Attention readers and writers: the new Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher Creative Writing Festival will be held April 25-27, 2024, in Port Angeles. Keynote readers include Billy Collins, T.C. Boyle, and Tess Gallagher. Selected Shorts from Symphony Space in New York and National Public Radio will bring actors Dion Graham (The Wire), Zach Grenier (Devs), and Kirsten Vangsness (Criminal Minds) to deliver a performance of work by Carver, Gallagher, Collins, and Boyle.
The festival runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday with sixteen events including readings, book signings, film screenings, writing panels, poetry at Raymond Carver’s grave, writing workshops, a free performance by dancers and actors from the Suitcase Players, and more.
Anyone who would like to sharpen their writing skills can register for a workshop in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction with authors Jonathan Evison, Tim McNulty, Alice Derry, Holly Hughes, Lawrence Matsuda, Gary Copeland Lilley, CMarie Fuhrman, Anna Quinn, Charlotte Gould Warren, Kate Reavey, or Lisa C. Taylor.
All-access festival passes are available on Eventbrite. Individual tickets for keynote readings, including Tess Gallagher, Billy Collins, T.C. Boyle, and Selected Shorts are available for purchase at Field Arts & Events Hall in downtown Port Angeles.
Events will be held on the Peninsula College campus in Port Angeles, at Ocean View Cemetery, and at Field Arts & Events Hall. The Friday performance by the Suitcase Players is free via RSVP at Field Arts & Events Hall. A limited number of festival scholarships are available on the event website. Free access is available for students by contacting Festival Director, Michael Mills at mmills@pencol.edu or 360.417.6462. Free access tickets for students are limited and allow for admission to one event and one panel discussion.
All-access festival passes and workshop registration is available on Eventbrite or by visiting the festival page on the Raymond Carver Podcast website.
*Festival Schedule:
Thursday April 25
9:00 am: Welcome and Opening Remarks
10:00 am: Presentation: Harold Schweizer, “Tess Gallagher and the Fringe of Presence”
11:30 am - 1:30 pm: Workshop Session One of Two (optional and additional cost)
12:00 - 2:00 pm: Catered Lunch & Studium Generale: Featured Guests Poetry Reading
2:00 - 5:30 pm: Film Screening: Short Cuts & Five Boys and a Wheel
-Dinner on Your Own-
7:00 pm: T.C. Boyle at Field Arts & Events Hall
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Friday, April 26
9:00 am: Panel One
-Craft: Dani Blackman “Carving the Line: Revealing the Writer and Story Through Structure and Form”
-Teresa Janssen & Sam Robinson “Writing Family Lore”
-Craft: Holly Marie Moore “Poems at Sundown: Strategies for Crafting Golden Hour Endings”
10:00 am: Panel Two
-Chuck Augello “Awakening the Unexpected: Seduction in T.C. Boyle’s Short Fiction”
-Trinnie Dalton “The Myth of Perfection: Failure as Innovator—A Cross-genre Chat about Redefinitions and Reclamations of Failure as a Creative Engine.”
-Kama O’Connor and Asher Finch “The Canon of Literature: Literary Magazines and the bridge to Academia"
11:00 am - 1:00 pm: Catered Lunch & Readings
-CMarie Fuhrman, Gary Copeland Lilley, and Lawrence Matsuda.
1:00 pm: Presentation: Alice Derry “A Friendship with Tess Gallagher and Raymond Carver”
2:00 pm: Panel Three
-Lauren Hanssen “Befriending the Formulaic in ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’”
-Marianne Monson Reading from The Opera Sisters (Historical Fiction)
-Craft: Kristine Rae Anderson “Evoking Our Familiar Places in Writing”
-Move Downtown for Evening Events at Field Arts & Events Hall-
4:00 pm: Suitcase Players Dance Performance at Field Arts & Events Hall
-Dinner on Your Own-
7:00 pm: Billy Collins at Field Arts & Events Hall
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Saturday, April 27
9:00 am: Panel Four
-Craft: Alison Green “The Power of Prompts”
-Craft: Risa Denenberg “Thinking about Changing Genres?”
-Craft: Lara Starcevich “Is This a Diary or a Novel? I Don’t Know—"
10:00 am: Panel Five
-Stanley A. Galloway “The Epistolary Narrator in Raymond Carver’s ‘Why Honey?’”
-Holly Norton “The Visually Impaired Leading the Spiritually Impaired: Symbolism of Vision in Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral’”
11:30 am - 1:30 pm: Workshop Session Two of Two (optional and additional cost)
-Lunch on Your Own-
2:00 - 4:00 pm: Pie and Poetry Carver Memorial at Ocean View Cemetery
5:00 pm: Tess Gallagher at Field Arts & Events Hall
-Dinner on Your Own-
7:30 - 9:30 pm: Selected Shorts at Field Arts & Events Hall
*Schedule is subject to change.