VOICES FOR THE WEST
WRITING WORKSHOPS & COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS
FEBRUARY 21-23, 2025
We're thrilled to announce our third-annual workshop series on the edge of Zion National Park! VOICES FOR THE WEST Writing Workshops will take place Friday, February 21 through Sunday, February 23, 2025, in Springdale, Utah. Join us in the heart of redrock country for an inspiring, unforgettable weekend!
Study nonfiction with Amy Irvine or Craig Childs, poetry with Chris La Tray, or fiction with Shelley Read at the doorstep of Zion National Park during this three-day workshop. Generate new work, take risks, and learn from experienced instructors and fellow writers in a supportive and intimate space. The stunning redrock scenery of Springdale, Utah, provides inspiration for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction writers—writers of all levels are welcome. Hone your craft during the day, and enjoy public events and readings with the award-winning instructors in the evenings. Plus, each attendee will gain insider knowledge into the publishing world with Torrey House Press Publisher Kirsten Johanna Allen and Executive Editor Will Neville-Rehbehn.
Each workshop will have a maximum of 15 attendees. A limited number of tuition scholarships will be awarded to attendees on the basis of financial need (scholarships do not cover lodging or travel).
WORKSHOP DETAILS
TO APPLY |
Please submit a writing sample of 1,000-3,000 words (if applying for fiction or nonfiction workshop) or three poems (if applying for poetry workshop) in a single Word document. Please name the file with your last name and the writing track you are applying for (i.e.: Lastname_Poetry).
TUITION |
This year, we are offering two full days and an additional morning of workshop time, along with a Publishing 101 course taught by the Co-Executive Directors of Torrey House Press to learn the ins and outs of the industry. Evening events are open to the public. Lunches and light breakfasts will be supplied all three days. Scholarships are available.
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Workshop Pricing: $750
If you need to cancel for any reason, you may request a full refund of your tuition payment by December 1, 2024. Cancel by January 1, 2025 for a 50% refund. No refunds will be given after January 1, 2025.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS
NONFICTION WORKSHOP WITH AMY IRVINE | More than Dino Bones Down There: How to Tap Bedrock for a Story's Soul
A good story is horizontal—it moves across space and time. But a good story also goes vertical—it needs heat that's extracted from subterranean substrates not even visible to the reader. In this workshop, we will explore the vivid, visceral details that are essential to a good story—but we won't stop there. We'll drill down to the bones, and pump to the surface the emotional fuels needed for combustion and propulsion. All of this, through exercises designed to help you dig a little deeper, along with playful scene set-ups that help us see through fresh eyes what lacks energy, detail, and context on the page. Also, we'll dissect and discuss a few short scenes by some of our finest western authors. I'll send them beforehand for you to read, as advance inspiration for your own deep dive!
*COURSE FULL* POETRY WORKSHOP WITH CHRIS LA TRAY | The practice of poetry mirrors the spiritual life of an Anishinaabe person: which is to say, if one lives an Anishinaabe life, with particular attention to the seven guiding principles of the Seven Grandfather teachings–Humility, Courage, Honesty, Wisdom, Truth, Respect, and Love–then every footstep becomes a prayer. If one approaches poetry in a similar fashion, recognizing that everything that happens may be viewed as a poem, and that every moment in life is an experience best paid constant and careful attention to, then every footstep becomes a poem. This workshop will be an exercise in observation, stillness, and community with the human and more-than-human world, and what that might look like on the page.
*COURSE FULL* NONFICTION WORKSHOP WITH CRAIG CHILDS | More Than Human: Writing About Animal Encounters
How can a creature with opposable thumbs, who writes with pen and keyboard, see through the eyes of a muscular, rubbery cephalopod, or feel through the whiskered lens of a cat's face? We all encounter animals, and writing about them is a terrific, mind-opening challenge. In this three-day session, we will use a variety of prompts and sketches relating to animal encounters, and turn them into words on the page. You will leave with material and ideas you can work with. A packet of readings will come to you ahead of time, not excessive, I promise. Please give it a good read. Bring your animal memories and blank paper and we'll take it from there.
PS – keyboards are allowed in the workshop, just don't clatter on them like an ape!
FICTION WORKSHOP WITH SHELLEY READ * ALMOST FULL! 2 SPOTS REMAINING * | Writing your best fiction depends on a slew of well-crafted elements, but nothing matters so much as your firm belief that you hold stories no one else can tell. Together we’ll dig into the most authentic spaces of your creative imagination and practice generating deeply original, meaningful new work. We’ll also apply this fresh lens to your ongoing project and make abundant space for writerly discussion. This supportive, interactive workshop is designed to bolster your confidence and creative energy while offering plenty of practical advice on the writing, revising, and publishing process.
NEW WORKSHOP!
MEET THE INSTRUCTORS
AMY IS JOINING US!
AMY IRVINE | NONFICTION
AMY IRVINE is a sixth-generation Utahn and long-time public lands activist. Her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land, received the Orion Book Award, the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, and the Colorado Book Award. She has published two books with Torrey House Press: Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, a feminist response to Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, published on the 50th anniversary of Solitaire’s publication; and with Pam Houston, Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place. Irvine is the recipient of the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award and a teaching fellowship for the MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University, where she taught fiction and creative nonfiction. She has also taught for Orion Magazine, Western Colorado University, the Free Flow Institute, Whitman College’s Semester in the West, the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Program at Rio Mesa in southeastern Utah, and Fishtrap’s Outpost on the Zumwalt Prairie Reserve in southeastern Oregon. Irvine lives and writes off-grid, on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado, stone's throw from her Utah homeland.
CHRIS LA TRAY | POETRY
CHRIS LA TRAY is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. His third book, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, was published by Milkweed Editions on August 20, 2024. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award. His book of haiku and haibun poetry, Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel, was published in 2021 by Foothills Publishing.
Chris writes the weekly newsletter "An Irritable Métis" and lives near Frenchtown, Montana. He is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023–2025.
CRAIG CHILDS | NONFICTION
CRAIG CHILDS is known for following ancient migration routes on foot throughout the Southwest. He has published more than a dozen books of adventure, wilderness, and science, including the award-winning Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau and Virga and Bone: Essays from Dry Places.
He has won the Orion Book Award and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, the Galen Rowell Art of Adventure Award, and the Spirit of the West Award for his body of work. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, High Country News, and Outside. The New York Times says "Childs's feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he's a modern-day desert father."
He has a BA in Journalism from CU Boulder with a minor in Women's Studies, and an MA in Desert Studies from Prescott College and has taught writing at University of Alaska in Anchorage and the Mountainview MFA at Southern New Hampshire University. He lives outside of Norwood, CO.
SHELLEY READ | FICTION
SHELLEY READ is an international bestselling novelist whose debut, Go As A River, is translated into thirty-four languages and appears on bestseller lists worldwide. Go As A River is the winner of the 2024 High Plains International Book Award for Fiction and the 2024 Reading the West Book Award for Best Debut. The novel is a Sunday Times bestseller, Goodreads Choice Award Finalist, Amazon Editor's Pick Best Debut, Indie Next Pick, and Colorado Public Radio Books We Love selection, among other national and international accolades. It is also in development for film with Mazur Kaplan in partnership with Fifth Season.
Shelley was an award-winning Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and honors. Shelley is a fifth generation Coloradan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of Colorado’s Western Slope.
POETRY
ABOUT OUR HOST
With a convenient location right across the river from Utah’s first national park, CABLE MOUNTAIN LODGE offers first-class amenities, majestic sights, and conference rooms for workshops and presentations.
Workshop attendees will receive discounted room rates at 20% discount using a code given after acceptance.
MORE PRAISE FOR VFTW
"I'm returning from the Voices for the West workshop feeling both shifted and grounded. Working, even briefly, with a community of writers committed to both creative practice and issues of place, space, and environment has challenged and invigorated my writing beyond expectations. If your writing engages with environmental advocacy, human relationships with place, and/or land: the structure, focus, and community Voices for the West provides will benefit you and your work—period."
"The best part of attending Voices for the West was being surrounded by a community of writers that use their words to tell the stories of the places they love and want to protect."
"Whether you are a beginner or long-time practitioner, if you like writing you will love this conference."
"The attendees, the faculty, the Cable Mountain Lodge staff, and the Torrey House Press crew were all such a special part of the weekend. This workshop is perfect for writers who are looking to tap into new (or renewed) inspiration, connections, and perspectives while honing their craft. And every writer who feels a connection to the people and places of the west should attend -- this workshop is steeped in the kind of energy that will call your words home."
"I took a course in fiction to step outside my non-fiction comfort zone. Writing in community alongside the Virgin River was inspiring and expanding, an experience I will carry forward with my words for quite some time.
"Being in a different part of the country than where I am usually, experiencing the different terrain, seeing how interaction with the land can positively influence my writing, gaining a new appreciation for the land, its history, and what it can show us. I live in the midwest and I usually attend writing workshops elsewhere. It was also great to meet and work with other writers, many of whom are based in the west."
"The best part of attending Voices for the West was the companionship, the wise instruction of the workshop leaders, and just the feeling of being a part of something inspiring and wonderful. Folks should attend at any point in the writing process. This was useful to me at the idea generation phase, and I got so much out of it."
"In the past week, I've approached two manuscripts with renewed energy and focus, drawing on strategies and approaches I learned from my workshop leader and other workshop participants."