Mesa Verde Writers
Mesa Verde
Writers Conference
Conference Dates:
Wednesday, Sept. 2 (full day)
Thursday Sept. 3 (full day)
Friday Sept. 4 (half day)
Location:
Deer Hill Expeditions, 7850 Road 41, Mancos (two miles south of downtown Mancos)
Conference Registration Fee: $500
Accommodations: Deer Hill Expeditions offers a variety of housing accommodations at a reasonable price. Please visit this link to review the choices including The Loft, a cabin, or camping.
Of course, downtown Mancos also offers the Mesa Verde Motel and the Mancos Inn, which you may book on your own. Cortez is 18 miles to the west and Durango is 28 miles to the east and there are many short-term rental properties in Mancos as well.
Meals: The registration fee includes breakfast on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday along with lunch and dinner on Wednesday and Thursday. Dinner will be held at Deer Hill’s main lodge. Dietary needs will be gathered at registration.
Scholarships: If you are interested in applying for a scholarship (we expect to be able to offer at least two), email mesaverdewriters@gmail.com for details.
Registration
Note! Registration is not complete until the conference fee has been received.
Follow this link to pay via PayPal, Venmo, or credit card.
If you are planning to stay at Deer Hill, please use one of the following options to pay:
The Loft
Cabin or Camping
Conference Faculty
Full faculty to be announced soon.
Anettte McGivney
Annette McGivney is an award-winning writer who has been drawn to remote, wild places her entire life. Annette won the National Outdoor Book Award in October 2018 for her book Pure Land: A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures, and the Search for Heaven on Earth.
Annette is the author of five nonfiction books and writes frequently for The Guardian, Outside, Arizona Highways and Backpacker. She is also a professor emeritus in Journalism at Northern Arizona University where she taught for two decades.
Building Wood Fires, about humans and fire, was published in November 2017 by W.W. Norton. Annette is also author of Resurrection: Glen Canyon and a New Vision for the American West (Braided River/The Mountaineers, 2009) and Leave No Trace (The Mountaineers Books, 1997). Her next book, Plastic Shaman, is about an investigation into a deadly self-help retreat and cultural appropriation of Native American spiritual practices. Plastic Shaman will be released by Torrey House Press on Sept. 15, 2026.
Wendy J. Fox
Wendy J. Fox was born in rural Washington state, which has inspired much of her writing on class and the west.
Her first book, The Seven Stages of Anger & Other Stories (Press 53) was finalist for the Colorado Book Award; her debut novel The Pull of It (Underground Voices), was named a top pick by Displaced Nation; her novel If The Ice Had (Santa Fe Writers Project) is a Buzzfeed recommended read and a grand prize winner from Santa Fe Writers Project.
What If We Were Somewhere Else, her collection of linked short stories won the Colorado Book Award and was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award.
Published widely in magazines and blogs, she is also a frequent workshop leader and event panelist.
Lisa C. Taylor
Lisa C. Taylor is the author of the 2025 novel, The Shape of What Remains, three poetry collections and two short story collections, most recently Impossibly Small
Spaces (2018). Her second novel is forthcoming in 2027. Lisa’s honors include the Hugo House New Works Fiction Award, Pushcart nominations in fiction and poetry and Best-of-the-Net nominations in both categories.
Her poetry collaboration with Irish writer Geraldine Mills, The Other Side of Longing received the
Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Honor at University of Connecticut. Lisa holds an MFA in Creative Writing.
Monica Barron
Monica Barron is a founding member of Lesbians WriteOn, literary and lesbian culture programming on Zoom. Her book of poems, Prairie Architecture, was published by Golden Antelope Press after poems had appeared in Poecology, Naugatuck River Review, The Chariton Review, the anthology Times of Sorrow, and many other publications. More recent work has appeared in Screendoor Review, Sinister Wisdom, and The Words Faire. Barron frequently leads and produces literary and cultural programming for Lesbians WriteOn.
Her prose work included years of editorial work for Feminist Teacher magazine. Her prose has appeared in Academe, Exposures: Essays by Missouri Women, and Wordpeace.