivel.

Dialogue that Delivers
Dialogue is the most effective tool in the writer’s toolbox when it comes to bringing characters and story to life on the page. You can use dialogue to provide background information, reveal characters’ personalities and motive, speed up the story, engage characters in conflict, even challenge the reader to think differently. For emerging or experienced writers.

Writing with a Sense of Urgency
You have an idea for a children’s book but haven’t gotten around to writing it OR you’re halfway into the story and have lost your momentum. How can you recapture that sense of urgency you felt when the idea was new? Learn strategies to jump-start the writing process and a basic structure that will guide your story to completion. (For emerging writers.)

The Intuitive Mind to Plot Design
"The Intuitive Method of Plot Design" takes the "images" approach and strengthens a writer's ability to make a pretty fabulous workable plot in about an hour. For experienced writers and advanced writers.

Finding True North (Part 2)
A series of guided meditations and writing exercises designed to excavate the memories, sensations, feelings from which resonant writing comes. These exercises build like a pyramid; participants should attend both sessions. (For writers of all genres and levels.)

What To Do When You Are Stuck
Techniques for how to find your way into the word, creating character arcs, and planning scenes.

How I Got My Book Published
Eight participants share their experiences and what was learned. This session is open to any registered participant who has published a book. Contact the WIWA office if you’re interested in presenting this session.

Critique Groups: How They Work and How to Make Them Work
Writing is an isolating pursuit. After spending hours closeted away with a pen and paper or a computer, feedback is the next vital step in crafting a publishable manuscript. Any writer who is serious about his or her work and earnestly wants to make it better can benefit from a critique group. Learn the ground rules and the benefits. Observe a critique to illustrate the group’s style. Divide into smaller groups and learn one approach to critique effectively.

Open Mike

What Makes Creative Nonfiction Work?
Panel discussion.

Character Assassination
It takes more than a couple good adjectives to create a memorable character. This workshop is about getting your characters to jump off the page, or if not jump, at least stand tall, like an Abraham Lincoln only without that ugly beard.

Think Like an Elephant – Researching and Writing Nonfiction for Children
How do you achieve the right balance of facts and story to make a satisfying read? Learn how to combine fun facts with a dramatic story structure and tailor research to the appropriate age level. We will also discuss interviewing tips and how to find a publisher for your nonfiction story. (For emerging writers)

Career Planning – A Writer’s Blueprint to the Career You Want
Even creative people such as writers need to use left brain skills to write smart. We all need a career plan to keep us on track. This workshop tells you how to formulate a career plan when you either don’t have a career as a professional writer (yet), your writing career is in hiatus, or you are so busy writing that you haven’t looked up to see what ‘s down the road for your career. You’ll get the tools you’ll need to write your own career plan. Learn Cherry’s tips and from her experiences of what works and what doesn’t. Find out what you need to consider, and how to come up with viable strategies that will work for you. For all writing levels.

Top Ten Ways to Balance Romance and Suspense
Romantic suspense combines two of life’s most compelling emotions – love and danger. Learn how to use these emotions to craft a gripping story. We’ll look at the importance of characterization, motivation, conflicts, red herrings and sexual tension, and pitfalls to avoid. We’ll touch on new ways to approach traditionally popular themes.

The Short Story – A Life in Ten Minutes
How can you convey a life in ten minutes? Simple: choose the right ten minutes. Focus on moments of decision, moments in which the character’s past collides with the present and forces change—or, in some cases, a heartbreaking failure to change. Paint a life in miniature. For writers of all levels.

Theme de Theme
Beneficial for writers of both poetry and creative prose, participants will ponder ideas for purposeful literary meditations. Delving into oft cautioned against thematic embracing, participants will develop an understanding of the integral nature of theme and how theme allows us to work with human rights, human dignity, human condition and the fragility of humanity and the environment. Especially when dealing with those potentially charged topics, what does it mean to consider jointly instead of making moral observations or lecturing? What about deliberately moving to engender a certain reader response? What are we trying to do with our writing?

Plot and Story Shapes
"Critic's tools are not maker's tools," John Gardner once said. The critic's notion of "plot" that you learned in a literature class may be of little use to you as a writer. So what are the useful definitions of plot? And what are some other shapes and structures that are useful in building stories --whether they are plots or not? This session is aimed at beginning to intermediate plotters, though a few ideas may be new to advanced writers as well.

Strengthening Your Creative Resolve – Ten Achievable Characteristics That Are Necessary to an Ongoing Life as a Writer
Once you leave school, no one really cares whether you keep writing or not. Your writing is a gift that you will have to give yourself. Here are ten qualities that will help you hang in there long enough to discover your most authentic art.

Group Remembering
Whether you are writing your memoir or recreating the feel of childhood for a short story or poem, memory is a treasure vault of raw material. Unfortunately, there's often a sturdy lock on the door! In this interactive session, we'll experience a variety of exercises that make use of group writing to unlock your memories. Come ready to write ... and remember. (All levels)

Einstein for Writers
Scientific principles apply to writers: for every action, there is an equal or greater reaction. Why are most of us capable of creating responses but fail to include the stimulus for those responses in our writing? This workshop will help you identify the responses in your work and help you write the appropriate stimuli for them. No knowledge of physics required; sense of humor absolutely required. For writers of all levels.

The Mad, Collaborative Sestina
A group effort in which we create a complete sestina in an hour. The end-words and stanza patterns are provided – the rest is up to you! Many variations are possible; you will be able to raise your own poem from this seed sestina. Familiarity with poetic form is helpful but not necessary.

How to Put the Character Back in Character – Creating Characters that Soar
This class will be an intensive workshop on numerous techniques and exercises that will help the writer, actor, director, executive and producer develop and/or create interesting and memorable characters. This interactive workshop utilizes the ‘duality technique,’ curving mythic clichés, using flaws foibles and idiosyncrasies, improv, back-story impacting character-in-action, etc. to help breath life into an author’s character.

Books Don’t Suck
The conventional wisdom is that children and teenagers hate to read. Geography Club author Brent Hartinger exposes some of the myths about the reading habits of the younger generations while he presents some sure-fire strategies for getting the attention of even the most reluctant of young readers. For emerging writers.

Maximize Your Chances of Snagging a Literary Agent
Learn how the publishing industry really works. Anne Hawkins, a seasoned agent for New York's oldest literary agency, shows you how to beat the bushes and get an introduction or referral to an agent. Explore creative, non-traditional approaches to agents. Learn what you need to know to get ready to begin the query process, and how to write a killer query letter. Anne will provide valuable insights on developing and executing a smart submission strategy, setting realistic expectations for yourself. She'll also show you how to avoid the most common mistakes authors make in trying to gain literary representation.

The Nine Habits of Frequently Published Writers
The first time may be the most difficult—or the luckiest—but can you keep it up? Learn how to employ the nine sacrosanct secrets of those successful writers whose names continue to reappear on book jackets and in bylines. Writer, publisher and editor Stephen Blake Mettee shares his observations on exactly what it takes to be successful in one of the most challenging, albeit rewarding, endeavors.

Revision – A Fly High, Fly Low Approach
So you've finished the first draft of your novel and you're ready to revise. Where to begin? This workshop steps you through a revision process that helps you figure out what's not working and fix it. We'll start with hearing criticism and how to translate comments into changes. Then we'll work our way from addressing large issues (restructuring story, characters, pacing) to small (polishing scenes and sentences) through analysis, leapfrog read-throughs, and multiple-pass rewrites. For experienced writers.

Get Published – Irresistible Query Letters That Sell
A captivating and well crafted query letter is one of the most important tools an author needs to get their book published. Although a query letter is usually only one page long, it may be the hardest yet most crucial writing an author has to create. This workshop will reveal all the tools you need to avoid common mistakes and perfect your query letter to attract an agent or publisher.