The Desert Nights, Rising Stars
Writers Conference

The experience of fiction as truth, as a representation of Truth (with a capital T!), is its singularly most impressive goal. To achieve this, an author must convince through the senses, says Flannery O'Connor in her essay, "Writing Short Fiction." Sensory details are at the core of writer's ability to show versus tell.

What industry generates over a billion dollars a year and is run for women by women? Would you be surprised to learn that it's the romance industry? This session examines preconceived ideas about romance writing and seeks to illustrate how opinions on the romance industry have been misshaped by the patriarchy, are rooted in puritanical shame, and have been propagated throughout the centuries as dirty and shame-filled. Come with your inquiries and learn how this thriving and important genre defies preconceived notions, and how this exciting industry might be right for you! 

In this session, we'll discuss the importance of worldbuilding in various formats and genres. We'll examine several key aspects of effective worldbuilding as well as techniques for revealing your created world to your readers. 

Does the white gaze cause us to compromise or be less thorough in investigations of character and narrative? Do we curate ourselves when writing about suffering or trauma? As readers, do we come to marginalized or underrepresented literature with expectations? This session will bring Identity and Race into Watkins' investigation of audience, power, and white heteronormative supremacy.

Hear work from veteran writers during the lunch break

Hear work from fellow conference attendees (or even read some yourself) at an open-mic style reading during the lunch break. Please note: as space is limited, sign-ups for the open reading are first-come, first-served. Sign-up will open at 12:15 p.m. Participants should prepare to read no more than 5 minutes of material.

In the Indigenous Nation, the Navajo/Dine worldview everything is in motion and is reflected in the language that is verb-based and imagistic. This session focuses on images that speak for themselves and that open up to poetic interpretations on urgent environmental issues. How can poetic images convey the urgency of the issues that confront you on a level that comes from personal self-reflection and how does it resonate to other beings that inhabit the earth?

How do we mine our darkest moments for story, and how do we sit in that place and get the story onto the page while maintaining our mental health? In this session, we will talk about how we as writers explore our own traumas in ways that allow us to be vulnerable and open, share the experience so that others can feel what we felt, and still keep ourselves separate enough to function in real life.

Throughout literary history, the notion of story has been communicated through linear narrative carried to fruition by a traditional arc. Contemporary hybrid texts reject the idea that this formula is necessary to organize story and communicate meaning. When linear narrative is stripped away, what holds the story together? In this session, we'll explore the universality of the body and its sensory perceptions as an organizational mechanism to organize story and orient and impact the reader. 

In this generative session, we will examine how the constraints and limitations of the page affect form and content to produce work that expands beyond traditional scale and presentation. The session provides poets the chance to experiment with form and scale in order to generate work that centers their own narrative and desire for the freedom of movement that we're allowed once we stretch beyond the page and physically enter and reclaim space. The session will also provide poets with examples of contemporary work currently in conversation with the session.

Ecopoetry incorporates aspects of ecology into poetic practice. In particular, through both content and form, ecopoetry often examines the relationship between built and natural environments. In this experimental session, participants will explore the idea of eco-architecture as it applies to a poem's form and shape. The discussion will especially consider how an attentive experience of place and space affects our sense of that place, and explore how that sense can be recreated in poetry.

Wicked witches, daydreamy princesses: flat characterization works well in fairy tales and other abbreviated forms, but literary fiction depends on depth and dimension. This generative writing session explores the need for empathy in all forms of solid characterization. 

From our dinner plates to Netflix specials like Ugly Delicious, food is everywhere. We care about food not only because it nourishes our bodies, but also because it allows us to access intimate parts of our lives and memories: our childhood, family, culture, community, and politics. Food is an important part of storytelling and vital to how we understand ourselves and our communities—that's why shows like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown are so popular.

This session will explore the intersections between the human, nonhuman, and the environment in a changing landscape. We'll discuss the weird history of our engagement with nature, science, climate, and the nonhuman as well as the proximity of this engagement to cultural and historical sites. This session will also provide generative exercises for discovering connections between the human/nonhuman and the environment.