The Spring Story Catcher Festival celebrates the power of storytelling and creative expression at Western Colorado University. Each year, the festival brings writers, students, and the community together to share voices, ideas, and stories that deepen understanding and spark connection

9 to 11 a.m. RADY Center Auditorium 109

• Craft Workshop #1: Joe Wilkins
  • Layers of Landscape: Harnessing the Power of Place
  • Though we live in a world chock full of chain restaurants and department stores, on-screen communications, and cross-country airplane travel, we ignore the power of place at our own psychological and, increasingly, physical peril. Truly, place and landscape are active forces in all our lives. They shape and re-shape us; they offer us foundation and refuge; they challenge us to be good citizens of our biotic and built communities. In life and in writing, we ought to be aware of this; we ought to try to understand and harness the power of place. This session offers writers four ways they might begin to do just that. Participants are asked to bring a pen and paper or a laptop computer for in-session writing.

11:30 to 12:30 RADY Center Auditorium 109

• Pizza Party! Come learn more about Creative Writing and English at Western!

1 to 2:50 p.m. RADY Center Auditorium 109

• Craft Workshop #2: Claire Boyles
  • What Hallmark Movies Can Teach Very Serious Literary Writers
  • Literary writing is art-making, and in art-making, there are no rules. This is a delicious freedom! You can follow your imagination anywhere! The possibilities are endless! Sometimes, though, especially in longer form work, the freedom to do anything can make it difficult to know what to do at all, and you can end up with pages of beautifully crafted writing that lacks coherence and direction. In this workshop, we will explore what the formulaic beats of holiday-themed TV romantic comedies have to offer long form literary work in terms of structure and pacing.

3 to 5 p.m. RADY Center Auditorium 109

• Craft Workshop #3: Sean Prentiss
  • Time Perception in Creative Writing
  • Every day, time (and our perception of time) transforms our experiences in the world, and that’s exactly why it’s such a powerful storytelling tool. In this session, Sean dives into how the human brain actually experiences time (spoiler: it’s wildly unreliable) and how writers can use that glitchy perception to make scenes hit harder. From heart-pounding slow motion to blink-and-you-miss-it moments, you’ll learn how to control pacing to pull readers deeper into your work. Bring a laptop or pen and paper—so we can do some hands-on writing exercises that play with stretching, compressing, and bending time on the page.

5:00 p.m. RADY Center Auditorium 109

• Wordhorde Workshop or Open Mic

7 to 9 p.m. Evening Reading: RADY Center Auditorium 109 AND LIVESTREAM

• Joe Wilkins, Claire Boyles and Sean Prentiss
  • Introductory welcome and reading TBA
  • (Book Signing Following the Readings)