Mountain Words Literary Festival: Happy Hour Open Mic Readings
Saturday, May 28, 5:15 – 6:15 pm
mountain words
MWLF: “Farcical Fairytales: Improvised Fairytales for children”
Join us in creating a very special, silly, and one-of-a-kind fairytale! This fun and interactive performance for children will star CB’s talented improv troupe, including Kirsten Hausman, Tricia Seeberg, Eliot Paulsen, Jimmy Utley, Gregory Jackson Haley, and Annie Flora. Directed by David Flora. Suitable for kiddos 3 – 10+. Parents welcome to join in the fun, or drop your kiddos and head into the Steddy Theater for Adult Storytime (renowned authors read while you sip coffee and/or mimosas).
Annie Rijks Flora is an actor, writer, improviser and podcaster. She recently moved back to Crested Butte after living in Chicago where she performed professionally for improv and sketch on Donny’s Skybox and the DeMaat stage at The Second City, was a member of the Mainstage Ensemble at ComedySportz and The Comedy Shrine, and was on a Harold Team at the iO theater.
David Flora is an actor, director, improviser and podcaster. David has performed on the mainstage of ComedySportz, Donny’s Skybox at the Second City, and created the Improvised Wrestling Federation. ary film called “Shadows in the Desert: High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle.”
MWLF: “The Writer as Witness” with Shelley Read
Anna Akhmatova’s stunning poem, Requiem, opens with terrorized women queuing at the cold prison gates in Stalinist Leningrad, hoping to glimpse their captured loved ones. When a woman with blue lips whispers to the poet, Can you describe this?, Akhmatova replies with three powerful words: Yes, I can.
In challenging times, writers often wonder how our craft can meaningfully respond to the moment. One answer lies in the extraordinary power of the writer as witness. This workshop will draw inspiration from the long tradition of the writer as witness in global literature. We will also explore the role that both our collective and private experiences play in the stories we want to tell and discover how to write with the precision and honesty these stories deserve.
Shelley Read’s debut novel, Go As A River, is forthcoming from publisher Spiegel & Grau. She recently retired as a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and Honors for nearly three decades. Shelley is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal. Her writing has also appeared in The Denver Post, The Breeder, Paradise Review, Mountain Kids Magazine, Foothills Literary Journal, and Denver Clarion. Shelley holds an MA from Temple University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program. She also completed a double major BA in English and journalism at the University of Denver, a graduate fellowship in aesthetics at Temple University Rome, and PhD coursework and comprehensive exams in literary studies and philosophy as a Dean’s Fellow at the University of Denver.
MWLF: “Murder Mind” discussion with Rachel Monroe
Fascination with stories of crime, criminals, detectives, and victims existed long before our current true crime boom. Alongside it runs an equally persistent uneasiness — what is it that draws us to stories of violence, and what are we hoping to find there? In this discussion, we’ll explore some of the knotty ethical dimensions of true crime writing, including questions of voyeurism and exploitation; power, race, gender, and policing; and the vexed role of the victim. Additionally, we’ll look closely at excerpts from contemporary writers who take crime as their subject.
Rachel Monroe is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, where she covers Texas and the Southwest. Previously, she was a contributing writer at The Atlantic and has also written for the New York Times Magazine, New York, Esquire, Harper’s, and many other publications. Her first book, “Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession,” was published in 2019; it was named a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, Esquire, and Jezebel. She lives in Marfa, Texas.
MWLF: “Stories in Play” for K – 3rd grade
Join the Trailhead Children’s Museum for Stories, Art, and Play during the Mountain Words Literary Festival. The Trailhead will offer sessions for children that will bring various books to life through art and play. Imagine and create your own scenes for “The Book With No Pictures” by B.J. Novak, and dive into the detailed pages of graphic novel “Extincts: Quest for the Unicorn’s Horns” by Scott Magoon. Participants will have the opportunity to express their interpretation of these literary works through art, and explore books through play!
Sarah Broadwell is the Executive Director of the Trailhead Children’s Museum in Crested Butte. Although she is serving in a leadership role now, Sarah’s roots are in classroom and outdoor education, and leaps at any chance to share her love of literacy and learning. Sarah is originally from North Carolina, but has lived in Crested Butte for 5 years. She is passionate about children and their education, whether it is in the pages of a book, in front of an easel, or out on a hiking trail.
MWLF: Publishing Panel
Mountain Words Literary Festival: Publishing Panel Discussion with Shelley Read, James McGrath Morris, Alison Peterman, Bernardo Wade
Friday, May 27
12 – 1 pm
Join us for a look at getting published from all angles: the book publishing industry (McGrath Morris); a fiction writer’s experience maneuvering a book deal (Read); selecting/editing work for literary journals (Wade); and publishing academic articles and working with an academic book publisher (Peterman). Al
As part of your festival pass, or Pay What You Can
MWLF: “Researching Your Book” with James McGrath Morris
Skillful research can improve both fiction and nonfiction writing by making the works more authentic and, in the case of fiction, increase verisimilitude.
Learn research techniques, strategies to locating material, and note-taking and file-keeping systems, particularly electronic files and images. Participants in the workshop are encouraged to submit research questions of problems ahead of time if they don’t object to sharing with the group. Bringing a laptop is also encouraged.
LEARN: to use online collections of historical newspapers, magazines, and books; locating and using archival materials from personal papers to menu collections; navigating past barriers to gain access to expensive academic journals and electronic records; tapping into census and other genealogical records such as ship manifests; ad; using musical and photographic archives both on-line and in person.
James McGrath Morris is an award-winning and New York Times best-selling author. He is the author of Tony Hillerman: A Life, a finalist for the Edgar and the Oklahoma Book Award. His preview works include The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War; Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press; and Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power. Morris has worked in publishing and book distribution for over a decade and has written extensively on the topic.
MWLF: “Mining the Poetic Unconscious” with Kaveh Akbar
Mountain Words Literary Festival: “Mining the Poetic Unconscious” with Kaveh Akbar
Friday, May 27
9 am – 10:30 am
As part of your festival pass, or $25 single entry
Transcendent American poet Max Ritvo wrote that if the world outside a poet’s head is more interesting than the world inside their head, they might as well become a journalist. His point: it’s what’s inside the poet’s mind, what (or who) is hooting or singing or moaning or gagging inside the poet’s own totally unique psychic ecosystem that allows the poet access to a singular voice. In this workshop we’ll try various methods of popping under our own hoods and exploring our cognitive machinery (using things like meditation and bibliomancy), mining our discoveries for poetic language and imagery and more. Leaving the workshop, we’ll have generated drafts, jumping off points for new poems, and hopefully, if all goes well, better relationships with the little voices in our heads.
Kaveh Akbar’s poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His second full-length volume of poetry, Pilgrim Bell, will be published by Graywolf in August 2021. His debut, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is out now with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, published in 2016 by Sibling Rivalry Press. In 2022, Penguin Classics will publish a new anthology edited by Kaveh: The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine
In 2020 Kaveh was named Poetry Editor of The Nation. The recipient of honors including multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. In 2014, Kaveh founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. With Sarah Kay and Claire Schwartz, he wrote a weekly column for the Paris Review called “Poetry RX.”
MWLF: Trivia with Quiz Quiz Bang Bang
Join us for a lively evening of trivia, prizes and lots of laughs! From the dynamic duo behind the hugely popular Quiz Quiz Bang Bang podcast, get ready to test your smarts from everything from geography to art to television to history — plus a special literary round! $20 team entry, $5 individual entry.
Tables limited to teams of 6 per table per team. Your team must have a reserved table to participate as a team.
Quiz Quiz Bang Bang is the pub quiz practice show that hits you POW right in the quizzer! QQBB is a weekly trivia podcast show that has been rated one of the top trivia podcasts. Annie and David host games along with group episodes and expert episodes. Guests that have been on the show include Frank Villalla (Archivist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Tim Faith (Technical Brewing Manager of Goose Island) and Colt Cabana (Professional Wrestler) along with many professional improvisers, actors, and writers. Quiz Quiz Bang Bang can be found on all major podcasting platforms.
Annie Rijks Flora is an actor, writer, improviser and podcaster. She recently moved back to Crested Butte after living in Chicago where she performed professionally for improv and sketch on Donny’s Skybox and the DeMaat stage at The Second City, was a member of the Mainstage Ensemble at ComedySportz and The Comedy Shrine, and was on a Harold Team at the iO theater.
David Flora is an actor, director, improviser and podcaster. David has performed on the main stage of ComedySportz, Donny’s Skybox at the Second City, and created the Improvised Wrestling Federation. ary film called “Shadows in the Desert: High Strangeness in the Borrego Triangle.”
MWLF: “Literary Spirits” with Paige Prouty
Learn to craft and twist classic cocktails in this delicious and delightful introduction to mixology. Learn techniques and industry hacks for creating your own at home, and enjoy creating three signature cocktails and sampling your creations. One of the signature cocktails will also be featured at the discussion + gallery reception for “Flourish” that takes place immediately after this workshop! All materials and recipes included. $30, or included in your festival pass.
MWLF: “Writing as Play” with Claire Boyles
“Writing as Play” Writing can be serious business—hard work of the mind and the heart—and many writers feel a sense of urgency to get their words out of their heads and onto the page. Sometimes, though, all that serious effort can keep us from accessing our most creative, bright, and original ideas. Whatever genre you work in, whatever role writing has in your life, the writing games in this workshop will activate your imagination, inspire new approaches to process, and highlight the joy of creating and sharing work in community.
Claire Boyles (she/her) is a writer, mom, and former farmer who lives and writes in Colorado. A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, she is the author of Site Fidelity, which was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award and the Best of the West Award and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Her writing has appeared in VQR, Kenyon Review, Boulevard, and Masters Review, among others. She is a Peter Taylor Fellow for the Kenyon Review Writing Workshops and has received support from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation, the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers Workshop, and the Community of Writers. She teaches in Eastern Oregon University’s low-residency MFA program in Creative and Environmental Writing.
mwlf: “STATUS AND STASIS” playwriting with Paul Edwards
A playwriting workshop also suitable for other genres and derived from widely accepted practice in dramatic writing. A play usually arises out of a defined conflict shaped by the wants and needs of its characters. Central to the conflict are perceptions of the related ideas of status and stasis. After a discussion of status and stasis, their relationship to one another, and to the central conflict, the workshop will conclude with some writing exercise based in part on Keith Johnstone’s status improvisations.
Paul Edwards is a writer, director, and professor emeritus in Communication Arts at Western Colorado University. During his 31 years at Western he taught courses in nearly all areas of theatre and performance, directed and wrote dozens of plays, was Director of the Theatre program for many years and twice served as Chair of the Communication Arts, Languages and Literature Department. He most recently wrote and directed the one-act “A Difficult Delivery” for CBMT’s 10-Minute Solo Play Festival Summer Wedding and directed the sold-out production of Justin Haigh’s version of A Christmas Carol. He is currently directing Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille for the CBMT. Other directing projects with the CBMT include The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Proof, Rabbit Hole and the 2019 production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Currently, he is Artistic Director of the Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, and board vice-president of Vita Institute for the Arts.
mwlf: Better Together workshop with Nuha Fariha
Are two heads better than one? This workshop focuses on the practice of creative collaboration. Through discussion and a guided writing exercise, participants will reflect on practices that can lead to partnerships, best practices and new ideas. Together, we will address the old adage, “Are two heads better than one?” Participants will leave the workshop with at least one new idea to try for their own writing practice.
Nuha Fariha (she/her) is a first-generation Bangladeshi American writer. A first year MFA Candidate at Louisiana State University, she is the Fiction Editor of the New Delta Review. Her work has appeared in MAGMA, Jamhoor and the Minion Project. She is the 2021 runner up for Stellium Literary’s CUSP Prize in Fiction and 2022 runner up for the RoadRunner Poetry Award. Her first chapbook God Mornings, Tiger Nights is forthcoming from GameOver Books. Find her on social media @nuhawrites.