SASFest

Saturday, March 28

2:30 – 3:45 PM—SAS Writer’s Craft

THE GRASS IS BLUE: A DOLLY PARTON POETRY WORKSHOP—DUSTIN BROOKSHIRE

What could the songs of legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton teach us about writing, craft, and perspectives in poetry? In this in-person workshop, poet and co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, Dustin Brookshire guides participants through exploring the discography and cultural impact of Dolly Parton while using her songs as inspiration for writing new poems via thematic prompts.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25

Friday, March 27

2:30 – 3:45 PM—SAS Writer’s Craft

HOW TO PERFECT YOUR QUERY LETTER—AUDREY WILSON 

Drawing on her 10+ years of writing and publishing experience, Audrey Wilson will cover everything writers need to know about crafting a successful query letter. From sourcing the best agents and publishers for your genre, to shaping your logline, writing a killer synopsis, and picking comp titles, attendees will walk away with the tools needed to successfully pitch and publish their manuscript.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal B.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25

Friday, March 27

1 – 2:15 PM—SAS Writer’s Craft

POETRY AS MEMOIR: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POETRY WRITING WORKHOP—STEVEN REIGNS

This informative and generative writer’s craft session will discuss the process, pitfalls, and rewards of autobiographical poetry. Our queer lives are worthy of documenting and poetry’s condensed storytelling and language allows us to convey our emotional experiences with efficiency and force. For over 20 years, poet and activist Steven Reigns has taught poetry writing workshops around the country to queer youth, LGBTQ+ seniors, and people living with HIV.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal C.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25.

Friday, March 27

1 – 2:15 PM—SAS Writer’s Craft

THE LAB: EXPERIMENTS IN QUEERING FORM, VOICE, AND GENRE—MATTHEW CLARK DAVISON 

This session will invite queer writers of all levels to experiment with crossing genres—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid forms—as a way of opening new artistic possibilities and deepening voice. Here’s a passage from the book that captures the spirit of the session:
“We somehow have to balance three things when we write:

1. We should write about something we’re personally interested in, preferably even obsessed by.

2. We should write about something that may eventually matter to the world outside our own head (but we don’t worry about that when creating).

3. We should write about something that will surprise our readers by its beauty—and, in the best circumstances, move them through the power of its aesthetic force.”

With examples from Jeanette Winterson, Justin Torres, and others, we’ll look at how writers find something like beauty in its opposite. What’s beautiful and what’s ugly is completely up to you. In fact, if you see beauty where others don’t, or ugliness where others don’t, you may have an advantage. Through guided prompts and short bursts of writing, participants will explore how obsession, aesthetic force, and nonconforming oddities can help queer their work—creating art that is personally urgent, aesthetically bold, and resonant within and beyond LGBTQ+ communities.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal B.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25.

Friday, March 27

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—SAS Writer’s Craft

WRITING IN A WORLD OF APPS, PODCASTS AND AI—ANDREW FAYE & TREBOR HEALEY

Technology offers new and different ways to approach writing across three axes: our generative process, the actual narratives of our stories, and the distribution of our final work. Perhaps you use novel writing apps or software to organize characters, plot, and structure; or you might go further and turn to generative AI (such as ChatGPT) to help you work out kinks in a story or provide feedback akin to that of a developmental editor. Tech offers an ever-evolving palette of options for setting (e.g., virtual spaces like “dating” apps), character (e.g., the jilted AI lover), plot and conflict (e.g. surveillance, a rogue AI therapist). In terms of getting our writing out there, we’ll look at ePublishing, blogging, Substack, and hosting or creating a podcast, which can elevate less-represented voices and even create exposure that leads to publication. We’ll look at how we can make use of and integrate these aspects of technology into our work, focusing primarily on the fun part: the story itself. We may want to write about how the “dating” apps have changed LGBTQ+ life, offering opportunities for story that didn’t exist before, normalizing the blind date and the element of surprise – tragic, comedic or even downright dangerous. App dialog itself can be a literary form – often poetic – and can even include photos! If we want to tell a story via podcast, what stories work best in this format? We’ll talk about all of this and do a writing exercise incorporating AI, podcasts and apps.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal C.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25.

Friday, March 27

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM-SAS Writer’s Craft

GOTHIC LIT: ROMANTIC AND BLOODY—JEWELLE GOMEZ

Gothic literature has several key identifiable elements: an atmosphere of dread; fear of supernatural occurrences; the intrusion of the past on the present; terrifying events that often are emblematic of psychological or social conflicts; lost lovers; and anticipation of torture. Early stories featured bloody dismemberments (or the fear of them); think about Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum!” Also common were hauntings by ghostly dead lovers, mythical beasts, possession, and somnambulistic adventures. This workshop will focus on elements in our society today that nurture the terrors abound in Gothic stories. What would we write using either a contemporary or historic setting that would tell us a moody, claustrophobic story filled with shadows and anxiety? We’ll explore story ideas, each participant creating one or two-line descriptions. Then we’ll talk in the session about how specifically such a story would develop. The hope is to leave each participant with the bones (pun intended) on which to build a complete story.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal B.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25.

Friday, March 27

10 – 11:15 AM—SAS Writer’s Craft 

MAKING HISTORY INTO FICTION—THOMAS MALLON

It’s said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Historical fiction is a key genre to understanding our past and ultimately shaping our futures. How does one make it credible and vivid? This session hopes to provide lively discussion about the techniques and pitfalls of setting fiction in past eras, the ethics of incorporating actual events and individuals into a story, and the ways in which historical fiction can inspire readers to reflect on their own present-day circumstances.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal C.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25.

Saturday, March 28, 2026

1 – 2:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session

THE EKPHRASTIC SELFIE: GENERATIVE WRITING FROM A PHOTOGRAPH—MIAH JEFFRA

This session explores ekphrasis—the practice of writing in response to visual art—as a powerful way to jumpstart creative thinking and generate new work. By engaging with our own photos, participants will practice translating what they see into language. Rather than simply describing an image, ekphrasis invites writers to interpret, imagine, and expand beyond the frame, using visual stimuli to spark narrative, voice, and reflection. Through guided exercises and discussion, participants will experiment with techniques for moving from observation to invention, discovering how images can unlock memory, sharpen attention, and open unexpected pathways into writing. The workshop is suitable for writers of all genres who want new strategies for overcoming creative blocks and generating fresh material.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal A

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25

Friday, March 27

10 – 11:15 AM—SAS Writer’s Craft 

CRAFTING BEAUTIFUL SENTENCES

Fiction and memoir writing are just as dependent as poetry on beautiful and surprising arrangements of words. Yet prose writers often forget that the word, the sentence, and even the syllable are the basic units of their art. In this workshop, Donna Minkowitz, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of two memoirs and a novel, will show how prose writers can infuse their work with sound, rhythm, imagery, metaphor, and lyricism.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal B

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25