Speaking & Teaching

In addition to teaching creative writing, literature, and film at Big Bend Community College for 20 years, I’ve taught writing workshops and literature classes for many colleges, libraries, museums, assisted living facilities, and other organizations, including Humanities Washington, Write on the River (central WA), Write on the Sound (Edmonds, WA), Underground Writing (for incarcerated writers), Wenatchee Valley College, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, Anacortes Senior College, University of Idaho, and many other public and private organizations.

Given my background as a bookseller, lit teacher, and all-around bibliophile, my workshops and presentations tend to be literature-based, and typically focus on generating new creative work or breathing life into old projects. And we explore specific ways we can improve our craft as writers, such as by focusing on:

• formula and innovation in genre fiction
• building suspense, regardless of genre
• experimental/innovative writing
• plot, structure, and conflict
• best practices for place-based writing
• the history and culture of crime fiction
• the history and culture of pulp fiction
• narrative in film
• contemporary literature and poetry
• as well as traditional creative writing workshops, from introductory to advanced.