The Festival will be held at the Liberty Theater, Columbian Theater, Fort George Brewery, and Hotel Elliott in downtown Astoria. October 18-20, 2024.
The Hotel Elliott has graciously offered festival attendees a discounted room rate. You may book rooms on their website using this link and Code: WGUILD
Alternately, you may call the hotel directly and ask for the Writers Guild rate: 503-325-2222.
Would you like to volunteer? Volunteers receive discounted passes. Sign up: here.
Do you need a scholarship? We want to help eliminate financial barriers, so please apply. Thanks to 100 Women Who Care for support. Apply: here.
Would you like to sell your books at the Authors Fair Sunday October 20th?Space is limited and first priority is given to Guild members. Apply: here.
Full schedule for the October Festival and Workshops below!
(Keep scrolling!)
October 18-20, 2024
Join us for an amazing weekend of Astoria Creative Writing magic celebrating the power of the written word.
The weekend festival pass includes:
Friday social mixer 4:30-6 pm with wine and cheese at the McTavish Room (Liberty Theater). Please enter on 12th Street) Pick up your festival pass and enjoy a glass of wine with other attendees.
Friday evening reading and conversation with Karl Marlantes at the Liberty Theater. Doors open at 6 pm. Festival pass pick up in lobby.
A full-day Saturday of workshops and readings by our fabulous presenters. Learn new skills and enhance your craft. Doors open at 8 am. Festival pass pick up available.
Saturday evening poetry celebration at the Columbian Theater (with a chance to read at the Open Mic)
Silent auction with gifts for word lovers
Sunday Authors fair with a chance to purchase books and/or sell your own (seller space is limited with priority given to presenters and Guild members)
You won't want to miss this fantastic weekend celebrating all things writing in beautiful downtown Astoria, Oregon!
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Karl Marlantes
A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the author of Matterhorn, which won the William E. Colby Award given by the Pritzker Military Library, the Center For Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the 2011 Indies’ Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s James Webb Award for Distinguished Fiction. He lives in rural Washington.
Event will take place Friday evening, 7 pm at the Liberty Theater. Marlantes will discuss his work and then sit down for an interview with Guild president Marianne Monson. Questions from the audience will be included. Doors open at 6 pm. Pick up your festival pass in the lobby or purchase single tickets: HERE.
Event is INCLUDED for festival ticket pass holders. The general public may purchase tickets through the Liberty Theater.
WORKSHOP #1
Mary Delea - “The Power of Place”
We will read and discuss a few poems in which poets focus on place. Attendees will then be given prompts to write their own place poems, and can share what they have written.
Mary Christine Delea has a Ph.D. In English /Creative Writing. She is the author of The Skeleton Holding Up the Sky as well as 3 chapbooks of poetry. She lives in Oregon City.
The workshop will be on Saturday from 8:30-9:15 am at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry. Doors open at 8 am.
WORKSHOP #2
Lara Messersmith-Glavin - “Objects as Talismans”
Uncover the personal, material, and sensual histories of the objects around you as a starting place for essays or journaling. Participants will generate some writing, and we’ll discuss both lyric and braided essay forms. Feel free to bring some beloved objects (e.g. small stones, jewelry, trinkets, shells, postcards, pens) or work from memory. This session is a great fit for folks who are drawn to poetry, personal essays, natural history, or memoir.
Lara Messersmith-Glavin is an author, educator, and performer based in Portland, Oregon. You can find both her nonfiction and her speculative work in dozens of journals and anthologies, including the most recent issues
of Monstrous Femme, Cthonic Matter, and Space Cocaine, as well as the new collection of gaming stories, Winding Paths: a Playable Reading Experience (Demagogue Press: 2023). Her book of essays, Spirit Things (UA Press: 2022), won the Sarton Women's Book Award for Memoir and Finalist for the Willa Cather Literary Award. Her fantasy novel Ruiner, the first in the Tellers series, is due out on AK Press in 2025.
The workshop will be on Saturday from 9:30-10:30 am at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry.
WORKSHOP #3
Karl Marlantes - “Writing From History”
Karl Marlantes is known for weaving mythological themes into his historical fiction. In this workshop, you'll have the opportunity to hear Marlantes talk about his process and explain how he braids together multiple threads and voices from history to create a cohesive narrative. Bring something to write with for this hands-on workshop session with a master of the genre.
Space is limited.
A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the author of Matterhorn, which won the William E. Colby Award given by the Pritzker Military Library, the Center For Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the 2011 Indies’ Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s James Webb Award for Distinguished Fiction. He lives in rural Washington.
The workshop will be on Saturday from 10:45-11:45 am at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry. Space is limited! Books available for purchase after the workshop.
WORKSHOP #4
Harvest Moon - “Quinalt Storyteller”
Storytelling is a well-balanced tradition blended with new women who have taken the Art Form while carving out a space for themselves. It's amazing how the lives of the women in the past influence our paths through the collective unconscious. Nothing is stronger than water and the words of women. In a man's world war, death is their biggest POWER. In life, women rule Supreme in the word the giving of life and love. Tloo-qwah-nah: when one stops acting or emoting and begins living the PART.
Retired teaching coastal Salish history. Recently pursuing and breaking the tides and stopping the wind! A WOMAN STORYTELLER is my light shining!
The performance will be on Saturday from 1:00-2:00 pm at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry.
WORKSHOP #5
Alyssa Graybeal - “This Place is a Character”
We all know sensory details are critical to good writing. If Astoria is your setting, for example, you might describe the barking sea lions on the Columbia River, the fog on Saddle Mountain at sunrise, the smell of spruce tips on a misty hiking trail...but wait. Which details actually matter to your story? In this workshop, we'll explore how to deepen your writing craft by choosing symbolic, emotion-laden details that support your storytelling, rather than merely decorate it.
Alyssa is a queer writer and cartoonist who uses observational humor to explore the emotional landscape of life with chronic illness and disability, in particular the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Her memoir Floppy (2023) won the Red Hen Nonfiction Award and was a finalist for the 2024 Oregon Book Award. She works as an editor and indexer, and lives in Astoria.
The workshop will be on Saturday from 2:15-3:00 pm at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry.
WORKSHOP #6
Emily Ransdell - “Poetry of Place”
Is there a difference between poetry ABOUT a place and poetry OF a place? Poet Richard Hugo once said: “Everybody’s a regional poet to some extent, but the region
from which you write is merely the lens. The real region is you.” In this workshop, we’ll examine a poem or two that illustrates Hugo’s point with an emphasis on vocabulary and detail. We’ll begin to define a vocabulary that can make our poems uniquely ours, then draft the start of a poem, with optional sharing as time allows. No critique — all exploration!
Poet Emily Ransdell’s debut collection, One Finch Singing, won the Lewis Award
from Concrete Wolf Press in 2022. Her work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Terrain,
River Styx, CALYX, and elsewhere. Emily has been a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize and runner-up for the Patricia Cleary Award from New Letters, as well as the Prime Number Poetry Award from Press 53. Emily divides her time between Camas, Washington, and Manzanita, Oregon, where she teaches poetry workshops online through the Hoffman Center for the Arts.
The workshop will be on Saturday from 3:15-4:15 pm at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry.
WORKSHOP #7
Susan Banyas - “Writing from the Memory Place”
Where we live, the places we are attracted to, the deep history around us, the organic world under our feet—these “memory places” hold key images. Astoria, a place on the map, a place with many histories that bump into each other, a place that calls us to it. We will choose a particular location in Astoria and write a free-wheeling tourist guidebook description of this Memory Place that is sensual, imaginative, and historic.
Susan Grace Banyas is a writer and choreographer who puts words into motion through dance, theatre, stories, essays, and art documentaries. No Strangers Here Today and The Hillsboro Story are multi-voiced investigations and theatre works that toured nationally and were expanded into a non-fiction book, The Hillsboro Story/A Kaleidoscope History of an Integration Battle in my Hometown (Spuyten Duyvil Press, NYC). Her essay, Mr. Music/Remembering David Ornette Cherry, (Oregon Arts Watch) is being expanded into a multi-media story about love and collaboration. She makes her home in Astoria.
The workshop will be on Saturday from 4:30-5:30 pm at the Hotel Elliott event room in Astoria. Included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry.
Poetry Celebration
Join us at the historic Columbian Theater for a celebration of poetry.
7-7:30 pm: Open Mic; come share your words; 5 minute slots (sign up 6:45 pm)
7:30-8:30 pm, performances by Lara Messersmith-Glavin, Emily Ransdell, Susan Banyas, and Cliff Taylor.
Logan Garner is emcee
This event will be at 7 pm Saturday evening at the Columbian Theater 1102 Marine Dr., Astoria.
Event is included with Festival Pass. Please wear your pass for entry. General Public is welcome. Pay $10 at the door.
Authors Fair
Purchase autographed copies of books. Last chance to bid on auction items. Tabling space is limited.
Meet and talk with more than 20 local authors and buy signed books perfect for holiday giving.
This will be 11 am-2 pm Sunday at the Fort George Tap Room in Astoria. Free event. Open to the public.