Writing By Writers

Congratulations to Manuscript Boot Camp Alumni Jenny Williams! Her new novel HOUSE OF LIARS (that we were privileged to see an early draft of at Boot Camp) is coming out on July 15th. Pre-order your copy now wherever you buy books!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/house-of-liars-jenny-williams/c11bb68d7d54234e?ean=9780473784218&next=t

​When struggling mother and failed novelist Anna Olin is invited to an exclusive residency on a remote island, it feels like an opportunity for artistic redemption. Alongside five other writers, including an old flame whose spark still smolders, she must finish her novel to compete for a million-dollar publishing contract. The catch? One of the writers is an AI.

Isolated and under pressure, Anna’s grasp on reality loosens as alliances form fast, seduction beckons, and secrets press closer to the surface--including Anna's own. When she starts receiving cryptic notes and the AI develops frightening new behaviors, Anna must decide what--and who--she's willing to risk if she is to fulfill the darkest fantasies she can't speak aloud, even to herself.

A psychological thriller about AI, motherhood, and desire--written by a former big tech AI ethics insider--House of Liars delves into the marrow of the coming wave of AI intimacy, where chatbots and agents influence the most personal parts of our lives, with consequences we can’t yet fathom.

Manuscript Boot Camp Faculty Spotlight: Luis Alberto Urrea!

We are so thrilled that Luis Alberto Urrea is returning to Boot Camp this October 29 - November 1, 2026 at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah. Luis will be accepting Fiction, Memoir, Creative Nonfiction, Short Story & Essay Collections. His class is limited to 5 lucky writers.

Luis will be joined by our other fabulous faculty: Steve Almond, Gina Frangello, Pam Houston, and Antonya Nelson.

Manuscript Boot Camp is for the writer who has a full, book-length manuscript (novel, memoir, short story or essay collection) and would like to engage with a small group for a serious and productive response. The extended weekend will include an intimate manuscript workshop, craft panels, readings, and individual meetings – the perfect pre-publication boot camp for any manuscript.

Apply Today! https://www.writingxwriters.org/boot-camp

COMING UP June 1st! Adding and Subtracting: The Art and Artifice of Arranging Oneself on the Page with Award-Winner Author Deborah Taffa. Don't miss out on this fabulous 2-hour online workshop.

Register Here: https://www.writingxwriters.org/online-classes

Deborah writes, "As writers, we shape stories — but the stories we tell ourselves often shape us in return. This course invites participants to examine the narrative structures that influence both our creative work and lived experience. We’ll consider how personal and cultural narratives inform voice, form, and content — and how revising these inherited frameworks can open new imaginative possibilities. Through writing exercises, participants will deepen their sense of narrative agency and explore how language can unsettle, reframe, and remake. This is a space for writers to interrogate the stories that confine and discover those that compel."

Award-winning memoirist, Deborah Jackson Taffa, is the author of Whiskey Tender, a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, and a 2025 Carnegie Medal longlisted title. Named a top book of 2024 by The Atlantic, Time Magazine, NPR, Elle, Esquire, Oprah Daily, Audible, and Publisher’s Weekly, the memoir won both a Southwest Book Prize and an International Latino Book Award. Taffa is a 2024 NEA Fellow, a 2022 winner of the PEN Jean Stein Grant. She is a citizen of the Kwatsaan Nation and Laguna Pueblo and the director of the MFA CW at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. She recently won the Howard Foundation Award from Brown University for her novel-in-progress, All the Bones Have Fallen.

Karen and Pam last night at Kepler's Books and Magazines!

Happy pub date to our own Karen Nelson Her new novel The Last Summer at Feather River is now out in the world. Available wherever you like to buy books.

What really happened that night?
Ten years after an accident that forced her family to close Camp Feather River, Brooke must return to the ranch to care for her grandfather and face the repercussions of their decision. Brook once loved spending every summer at Feather River, riding horses, swimming in the lake, and helping her grandfather, Charlie, run the youth camp. But she has not set foot on the property since she and her mother abruptly left that night. Once back at the ranch, Brooke discovers that her family has been hiding more than she knew. While struggling to come to terms with what happened—and her part in it—Brooke realizes the accident might not have been an accident at all.

Part coming-of-age, part suspense, and part a story of redemption, The Last Summer at Feather River is a novel about damage done, secrets kept, sacrifices made, and whether it can be put back together after it all unravels.

Join us for Adding and Subtracting: The Art and Artifice of Arranging Oneself on the Page with Deborah Taffa. Monday, June 1st at 5pm Pacific over Zoom.

Register on our website here: https://www.writingxwriters.org/online-classes

As writers, we shape stories — but the stories we tell ourselves often shape us in return. This course invites participants to examine the narrative structures that influence both our creative work and lived experience. We’ll consider how personal and cultural narratives inform voice, form, and content — and how revising these inherited frameworks can open new imaginative possibilities. Through writing exercises, participants will deepen their sense of narrative agency and explore how language can unsettle, reframe, and remake. This is a space for writers to interrogate the stories that confine and discover those that compel.

Online Classes | Writing By Writers In an age of impending political doom, immigration raids, and ongoing oil wars, there’s no better moment than now to purposefully seek out the good around us. As poets, we are immersed in it all, and influenced by everything: the awful and the awe-inspiring; the hurt and the hope that follows; the...

Happy pub date to Manuscript Bootcamp alum for her new novel Griftopia which we were lucky enough to read as a draft. Available TODAY from everywhere you buy books. Congratulations Suzy! https://bookshop.org/p/books/griftopia/ed61d574302bab13

Tradwife scams, pickleball mania, and the hazards of raising a viral child star ...

Orphaned and separated as young children, the Freischin sisters are nothing if not survivors. Now, in middle age, Pearl is blindsided by a sexual harassment allegation, while her son Declan, a college student and track star struggling with anxiety, quits school when he becomes entangled with a young con-artist. Meanwhile, Pearl’s sister Scarlett is left penniless after her husband is imprisoned for embezzling, and Scarlett’s daughter Helena turns to pickleball coaching as a side hustle when her six-year-old child, Burkleigh—who’d achieved meteoric social media fame for her ability to sing like Billie Holiday—is canceled for appropriation.

Close to destitute, the Freischin clan is in danger of homelessness unless they can pull themselves out of financial instability. Leveraging Burkleigh’s talent, they arrive at a series of progressively dubious internet scams that lead them to an unexpected alliance.

Griftopia explores the struggles of a modern family in free fall who turn to grifting for survival.

Bay Area friends, come join our co-founders and at on May 20th for the launch of Karen's new novel The Last Summer at Feather River. Karen and Pam will be in chatting about the book, writing, horses and everywhere else the conversation takes them. Hope to see you there.

We have 2 great ONLINE generative workshops coming up before the end of the month! TOMORROW night we have Writing with Gratitude a poetry workshop with faculty Alan Chazaro. And NEXT WEEK we have a two-night class, Unlocking The Magic of 100 Word Stories with Kim Culbertson. Sign up NOW.

https://www.writingxwriters.org/online-classes