Past Events

About Faliveno's novel, Hemlock:

A woman haunted by a dark inheritance returns to the woods where her mother vanished, in this queer Gothic novel—a butch Black Swan.

Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods, where her mother disappeared years before and never returned. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer.

As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door in the forms of a neighbor who leaves no trace, a talking doe who sounds just like Sam’s missing mother, and a series of mysterious gifts that might be a welcome or a warning. And as Sam’s stay extends—as the town’s grip on her tightens and her body takes on a strange new shape—the borders of reality begin to blur, and she senses she is battling something sinister—whether nested in the woods or within herself.

Hemlock is a carnal coming-of-addiction, a dark sparkler about rapture, desire, transformation, and transcendence in many forms. What lives at the heart of fear—animal, monster, or man? How do we contain a threat that may come from within? And how can we reject our own inheritance, the psychic storm that’s been coming for generations, and rebuild a new home for ourselves? In the tradition of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Hemlock is a novel of singular style, with all the edginess of a survival story and a simmering menace that glints from the very periphery of the page.

Melissa Faliveno is the author of the novel Hemlock (Little, Brown, 2026) and the essay collection Tomboyland, named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR, New York Public Library, Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature,  and Debutiful, and recipient of a 2021 Award for Outstanding Literary  Achievement from the Wisconsin Library Association. Her work, which has  been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received notable selection in Best American Essays, has appeared in Esquire, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, Prairie Schooner, Brevity, and Brooklyn Rail, among others, and in the anthologies Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic (Harper Perennial, 2022) and the forthcoming Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music (Split/Lip, March 2026). Born and raised in Wisconsin and the former senior editor of Poets & Writers Magazine,  Melissa is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University  of North Carolina and lives in the woods outside Chapel Hill. www.melissafaliveno.com

If you would like to read at the open mic, please send an email to driftlesswritingcenter@gmail.com with the subject line: IN-PERSON OPEN MIC, and include your name and contact information. Please prepare to read no more than 5 minutes of material.

Friday, February 13, 7-9pm

@ Vernon County Museum, 410 S Center Ave, Viroqua, WI 54665

Free and open to the public

Thank you for your interest - this workshop is now full. If you would like to be added to a wait list, please send your request to driftlesswritingcenter@gmail.com

In this generative writing workshop, we'll be thinking about  place, and all things strange—what makes a place strange (or unique, or idiosyncratic), and how such places can become characters in our work—whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. We'll consider the places of our past and of our present—what's real and remembered, mythological and imagined—and how we might start with the very real places of our lives, then let them take on lives of their own on the page. Come ready to write, share, and discuss your process and discoveries!

Open to writers of all genres and levels.

Melissa Faliveno is the author of the novel Hemlock (Little, Brown, 2026) and the essay collection Tomboyland, named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR, New York Public Library, Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature,  and Debutiful, and recipient of a 2021 Award for Outstanding Literary  Achievement from the Wisconsin Library Association. Her work, which has  been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and received notable selection in Best American Essays, has appeared in Esquire, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, Prairie Schooner, Brevity, and Brooklyn Rail, among others, and in the anthologies Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic (Harper Perennial, 2022) and the forthcoming Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music (Split/Lip, March 2026). Born and raised in Wisconsin and the former senior editor of Poets & Writers Magazine,  Melissa is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University  of North Carolina and lives in the woods outside Chapel Hill. www.melissafaliveno.com

Saturday, February 14th from 10am - 12pm

@ Vernon County Museum, 410 S Center Ave, Viroqua, WI 54665

To register, click here

Sliding scale tuition ($20-$50); scholarships are also available (please follow steps in registration link for scholarships.)  

Join Driftless Writing Center board member  Jennifer Morales for a co-working session designed to help you power  through those pesky submissions tasks and get your work published. We'll  meet online this Saturday, November 15, from 12:00 to 2:00 PM (Central  Time) with the goal of sharing submission resources and stating our  individual intentions for the session. Then we'll get to work on  submitting our writing to the outlets of our choice. 

Whether you're vying for journals, anthologies, residencies, or  contests, if you’ve got work that needs to get out there, co-work with  other writers this Saturday and get a jump start on the upcoming  submissions season. To use the meeting link, you must be registered for  our regular online Connect & Write sessions, as we will be using the same link for this submissions event. 

Date: Saturday, November 15
Time: 12:00 - 2:00 PM (CT)
Location: Zoom link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87328843217?pwd=TjA1RVBpeUVDbHJYSkEzc0I5RnN6QT09
Meeting ID: 873 2884 3217
Passcode: 990913
Cost: Free (but you must be already registered for Connect & Write to attend. Register for Connect & Write here.)

Marcie R. Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, and freelance writer. Also a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists / writers / creators to pursue their art, and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership, writing.

She is an award-winning author of a fresh new murder mystery series, and also has an extensive body of fiction and nonfiction works.

The creative mind behind Raving Native Theater, Rendon has also curated community created performances such as Art Is… Creative Native Resilience, featuring three Anishinaabe performance artists, which premiered on TPT (Twin Cities Public Television), June 2019.

Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by MN AARP and POLLEN in 2018. Rendon and Diego Vazquez received a 2017 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for their work with women incarcerated in county jails.

Click here to register

Sliding scale tuition ($20-$50); scholarships are also available

In this workshop, we will engage in writing exercises (and a short theatrical creation) which will demonstrate how to bring characters to life. Bring paper, pens, pencils, and/or your laptop, imagination and bravery.

Recommended for writers of prose (fiction or nonfiction) and folks who write for theater, though all curious and open writers are welcome.

Marcie R. Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, and freelance writer. Also a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists / writers / creators to pursue their art, and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership, writing.

She is an award-winning author of a fresh new murder mystery series, and also has an extensive body of fiction and nonfiction works.

The creative mind behind Raving Native Theater, Rendon has also curated community created performances such as Art Is… Creative Native Resilience, featuring three Anishinaabe performance artists, which premiered on TPT (Twin Cities Public Television), June 2019.

Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by MN AARP and POLLEN in 2018. Rendon and Diego Vazquez received a 2017 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for their work with women incarcerated in county jails.

From H Murray Valentine (workshop facilitator) : During the 2020 lockdown, my friends and I began playing zoom boggle.  We challenged one another to create songs, poems, and art based on our collective words.There were no strict rules, and we didn't play to win. We played to delight one another and to keep creating despite the  unknown. Since then I've made many boggle poems and songs and found it  to be a good antidote for writer's block.

H Murray Valentine is an artist, writer, and diviner living in the  Driftless Region. He believes in the healing art of nonsense. Find him on the web at hmurrayvalentine.net or on instagram @inherentquerent

Click here to register

$10-50 sliding scale tuition, scholarships are available

A public sonnet competition presented in collaboration with the Viroqua Shakespeare Festival

Calling all fans of poetry to join us for the first-ever Sonnet Competition at the Viroqua Shakespeare Festival before Saturday's performance of The Tempest!

Any and all are welcome to participate as a competitor and/or an audience member.

Cash prizes awarded in two prize categories: original sonnets and sonnets authored by others.

(Subcategories include: best use of metaphor and imagery, best performed presentation, most Shakespearean, least Shakespearean, best memorized delivery).

Come, grab some popcorn, tacos, or ice cream from the festival's food vendors
and find your seat to hear local poets and wordsmiths serve up metered
rhymes and compete for prizes!

Free and open to the public. Bring your own lawn chair or blanket.

From sonnet-curious to sonneteer in two hours!

In this workshop, we’ll explore a selection of sonnets from Elizabethan to

contemporary before participants dig in to the creative process of drafting

and crafting their own sonnets. We’ll provide exercises, prompts and

themes to help guide you in your process. All levels in all genres welcome,

from seasoned poets to first-time writers.

Two weeks after the workshop, workshop participants and the general public are

invited to compete in the Sonnet Slam on Saturday, June 28th at 5pm at the

Viroqua Shakespeare Festival for spirited literary delight and cash prizes!

(Food and music and a production Shakespeare’s The Tempest of will also

be available!).

Facilitated by franciszka voeltz

To register for this event, click here.

$20-50 Sliding Scale, Scholarships are Available (Please email driftlesswritingcenter@gmail.com to inquire about scholarships)

Driftless Writing Center and five Vernon County public libraries are delighted to host the 9th Annual Vernon County Reads adult reading program, featuring Wisconsin author Beth Amos —also known as Annelise Ryan and Allyson K. Abbott—at the Westby Performing Arts Center.

Residents are encouraged to visit their local public library to explore Beth Amos's, Monster Hunter Mystery series (written as Annelise Ryan). 

The event on August 14th is  free of charge and will feature a presentation by Beth Amos, followed by a book signing where  copies of her works will be available for purchase. This event is made possible by Vernon County Libraries and the Driftless Writing Center.

It’s what we all dream of  hearing when someone reads our work: “I just couldn’t put it down!” But how does a writer build the quality of narrative momentum into a piece of fiction or nonfiction? What strategies can we learn from published work that might unlock ideas for our own pages? In this workshop, we’ll look at several examples that demonstrate propulsive action and story. We’ll consider how plot, character, and POV work together to ensure a  driving impetus in fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction. In-class writing exercises as well as discussion of texts will give participants the chance to understand and practice how “page turners” become reality. Bring a notebook or your laptop, and let’s gain momentum together.

To register, click here.

Sliding scale tuition ($20-$50); scholarships are also available

Emily Gray Tedrowe is the author of three novels, The Talented Miss Farwell (HarperCollins 2020), Blue Stars (St. Martin’s Press 2015), and Commuters (Harper  Perennial, 2010). Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in  Story Quarterly, swamp pink, The Rumpus, Crab Orchard Review, and other  magazines. One story won an Illinois Arts Council award and another was  named a finalist in the 2024 Zoetrope fiction contest. Tedrowe has been  awarded fellowships at Ragdale, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and the  Virginia Center for the Arts. She has taught literature and writing at  several universities in Chicago and New York. Tedrowe is also a  bookseller at Chicago’s first and currently only unionized independent  bookstore, Seminary Co-op Books.

About Tedrowe's novel,The Talented Miss Farwell: 

Catch Me If You Can meets Patricia Highsmith in this “stylish” (New York Times Book Review) page-turner of greed and obsession, survival and self-invention that is a piercing character study of one unforgettable female con artist.

At the end of the 1990s, with the art market finally recovered from its disastrous collapse, Miss Rebecca Farwell has made a killing at  Christie’s in New York City, selling a portion of her extraordinary art  collection for a rumored 900 percent profit. Dressed in couture YSL,  drinking the finest champagne at trendy Balthazar, Reba, as she’s known, is the picture of a wealthy art collector. To some, the elusive Miss  Farwell is a shark with outstanding business acumen. To others, she’s a heartless capitalist whose only interest in art is how much she can make.

But a thousand miles from the Big Apple, in the small town of Pierson, Illinois, Miss Farwell is someone else entirely—a quiet single woman  known as Becky who still lives in her family’s farmhouse, wears sensible  shoes, and works tirelessly as the town’s treasurer and controller.

No one understands the ins and outs of Pierson’s accounts better than Becky; she’s the last one in the office every night, crunching the  numbers. Somehow, her neighbors marvel, she always finds a way to get  the struggling town just a little more money. What Pierson doesn’t see—and can never discover—is that much of that money is shifted into a separate account that she controls, “borrowed” funds used to finance her  art habit. Though she quietly repays Pierson when she can, the business  of art is cutthroat and unpredictable.

But as Reba Farwell’s deals get bigger and bigger, Becky Farwell’s debt to Pierson spirals out of control. How long can the talented Miss Farwell  continue to pull off her double life?

If you would like to read at the open mic, please send an email to driftlesswritingcenter@gmail.com with the subject line: IN-PERSON OPEN MIC, and include your name and contact information. Please prepare to read no more than 5 minutes of material.

Driftless Writing Center and five Vernon County public libraries are delighted to host the 8th Annual Vernon County Reads adult reading program, featuring Wisconsin author Jennifer Chiaverini at the Westby Performing Arts Center.

Residents are encouraged to visit their local public library to explore Chiaverini’s works, including her latest release from the Elm Creek Quilts series,The Museum of Lost Quilts. Chiaverini has published thirty-three novels including critically acclaimed historical fiction and the Elm Creek Quilts series.

The event on November 20th is free of charge and will feature a  presentation by Jennifer Chiaverini, followed by a book signing where  copies of her works will be available for purchase.