Category: Wilwrite26 Online Track

  • 10:30 – 11:30AM Saturday Zoom 1: Fund Your Muse: Applying for Grants, Fellowships, & Residencies

    Are you planning to apply for a literary grant, fellowship, scholarship, or artists’ residency in 2026 or 2027? This strategy-packed workshop will show you how to position yourself as a competitive candidate, demonstrate a rising trajectory, and craft clear, concise personal statements. You’ll also learn where to find legitimate funding opportunities, what selection committees look for, and complete hands-on activities to strengthen your application.

    • Lyzette Wanzer
      Lyzette Wanzer’s work appears in over thirty literary journals, magazines, and books. Her book, Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press) appears on Library Journal’s 2022 Top 10 Best Social Sciences Books list, and was a 2023 Black Women’s Studies Association Selection. Lyzette is a contributor to The Lyric… Read more: Lyzette Wanzer

  • 10:30 – 11:30AM Saturday Belmont B: Mining Darkness for Light: The Art of Humorous Memoir

    What makes humor strange and magical is that it is often rooted in sadness, anger, or shame. The writers we find funniest reveal deeply vulnerable truths while mining the absurd even from their darkest moments. In this workshop, we’ll cover ways to do this in your own writing, strategies to help you gain perspective, and the benefits of reframing your experiences—both to your writing and your life.

    Faculty

    • Courtenay Hameister
      Courtenay is an author, teacher, and the former host and head writer of the nationally-syndicated public radio show, Live Wire. Her first book, Okay Fine Whatever: The Year I Went From Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things was long-listed for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Find out more at… Read more: Courtenay Hameister

  • 10 – 10:30AM Saturday Belmont A/B & Zoom One: Break

    Time for some quick self-care! Grab a snack, stretch your legs, check in with friends, then get ready for your next amazing workshop!

  • 9AM – 9PM Saturday Zoom: Quiet Writing

    Writing at a writer conference? You bet! Bring that brilliant idea and get it on the page in a quiet space. The quiet room is open all day.

  • 9 – 10AM Saturday Zoom 2: Writing as Resistance: Crafting Work That Refuses to Be Silenced

    In a time of political suppression, censorship, and rising hostility toward the arts, your writing can become a vital act of resistance. In this workshop, you’ll learn practical craft strategies for embedding resistance into form, voice, and structure without relying on clichés or overt messaging. You’ll examine short excerpts from contemporary writers who confront systems of power, then generate new work through guided prompts designed for online engagement. You’ll leave with fresh material, sharper tools, and a clearer understanding of how your art can speak back.

    Faculty

    • Hillary Leftwich
      Hillary Leftwich is a multi-media writer and the author of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023), Aura (Future Tense Books, 2022), and Saint Dymphna’s Playbook (Limit Zero/University of Hell Press 2025). She teaches creative writing, business writing, environmental writing and environmental storytelling at several universities, writing organizations, and nonprofits… Read more: Hillary Leftwich

  • 9 – 10AM Saturday Zoom 1: Memoir as Fiction

    In this practical workshop, Laurie Scheer will show you how to thoughtfully transform real-life experiences into compelling fiction. You’ll learn how to identify which moments from your personal story are best suited for adaptation and how to reshape them to serve character, plot, and theme. You’ll leave with clear strategies for crafting a cohesive, engaging narrative based in your own experiences.

    Faculty

    • Laurie Scheer
      Laurie Scheer has worked with writers for decades. As a former vice president of programming for WE: Women’s Entertainment, Laurie analyzed manuscripts and scripts as they entered the competitive media marketplace. Laurie has been an instructor at numerous universities across the U.S. from Yale to UCLA. A seasoned professional speaker, she has appeared at annual… Read more: Laurie Scheer

  • 9 – 10AM Saturday Belmont B: Publishing Industry Q&A

    Have questions about publishing, querying, or building your writing career? Join literary agent T.S. Ferguson and editor Lara C. Jones for a Q&A focused on you and your goals as a writer. Bring your questions, gain industry insight, and get candid answers to help you navigate your path to publication.

    Faculty

    • Lara C. Jones
      Lara joined Emily Bestler Books in 2015. Prior to joining the imprint, she held an editorial position at Europa Editions, working on a wide range of critically acclaimed and bestselling novels in translation. Raised in Portland, Oregon, Lara is a graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course and Seattle University, where she studied English and Italian.… Read more: Lara C. Jones
    • T.S. Ferguson
      Before joining Azantian Literary Agency, T.S. Ferguson worked for 16 years as an editor for some of the top children’s and teen book publishers in the business, including Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Harlequin Teen/Inkyard Press, and JIMMY Patterson Books. He has worked with New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors such as Sherman… Read more: T.S. Ferguson

  • 8:45 – 9AM Saturday Belmont A/B & Zoom: Break

    Happy Saturday! Pack up your bag and get ready for a full day of workshops. On your way, grab a pen from registration or a journal from the book table. You have a full day of writing ahead of you!

  • 7 – 8AM Saturday Windsor A: Yoga

    Greet the sun like a (writing) warrior with our morning Yoga class. Designed for experienced and new folks alike, this beautifully relaxing session will help you stretch your muscles and wake up all your sleepy Muses. Join us in Windsor A or from the comfort of your room.

  • 7 – 9PM Friday Windsor C & Zoom: Timberline Review

    It’s time for the Launch of the 15th Annual Timberline Review Literary Journal. Join us online or in-person at the Conference to hear from poets, essayists, authors, memoirists, and that’s just scratching the surface!

    This is a free and open to the public event hosted at the Willamette Writers Conference.

    Come in-person and get your copy of the journal signed by the authors, or join us online to meet and celebrate with this year’s editors, authors, and artists.

    This year’s contributors include:

    Astrid Adam
    ANverena
    Daniel Aôndona
    Amy Jean Bailey
    Tomás Baiza
    Jennifer Campbell
    Clarissa Cervantes
    Michael O. Colvin
    Cathy Cochrane
    Emily A. Davis
    Linda Drach
    Charlotte Friedman
    Patricia R. Henschen
    Yvonne Jayne
    Teresa H. Janssen
    Tess Kelly
    Emily Light
    Giulio R.M. Maffii
    Amy Miller
    Jared Mills
    Michael Fowles
    Kitt Patten
    David J.S. Pickering
    Corey Pressman
    Michael Shoemaker
    Sally Reiser Simon
    Marianne Xenos
    Amanda Yskamp
    Melissent Zumwalt

    Come celebrate the launch of our volunteer-run literary journal!