May 16-18, 2024
Join us for three days of writing, reading, and connecting over words
This free annual, three-day event features writing workshops with esteemed Idaho writers, an opening keynote from a guest author, and a closing storytelling event where writers of all levels are invited to share their work. Come explore new methods, strengthen your writing, and connect with others. Writing workshops are limited in size but open to all levels.
Presented in partnership with Boise-based Story Forward.
Anaïs Nin
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection… to record the journey … to expand our world…
Schedule of Events
Thursday, May 16
5:00 – 5:30 p.m. | Registration & Check-In | Lecture Hall Entry
Writing workshop participants can check in early for individual workshops and receive materials.
5:30 p.m. | Opening Keynote with JESS WALTER | Lecture Hall
National Book Award finalist and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, best-selling author Jess Walter joins us to kick off the 2024 seminar. Jess is the author of seven novels including Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions, as well as two books of short stories and one nonfiction book. Free and open to all, registration is required.
Friday, May 17
2:00 – 5:00 p.m. | Writing Workshops 1 & 2 | Multiple Library Rooms
Registration is required for workshops, which are limited to 15 attendees each. All breakouts are free and open to all levels.
Workshop 1 | Beginnings with Anna Caritj
This workshop will explore the art of a well-crafted beginning. We’ll read the first pages and first paragraphs from a range of great novels and stories and ask what it is that makes us turn the page. We’ll discuss work by Sally Rooney, Julio Cortázar, Ben Lerner, Stephen King, and more. A significant portion of the workshop will be dedicated to honing the openings of your novels and stories. We’ll also discuss practical tools for starting new projects and braving the blank page.
Workshop 2 | How to Tell Your (Nonfiction) Story with Kim Cross
From memoir to personal essays, nonfiction writing often elevates a real-life experience to touch on something more expansive, some universal truth, that can inspire, amuse, or help others. In this workshop, learn how to identify, write, and refine a personal story that’s “not just about you.” Craft tips will focus on cinematic scenes, story structure, and revision with “literary forensics.”
Saturday, May 18
10:30 – 11:30 a.m. | Writers Roundtable | Lecture Hall
The five “To Taste Life Twice” writing instructors will come together for a panel discussion and share more about their writing lives and practice. Join us to hear from these esteemed Idaho writers and to pose your own questions to them. Coffee and light pastries will be provided. No registration required.
1:00 – 4:00 p.m. | Writing Workshops 3, 4 & 5 | Multiple Library Rooms
Registration is required for workshops, which are limited to 15 attendees each. All breakouts are free and open to all levels.
Workshop 3 | Unf*ck Yourself: Storytelling for Liberation with tai simpson
Everything we think we know could very well be wrong. And there’s freedom in that. During this time, participants will engage in connecting to traditional and contemporary oral and visual Indigenous storytelling traditions to honor our stories & voice. The invitation is to set aside convention, tradition, and canon to find our richest, juiciest, thickest stories that simmer below the surface of a world that has us f*cked up. Respectfully of course.
Workshop 4 | Making the Past Present with Christian Winn
In this workshop we’ll dive into and explicate some remarkable short fiction, personal essays, and poetry that artfully and effectively use time passed, detailed nostalgia, and lessons of experience to deliver truth, relevance, and wisdom to present moments on the page. From Jennifer Egan to Joy Harjo, Haruki Murakami to Denis Johnson and Ada Limon, we’ll explore what some of our best contemporary writers can teach us about retrieving some of that lost time. We’ll use these works as models and inspirations in creating our own writing that draws out further depth, larger truths, and complex understandings of the human condition – for our characters, our worlds, and ourselves.
Workshop 5 | Curating Life and Truth: How to Write a Compelling Story with Alan Heathcock
What’s the story you can tell better than anyone else? How do you execute with power on the page? As writers, we hone our craft through “curation”, a concept encompassing the highly specific ways we each define our interests and concerns and hopes, as well as our standards of quality for everything from plots to characters to prose, dialog and images and insights. In this workshop, we’ll take a deep dive into how to curate your unique artistic sensibility, as a means to elevate your writing and storytelling into its most singular and potent form. All genres and levels of experience are welcome.
5:00 – 7:00 p.m. | Reading & Storytelling Event | Lecture Hall
To close out the seminar, all attendees and the public are invited to hear readings from participants, instructors, and more special guests. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Open to all: seminar attendees, family and friends, and the general public! Learn more here.
More Opportunities for Participants
Manuscript Review with Christian Winn
As part of the seminar, TTLT instructor Christian Winn will offer one-on-one manuscript reviews for 2-3 individuals. Participants who sign up will pay Christian directly ($100 per manuscript review – there will be a page/word limit), share a manuscript ahead of time, then meet with him one-on-one during the weekend at an agreed upon time. Email Martha Williams at mwilliams@comlib.org if you are interested in this opportunity.
Publishing Consulting with Kim Cross
After you’ve written a manuscript, your next question may be: “How do I go about getting this published?” TTLT instructor Kim Cross is offering through the seminar half-hour or one-hour consultations ($50 for thirty minutes; $100 for an hour) for those who want to know how to go about pitching something for publication. Kim will accept 2-3 appointments each day, and they must be scheduled at least 1 week ahead of the seminar. She will read 3-5 pages of a sample writing in advance. Email Martha Williams at mwilliams@comlib.org if you are interested in this opportunity.
About the Instructors
Anna Caritj is the author of Leda and the Swan (Riverhead, 2021). She is an assistant professor in the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs at Boise State University, where she also serves as editor-in-chief of the Idaho Review. She grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where much of her work takes place. She lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband and son.
Kim Cross is a journalist, historian, and New York Times Best-Selling author of meticulously reported narrative nonfiction. Her magazine features have been recognized in “Best of” lists by the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review, and Best American Sports Writing. Her first book, What Stands in a Storm, was a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, Good Reads Choice Award finalist, and winner of the Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence. Her latest book, In Light of All Darkness, won the Truman Capote Prize and has been nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America. She teaches Feature Writing for Harvard Extension School’s master’s program in journalism and is a founding writing instructor of the Hemingway Center’s Sawtooth Writing Retreat.
Alan Heathcock is the award-winning author of Volt and 40. He’s won a National Magazine Award, Whiting Award, NEA Prose Fellowship, and has twice been named a Literary Fellow by the Idaho Commission on the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Time, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and he’s been a contributor to NPR’s “All Things Considered”.
tai simpson (she/her) is also named “The Storyteller” in the Indigenous language of the Nimiipuu, commonly known as the Nez Perce Tribe. As a direct descendant of Chief Redheart, tai takes great pride in serving her community as an organizer and advocate. tai catalyzed her racial and social justice organizing while studying Sociology and Political Philosophy & Public Law at Boise State University. She is an organizer for the Indigenous Idaho Alliance and co-Director with the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence. As an antiracism educator and community organizer, she uses Indigenous storytelling to depict the lens of “old ways” and how they protect the sacred, build strength in the community, and keep nature in balance; these principles support her work to champion radical inclusion, equity, and liberation.
Christian Winn was Idaho’s 2016-2019 Writer in Residence, he is the founder of the Writers Write fiction workshop series, co-founder and Director of Storyfort, and producer of the Campfire Stories reading series and the Couch Surfer Artist Series. He is a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and the Boise State University MFA program.
Email Martha Williams, Director of Programs and Education, for more information.
