Writing In-Person: Writing in the Age of Distraction

Writing in the Age of Distraction
Four In-Person Sessions
Tue., Apr. 1, 8, 15, 2025, 6:30-8:30 pm MT
Lighthouse Writers Keynote, Fri., Apr. 25, 7 pm

We’re living in an era ruled by the cultural influence of smartphones, social media and algorithms, and in this quickly changing atmosphere it can be easy to lose sight of why good old-fashioned writing matters. This course, taught by award-winning writer Andrea Dupree, encourages all attendees to slow down and practice the writer’s craft, demonstrating how doing so can foster creative renewal and inner quiet while also spawning meaningful art. Class participants take part in three sessions of discussion and writing in response to a new essay collection, Searches, by Vauhini Vara, a New Yorker and Atlantic writer who penned the tech-apocalyptic novel The Immortal King Rao, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2022. Vara got access to an early version of the AI tool that would evolve into ChatGPT and used it to co-write an essay about her grief over her sister's death. The class considers that essay, “Ghosts,” featured on NPR’s This American Life, along with other materials examining writing in our current moment. Over three weeks, each student is asked to draft an original story or essay that captures, even indirectly, what it means to be human in the world today. The fourth and final meeting features a keynote talk by Vauhini Vara. All sessions are held at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

Andrea Dupree is co-founder and program director at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, the Rocky Mountain West’s largest independent literary center since 1997. She’s won multiple MacDowell fellowships and her work can be found in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, Colorado Review and elsewhere.