Palo Alto, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/11/2014 -- Writing By Writers (WxW) is pleased to announce their second writing workshop in Boulder at the Colorado Chautauqua, a National Historic Landmark, from March 14-16, 2014. Workshop faculty includes acclaimed novelist, essayist, and short story writer Pam Houston (Contents May Have Shifted, Cowboys Are My Weakness), award-winning novelist and essayist BK Loren (Theft and Animal, Mineral, Radical), and highly regarded novelist and essayist Benjamin Percy (Red Moon, The Wilding).

WxW @ Boulder supports up to 50 participants who are looking to learn more about the craft of reading and writing. This generative workshop will allow participants to work closely with all three faculty for a weekend of inspiration, craft and the generation of new work.

"The generative workshop is all about producing material, scribbling out exercises, learning craft techniques that will send the student racing to the keyboard, eager to hammer out their next masterpiece,” said Benjamin Percy.

WxW has a passion for the discipline of writing and has tailored craft talks and writing exercises as the foundation for the Boulder weekend. Houston will focus on the challenge of getting started, of “diving into the deep end.” Percy examines the indelible image of key storytelling moments, using examples from established novels and contemporary film. Loren lets the stars guide her storytelling: “Using constellations as a guide, we can move beyond old notions of structure and find something new, perhaps something more fresh and invigorating.”

“A generative writing workshop cuts through the mundane, everyday use of language. It makes a writer beautifully uncomfortable--at first. At the other end of that initial discomfort is this: a break-through to the core of what writing is, the belly of the beast, the unpracticed, sinewy and sometimes bloody heart of it all,” explains BK Loren.

In this spirit of generating new work, WxW held a flash writing contest with three winners of the 250 word contest awarded free tuition to WxW @ Boulder. The rules were simple: submissions could be fiction, non fiction or memoir, but must include mention of a Volkswagen Beetle, an actual beetle, or The Beatles.

More than 115 applicants submitted, and WxW is proud to announce the three winners. Their winning entries and complete bios can be found on the Writing Contest page:

- Kathy Conde received honorable mentions for fiction and creative non-fiction in the 2013 Salem International Literary Awards. She won the 2011 Rick DeMarinis Short Story Award and has recently been a finalist at Glimmer Train, New Letters, and New Millennium Writings.

- Timothy Owen Davis has a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from Boise State University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Idaho State University. Tim’s writing has appeared in The Storyteller, Black Rock and Sage, Plain Spoke, and Cold-Drill.

- Leigh Rourks teaches English at Southeastern Louisiana University, where she is also the assistant editor of Louisiana Literature. Her stories have been chosen as finalists for the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival Fiction Contest (2012) and The American Fiction Prize (2013).

WxW was founded in 2012 by Houston and non-profit executive Karen Nelson to create a rigorous and compassionate environment to learn the art of reading and writing from accomplished authors. Their inaugural workshop, WxW @ Tomales Bay 2013, spanned five days at the Marconi Conference Center on the east shore of Tomales Bay in the town of Marshall, California. Faculty included esteemed writers Dorothy Allison, Ron Carlson, Houston, Fenton Johnson, Antonya Nelson, and Carl Phillips.

“Our Tomales Bay conference exceeded even our very high expectations,” said Houston, Co-Founder of Writing by Writers.“ The tone was warm and supportive, but also quite passionate and hard working, with a healthy dose of fun thrown in. The writers we bring in are singularly gifted teachers, full of generosity and enthusiasm. We all went home with gas in the tank, ready to write.”

About Writing By Writers
Founded by author, speaker, and teacher Pam Houston and non-profit executive Karen Nelson, Writing By Writers (WxW) is a 501(c)3 non profit organization whose mission is to create a rigorous and compassionate environment to learn the art of reading and writing from accomplished authors. WxW hosts multi-day writing workshops for people interested in writing fiction, non-fiction, memoir and poetry. The workshops are taught by nationally known, published authors, who are adept at teaching the craft of writing to all levels of student. In addition, participants learn how to read other’s work critically and apply those lessons to their own writing. Please visit www.writingxwriters.org for more information.