Under WEstern Skies Workshops
Nature Writing and the Body
Saturday, October 24th
10:00AM - 12:30PM
Lazy Z Ranch (68540 E Highway 20, Sisters)
Tickets - $50
Whether you’re writing poetry, memoir, or fiction, writing about nature is rooted in the body. The smell of ponderosa, the feel of pine needles on the forest floor, the sound of a chickadee: we process these all through the body first. This workshop will explore the way wilderness mimics the human bodily experience: its rhythms, its tides, its moods, its seasons. We’ll spend time both indoors and outdoors, reading and discussing published examples and playing with writing prompts that use techniques like sensory grounding and mindfulness to improve our craft. We’ll learn to see nature writers not as authorities on the natural world, but rather as extensions of the places they are writing about. Bring your notebook and a good pair of outdoor shoes.
Facilitator Bio:
Elissa Minor is the author of the nature memoir Another Eve: Shame and Desire on the Oregon Coast (Oct ‘26) and the award-winning collection The Prisoner Pear: Stories from the Lake, which was a New York Times Editors Choice pick. Their work has appeared in New Letters, Glimmer Train, Juxtaprose, Baltimore Review, The Ledge, and Crab Creek Review, among others. They teach creative writing and literature in the Pacific Northwest.
Containing Multitudes: At Home in the West
Sunday, October 25th
10:00AM - 12:00PM
Pine Meadow Ranch
Tickets - $35
Just as Walt Whitman wrote about the complexity of being authentically human, our experience living in the West - and the West itself - contains multitudes. Join Bend writer and storycatcher Caela McKeever for a generative workshop exploring how life under the ever-changing Western skies roots and shapes us. You'll explore connection to place through examples from literature, sensory memories, and hands-on collage art, then end with shared writing time. No writing experience necessary. Please bring your own writing materials.
Facilitator Bio:
A lifelong resident under Western skies, Caela McKeever (she/her) was born and raised in a tight-knit farming community in California's San Joaquin Valley before attending college in San Luis Obispo. After practicing architecture for almost two decades in Seattle, she moved with her family to Bend, OR, in 2022. Now a creative project manager and storycatcher, she cares deeply about instigating change towards a future focused on kinship and care. Her writing explores themes of nature, community, and interconnectedness.
