2026 Sierra WordFest

Featuring well-known writers such as Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and centered on the theme “Power of Place,” the 2026 Sierra WordFest welcomes the community for a multiday event spanning three Sierra College campuses.

Seize this moment in this place. Join us for several days of presentations and workshops that feed your soul, inspire your craft, and connect you with your community.

Click on the 'Check availability' button to view ticket discounts for OLLI members and Sierra College staff and students.

Info: Through the sharing of poems and brief workshop on writing strategies we will journey with the idea that your poetry is a part of your one human experience taking place in and revealed by an interconnected reality. The view of craft as component can wall away potential insight and inhibit writing. Writing strategies that flow from the reality that craft does not have to be a metaphysical, separate entity from you strengthens all internal processes of liberation, importantly including your art. From political to unpopulated realities of the world, all continuums of existence can emerge together in a line of poetry within a cooperation to produce insight. You can let the infinite, natural occurring unities of reality do the work for you on the page.

Info: This talk explores how our emotional bonds with landscapes — what psychologists call ‘place attachment’ — shape identity and well-being. Drawing from history, philosophy, and lived experience in the oak woodlands, rivers, and canyons of the Sierra Nevada, it traces how ordinary people have defended these lands against threats, and asks how we, in turn, can give back. At its core, it is a call to transform love of place into reciprocity: to move from consuming nature to caring for it, so that people and landscapes can flourish together.

Info: Still Standing Guard is the second volume of oral histories recalling the incarceration of all persons of Japanese ancestry in WWII from Placer County. Published by Sierra College Press in 2025, the book is dedicated to the 'Spirit of Community.' As a joint effort between the community and college, the stories, energy, and effort to publish the book are inspiring –perhaps especially in these troubling times. Writers on the panel will share their approach to the narratives and capturing the salient stories.
Panel Members: Rebecca Gregg, moderator; Randy White, teacher, poet, publisher; Tricia Lord, English Professor.

Info: Layering Creativity and Trusting Intuition explores how ideas evolve across different forms of artistic expression. In this talk, author, illustrator and director, Allison Chan, shares the journey of trusting one's instinct and layering creativity to transform ideas far beyond what was originally imagined.

Info: How can you get (and give) the best feedback in a critique group? Author Marty Coleman-Hunt and Writing Coach Catharine Bramkamp will demonstrate the how-tos and the never-dos for critique groups and beta readers that will lift your work from good to great. Bring a 1,000-word sample of your writing to session one for peer feedback. Rework your submission for further refinement in session two.

Info: What is AI? How does it affect the climate and what are the energy and health costs of using it? What about creative theft, security, privacy, trust and human relationships? How are people using it, and how do you know the difference between AI hype and its usefulness?
Through a combination of expert interviews (video) and in-person conversation, we’ll discuss these issues and form fortified personal guidelines for navigating through this new technological territory. This class includes a resource guide PDF with links to explore the various topics in depth.

Info: Let’s gaze outside our window and attest how nature is a spiritual storyteller, entwining complex patterns and vibrations that form our world. This workshop calls writers to ground their creative process by eliciting inspiration from Mother Earth and her “womb.” Embracing the universal brilliance found in nature—such as the depth of the ocean, the upstream of rivers, the expansiveness of the day or night sky, and the four seasons—we’ll sense how these natural vibrations can form our poetic flows of writing. Through mindful practice (breath exercises), readings, imagination, intuition, memory, discussion, and writing. We’ll see how essence in our world can inspire free verse poetry, invoking invigorating vantage points to symbolism, metaphor, and structure. Poets will have the opportunity to create and share in a safe space inspired by the natural world, as well as in the classroom. Pamela Heyda said, “Nature gets into our souls and opens doors to hidden parts of ourselves.” We can tap

Info: How can you get (and give) the best feedback in a critique group? Author Marty Coleman-Hunt and Writing Coach Catharine Bramkamp will demonstrate the how-tos and the never-dos for critique groups and beta readers that will lift your work from good to great. Bring a 1,000-word sample of your writing to session one for peer feedback. Rework your submission for further refinement in session two.

Info: Publishing in the Middle Grade space can often look a bit different than in other areas. First, Middle Grade literature has an unusually wide readership range, and includes everything from early chapter books, the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, and then The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Middle Grade authors also often have to promote their work to parents, teachers, and librarians rather than directly to the readers themselves. As a result, this can make for a different kind of marketing plan than usual and can sometimes include more school and library visits. Come and hear four Middle Grade authors talk about their experiences in Middle Grade publishing, ranging from the “Big 5” publishers to small presses and self-publishing.

Panel Members: Karen McCoy, Catherine Arguelles, Jenny Lunquist, and Lisa Frenkel Riddiough

Info: This workshop will address writing historical fiction, where you start, and what lights the flame.

Info: Where a reader finds a character does essential work. That’s true whether that character is yourself, as in memoir, or one you’re creating, as in fiction. What we call “setting” can be employed to convey information not only about the physical location of a given character, at a given time, but about their history and culture; it can also be used to deliver emotional and psychological details. Wielding setting wisely helps a writer vividly unfold vital details about their characters.
In this workshop, with the help of excerpts from memoir and fiction, we’ll examine what their authors accomplish, and what we can learn from them. Prompts allow you to put this valuable piece of craft into practice.

Info: Daniel Handler will share his thoughts about A Series of Unfortunate Events, his extraordinary journey as a writer, his memoir and career, and the enduring magic of literature in conversation with Dr. Kim Bateman, writer and Dean of Sierra College’s Tahoe-Truckee Campus.

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Host or Publisher Sierra College and Sierra College Press