upcoming classes & events
Inspired by Chanel Miller’s Brainstorm Series appearance at The Center for the Arts in Jackson Hole? Get started writing your own story by joining author Katherine Standefer and the Community Safety Network at Teton County Library for a two-hour trauma writing workshop.
Our bodies hold influence over the way we write, what we write, and how we physically come to the page. In this panel moderated by author Andrew Romriell, Kati discusses navigating the intersections of creativity, illness, and life alongside panelists Lars Horn, Patrick Milian, and Elissa Washuta.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
Keep moving downstream on your memoir project. In this five-month container, you’ll meet twice monthly in a small group to work on your book, receive craft and process support in community, and benefit from master-level mentorship.
Join us for a facilitated book club conversation about Lightning Flowers with Kati at Violet Volumes Bookstore in Victor, ID.
Join Kati and the Teton Science Schools for a book talk and conversation on the iconic porch of conservationist Mardy Murie’s cabin on the historic Murie Ranch.
Although writing can be healing, crafting and publishing our most difficult stories can make trauma worse. In this 3-week workshop hosted over Zoom, learn how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing process and use tools adapted from clinical practice to begin safely generating your own work.
How can a memoirist build vibrant scenes from foggy memories? In this 2-session class hosted at Jackson’s Center for the Arts, identify the types of research necessary for your project, complete generative challenges intended to recover material from your life, and learn strategies for turning this material into rich, riveting prose. You'll leave the class with a grounded sense of how to move forward in telling your story.
In this 8-month incubator for nonfiction writers, go from lit mag newbie to submitter extraordinaire. You’ll learn how to find literary magazines, assess your work for readiness, submit to the right publications, and use short-form publishing to build momentum for your writing. Along the way you’ll get to know the Best American Essays series, see drafts of BAE-included essays, benefit from the accountability of supportive community, hear from guest speakers from the lit mag world, and explore your spiritual relationship to the vulnerability of being seen.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
Although writing can be healing, crafting and publishing our most difficult stories can make trauma worse. In this 4-hour workshop hosted over Zoom, learn how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing process and use tools adapted from clinical practice to begin safely generating your own work.
Have you been working on a memoir seemingly forever without much forward progress? (Or not working on your memoir and beating yourself up for it?) Commit to this 11-week momentum-generating intensive container, where we’ll figure out what your next steps need to be and support you in making them happen.
In this 9-hour virtual intensive, learn tools for drafting activating trauma scenes, break down the micro-level craft choices essential to writing about rape or molestation, and get clear on what it means to you to add your voice to the cultural conversation, all with the support of an intimate community of like-minded survivors.
In this eight-week asynchronous class for prose writers, we’ll dive into how scenes work and what they accomplish, exploring how scenes develop characters, seed tension, establish place and time, facilitate flashbacks, soften research, and build deeper themes in a story/essay.
The first fifty pages of a memoir have the power to snag (or lose!) the attention of agents, editors, and readers. In this 6-week workshop, we'll read the first 50 pages of four published memoirs, excavating the ways authors set up their primary tensions, structures, and voice, coming to understand the craft choices that build propulsivity, and channeling this into your work-in-progress.
Have you been working on a memoir seemingly forever without much forward progress? (Or not working on your memoir and beating yourself up for it?) Commit to this 11-week momentum-generating intensive container, where we’ll figure out what your next steps need to be and support you in making them happen.
Although writing can be healing, crafting and publishing our most difficult stories can make trauma worse. In this 4-hour workshop hosted over Zoom, learn how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing process and use tools adapted from clinical practice to begin safely generating your own work.
Our most powerful stories can be the most brutal to write, leaving us frustrated, emotionally activated, and stuck. What gets in the way? How can we push forward without damaging our mental and physical health? In this 4-hour workshop hosted in-person by Paonia Books in Paonia, Colorado, we'll build a toolbox for unlocking urgent stories that have so far resisted telling.
Although writing can be healing, crafting and publishing our most difficult stories can make trauma worse. In this 2-hour workshop hosted by the Deschutes Public Library, learn how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing process.
Have you been working on a memoir seemingly forever without much forward progress? (Or not working on your memoir and beating yourself up for it?) Commit to this nine-week momentum-generating intensive container, where we’ll figure out what your next steps need to be and support you in making them happen.
How can we ethically write about other people—and what does it mean to do it well? In this 6-hour workshop, explore the craft of building nuanced characters, consider the legal or logistical implications of your storytelling, and reckon with owning your story’s difficult truths.
In this three-hour seminar, you'll see how cutting changes the flow of a work, examine how adding intentional language steers readers into a book's questions, and practice line-level tightening on a sample from your own work, leaving class with a grounded sense of how to streamline and guide your own memoir-in-process.
Do the holidays tend to throw off your writing practice? Commit to writing in community over Zoom for four weeks this December and January. Generate new work, discuss craft components of published essays, and enjoy peer feedback on one short essay, gaining rather than losing writing momentum in the midst of cocktails, cookies, and in-laws.
How do the big questions of our time inhabit the stories of our lives? And what does it look like on the page to tell exquisitely personal stories in ways that gesture toward larger concerns? In this 90-minute workshop through Literary Arts as part of the Portland Book Festival, writers uncover big questions buried in their own narratives, identify research paths for further exploration, connect with their own potentially-transformative obsessions, and examine how the stories we choose to tell can change us.
In this 3-hour virtual memoir seminar hosted by Literary Arts and the Portland Book Festival, students will explore how the contradictions in their personalities—the gaps between dirty laundry and grace—are the most interesting space, and how careful and brave craft choices allow us to write into our most gorgeous, complex selves.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
In this three-hour seminar, you'll see how cutting changes the flow of a work, examine how adding intentional language steers readers into a book's questions, and practice line-level tightening on a sample from your own work, leaving class with a grounded sense of how to streamline and guide your own memoir-in-process.
Join Kati at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, where she’ll deliver the Nonfiction Keynote, teach a workshop, and consult on manuscripts. For nearly three decades, the Jackson Hole Writers Conference has brought together writers of all levels from all walks of life to share ideas, hone craft, and form community.
How can we ethically write about other people—and what does it mean to do it well? In this 3-hour virtual workshop at the Portland Book Festival, writers explore the craft of building nuanced characters, reckon with owning their stories’ difficult truths, and consider the legal or logistical implications of their storytelling.
In this 3-hour virtual memoir seminar hosted by Literary Arts and the Portland Book Festival, students will explore how the contradictions in their personalities—the gaps between dirty laundry and grace—are the most interesting space, and how careful and brave craft choices allow us to write into our most gorgeous, complex selves.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
