Saturday 8/26

1:30      Registration/Check-in (cabins available by 3:00)

5:00      Orientation

5:30      Cocktail Hour with music by Caroline Keys

              Artisanal cocktails by Montgomery Distillery

6:30      Dinner

8:00     Miss Jane Meets Montana—a reading by National Book Award Shortlist author Brad Watson followed by Introductions & Contributors’ Notes

Bonfire to follow

 Sunday 8/27

7:00      Breakfast

8:00      Horseback Trail Ride (pre-registration required)

8:30       Green Tea for the Brain—an optional generative writing exercise led by Chris Dombrowski

10:00     Fighting the War Against the Imagination—a versatile and inspiring craft talk by Holly Wren Spaulding

11:00      Publishing Partnerships—Literary Agent Julie Stevenson and Publisher Daniel Slager (along with special guests Sharma Shields and Chris Dombrowski, authors who have worked with respective speakers) discuss some of their favorite methods and collaborations

12:30     Lunch

1:15       Hemingway V Stevens: A Literary Shootout—An optional skeet-shooting contest pits prose writers against poets, with a bet on the side (spectators/hecklers welcome)

2:30      Searching For My Father’s Song: Some Thoughts on Sound and Sense, the Line and the Sentence—Jack Driscoll’s much anticipated annual craft lecture: no further intro necessary

 4:00      First Book Celebration, Second Book Shock—Award-winning young fiction writers Callan Wink and Sharma Shields talk paths to the debut, followed by elation and the inevitable sophomore pressure to deliver once again

5:00       Open Mic Cocktail Hour—led by Fellows

               Artisanal cocktails by Montgomery Distillery

6:30      Dinner

7:30      As West as You Can Get—Reading by award-winning fiction writers Amelia Gray and Smith Henderson

8:30      An Evening with Jeffrey Foucault—A proper, sit-down set with one of the country’s finest songwriters, accompanied by virtuoso drummer Billy Conway

Bonfire to follow

Monday 8/28

7:00      Breakfast

8:30      Generative Writing Exercise led by Kevin Goodan

10:00      Alternative Lifestyles— fiction writers Smith Henderson and Amelia Gray discuss their work as screenwriters in Hollywood and the advertising world, and how/if these day jobs parlay with their art

11:30     Choosing the Proper Channel—Pete Fromm, Callan Wink, and Brad Watson discuss working in multiple genres and attempt shed some light on what helps them distinguish, for example, potential memoir from fiction, short fiction from novel, etc. Includes Q and A

12:30      Lunch

1:15       DIY Publishing: Finding Ways to Make the Publishing Industry Work For You—Author and filmmaker Tyler Dunning, and publisher/editor Daniel Rice, discuss alternative inroads to the book world

2:30      Making the Horse Drink, After All—agent Julie Stevenson and publisher Daniel Slager break down agenting, acquisitions, and publishing to the barest of bones, and field our toughest questions

4:00      Mapping the Wilderness Within—Holly Wren Spaulding and Kevin Goodan exhibit the rich inner landscapes of their poems in a reading. Q & A to follow

5:30      Cocktail Hour with music by Jeffrey Foucault and Billy Conway

6:30      Dinner

8:00         Inland Monsters of the Pacific Northwest—Readings by Pete Fromm and Sharma Shields

9:00      Reception & Bonfire

 Tuesday 8/29                

7:00      Breakfast

10:00     Where the Rivers Change Direction— Gratitudes and Salutations

12:00      Check out of cabin

12:30      Lunch / Departure

Missoula's independent bookstore Fact & Fiction will be selling books on-site throughout the retreat. Schedule subject to change.