Our Four Workshops - Links to Each

These are our workshop descriptions. To attend Writerfest, register and select your housing with Pyramid Life Center. Pyramid Life Center | A Place to Recreate and Re-Create

Once you have registered, workshop selection is done by email to fallwriterfest@gmail.com to let us know which workshop you want. If we do not hear from you, we will ask you. There is NO LINK to select a workshop. 

Fiction Writerfest at Pyramid: Fiction: On a Continuum

Personal Essay Writerfest at Pyramid: Personal Essay: More Than a Stor

Poetry Writerfest at Pyramid: The Joy of Editing: From Free-Writing to Publishing

Revision Writerfest at Pyramid: Revision Strategies: Crafting Great Prose, One Line at a Time

Fiction: On a Continuum

All writing falls on a continuum, from generative, through revision, then polishing, before finished--if it ever can ever be finished (consider T. S. Eliot, revising "The Wasteland" even after its publication).  In this workshop, we'll explore creating new work, as well as talk about those pieces and what strategies might help move them forward.  To that purpose, participants should come prepared to write and share new starts, as well as to push work closer to the fulfillment of its vision.

All Anne Britting Oleson has ever wanted to do is to write things.  Her publications go all the way back to her teenaged years; now she has nine novels and three poetry chapbooks in the world.  Her work includes mainstream fiction as well as mysteries set in the UK, to which she is a frequent traveler for the purpose of research.  Aventurine at Sea, the fourth in the Aventurine Morrow series, was published in 2025, and a new Aventurine will publish this year.  Anne holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program of the University of Southern Maine; she is both Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated, and has been awarded residencies through both Hewnoaks Artist Residencies, and the Amtrak Writers' Residency.

Personal Essay: More Than a Story

Whether you’re a beginner writer or venturing into a new creative genre, this course will help you to understand the personal essay form, its conventions, and how to get writing.  We will brainstorm possible essay topics. We will ask: Amid all the stories or anecdotes from our lives, why should I write on these topics now, in 2026? The workshop also covers macro and micro editing to reach the best draft of your work.

Workshop Content:

• Definition of the modern, creative nonfiction essay and how that definition influences your writing approach and style
• Generating ideas for your essay
• Finding a way ‘in’ – The opening scene, narrative distance and narrative voice
• More than a story: Deriving and conveying universal meaning from the life experience you write about
• Writing lively scenes; making your readers care  
• What or who should you not write about? And how to make that decision.
• Editing your personal essay drafts

 Workshop will include optional writing exercises and optional sharing.

As a transatlantic author born in Ireland, Áine Greaney’s writing explores issues of place and displacement and what happens when we live a “hybrid life.” In America, Greaney’s work has been cited in “Best American Essays,” and her second novel, “Dance Lessons” was named a “great group read” by the Women’s National Book Association. Her personal essay, “Sanctuary” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

In addition to her books (Simon & Schuster, Writers Digest/Penguin Random House, Syracuse UP), her essays, features and stories have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times, Books Ireland, KevinMD, Another Chicago Magazine, NPR's WBUR Radio, Salon, The Mindful Word, IMAGE Magazine, The Irish Times, The Wisdom Daily, Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Tendon, Johns Hopkins Center for Medical Humanities and many other publications.

As well as writing (and knitting), she is passionate about two things: the need to tell our own stories and the privilege of bearing witness to others’ stories—especially those who have been historically silenced. As a trained teacher and certified wellness-writing instructor, she has designed and delivered workshops and retreats in many community, academic and healthcare settings, such as The Boston Book Festival; National Writers Digest Conference; The Cape Cod Writers Conference; Saint John’s University, Minnesota; California State University, Chico; The Irish Writers Centre; The Arkansas Literary Festival; The New Hampshire Writers Project; The Newburyport Literary Festival; Boston Writing Workshop; The Frank O’ Connor Festival of the Short Story (Ireland); The Carver School of Medicine; Seattle Children’s Hospital, and the Pyramid Life Center, New York. She holds a master’s degree in English from the College of Saint Rose.

 

 

Revision Strategies: Crafting Great Prose, One Line at a Time

It’s true: All writing is revising. And revising. And revising. But how do we ensure we’re improving our work and becoming better writers in the process? By practicing the revision strategies in this workshop: distilling the premise, exploring voice, honing sentence craft, trying to entertain, and trusting the process (and ourselves). Participants will be asked to bring several already-written short pieces to work with (instructions to come). In one-on-one conferences, we’ll discuss specific goals and challenges.  

Jeff Campbell is a book editor, author, and writing teacher who has helped people tell their stories and shape their manuscripts for thirty years. He’s a former Lonely Planet travel writer and a founding teacher at Writerfest. In 2026, he published his fourth book of YA animal science, Love in Their Hearts. Previous books include Daisy to the Rescue, Last of the Giants, and Glowing Bunnies!?: Why We’re Making Hybrids, Chimeras & Clones, which was named a “Best Book for Teens 2023” by the New York Public Library and was an SCBWI Golden Kite Award finalist.

The Joy of Editing: From Free-Writing to Publishing

Lousy first draft to sparkling final draft: how to get there? This generative workshop will focus on coming up with new poem ideas, and how to edit them into their best shape, with an eye toward possible publication. Among the strategies we will play with are finding the best form for each poem; using line breaks and stanza breaks; finding the best beginning and ending; cutting extraneous words for maximum effect; and always finding the best word. Please feel free to bring along copies of up to four older poems that you would like to work on, though this is not necessary.

Barbara Ungar is the author of six books, most recently After Naming the Animals (The Word Works, 2024). Her honors include winning the Snyder Publication Prize, Gival Poetry Prize, The Adirondack Center for Writing Best Poetry Book Award (twice), and being named to Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books of 2015 and 2019. She has published poems in Scientific American, Rattle, Southern Indiana Review and many other journals. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Bulgarian. She taught creative writing for over thirty years at The College of Saint Rose in Albany and at various branches of CUNY. See more information at www.barbaraungar.net. 

Registration is Open

Registration for Writerfest at Pyramid is now open. We have a few changes this year besides the big change of moving to our new August time slot on the Pyramid Life Center calendar. Our workshops will be capped off at ten participants, up from eight in previous years, and they will meet in the afternoon, right after lunch. We will be offering at least four workshops - fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and revision of a work in progress. Details of the workshops to be announced soon. You can register here. Schedule | Pyramid Life Center

Work In Progress – Getting Organized and Setting Goals

Writing is exciting and hard work; it is also frustrating, lonely, energizing, thrilling and overwhelming. It’s easy to lose our way, in longer projects especially, and sometimes it is just hard to find the time to dedicate to them. In this workshop we will discuss strategies and reasonable goal setting, ways to bust through writing blocks and stuck places, and provide you with time and support to just write or plan out what needs to happen next. As Ray Bradbury said, “You only fail if you stop writing.” Let’s make sure you don’t.

Note: Because this workshop fills every year, anyone choosing this, who has already taken any previous version twice, will be automatically waitlisted and should select another workshop as their first choice."

Dr. Elaine Handley is a published writer who offers workshops in memoir, fiction, poetry and expressive writing. A three-time winner of the Adirondack Center for Writing Best Book of Poetry, her most recent poetry chapbook is Securing the Perimeter published by Clare Songbird Publishers.  She was a long time teacher in the NYS Young Writers Institute and is Professor Emerita from Empire State University.