Graduate Program in Creative Writing

Join Western’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing and Screenwriting Director James
Napoli, for a free hourlong class.

Songs told in stories are part of a deep history in the evolution of music. From early oral traditions
and the Greek stage to song–centered folk tales and story songs in folk, pop and hip–hop. Many
popular songs echo classic story structure and invite the listener to follow along with character
development, growth, change and realization.

Join James Napoli for a craft talk on the places where screenwriting and songwriting intersect, and
an interactive brainstorming session on fashioning a story from a song.

Most artists already know that following the concrete, sensory image can lead to surprising leaps of imagination and lyric discovery. What happens when we lean into not simply concrete image, but also subconscious desire? How can dream logic inform story? What keeps our inner shadow selves from getting what they want– and how can we even know? In this generative workshop, Nature Writing & Poetry faculty, Maya Jewell Zeller, will lead us through an exercise in character creation, based in response to visual art. Each participant will walk away with a short story, poem, flash essay, or hybrid start. If you have a favorite work of art by Goya or Varo or Monet (etc), have it handy when you attend! Or, show up ready to explore something Maya assigns.

Most writers are familiar with the classic storytelling framework that Joseph Campbell dubbed “The Hero’s Journey.” But in this masterclass, television writer, executive producer, and GPCW Screenwriting faculty, Liz Sczudlo will explore the ways that “The Heroine’s Journey” – a framework conceptualized by novelist Gail Carriger – opens up a world of nuance and satisfying storytelling for writers of every genre. Liz will share how understanding basic hero/heroine’s journey structure has deepened her own writing (on shows such as “Dynasty,” “Jane the Virgin,” and the upcoming Twilight series “Midnight Sun”), as well as inviting students to brainstorm ways in which they can apply either structure to their work to connect with readers and build to satisfying endings. Spoiler: being a heroine has nothing to do with gender!

How do fiction writers really make a living in the year 2027? What does it look like to publish and earn an income in the modern era of publishing? Spend an hour with three directors in Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program of Creative Writing who are actively working in the fiction writing and publishing industry. Learn more about how they themselves, their colleagues, and their students are creating various income streams from their fiction writing and publishing projects.

Previous generations of writers had one traditional publishing path to get their writing out into the world, but remarkable advances in technology, social media, and online resources have entirely changed the relationship between creator and audience. GPCW Publishing director Kevin J. Anderson will showcase the numerous opportunities available for even beginning writers and publishers.

In this Western GPCW masterclass, poetry faculty member Cameron McGill helps you put the jumper cables on your image work and figurative language. As you build the house of your poem, your associative mind and your unique relationship to language(s) are your best mortar. Let’s move beyond the passive and the ornamental and begin activating our images, similes, and metaphors, making them the emotional keystones of our poems.