Literary Event Schedule for the 2025 Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
Tickets sold on-site 30 minutes prior to event (tickets not sold in advance or online); SEE PRICES BELOW.
EVENING READINGS (Performing Arts Center, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Sunday, July 20 – 6:30 pm wine reception; 7 pm Major Jackson & Sarah Thankam Mathews
Monday, July 21 – 6:30 pm wine reception; 7 pm Victoria Chang & Mitchell S. Jackson
Tuesday, July 22 – 6:30 pm wine reception; 7 pm Brenda Hillman & Lan Samantha Chang
Wednesday, July 23 – 5:30 pm wine reception; 6 pm Brian Teare & Margot Livesey
Thursday, July 24 – 6:30 pm wine reception; 7 pm Robert Hass & Participants
DAILY CRAFT TALKS (Performing Arts Center, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Monday, July 21
9 am – Poetry Craft Talk: “How to Make Nothing Happen,” Brian Teare
1:30 pm – Fiction Craft Talk, “Revision: The Train Stops Here,” Margot Livesey
3 pm Translation Craft Talk, “What to Leave Behind, What to Bring Across: Translation and the Art of the Possible,” Robert Hass
Tuesday, July 22
9 am – Poetry Craft Talk, “Go Big and Stay Home: Poems of Place, Family, and Memory,” Major Jackson
1:30 pm – Fiction Craft Talk,”Creating Depth and Density: Writing Prose with Style and Heft,” Sarah Thankam Mathews
3:00 pm – Special Event: “Reading in Public,” Lorri Holt
Wednesday, July 23
9 am – Poetry Craft Talk, “Lorine Niedecker’s ‘Condensery’: Nature as Narrative Field,” Victoria Chang
1:30 pm – Fiction Craft Talk, “Voice: The Never-ending Pursuit of Eloquence,” Mitchell S. Jackson
Thursday, July 24
9 am – Poetry Craft Talk, “Distributed Subjectivities and the Pronoun ‘I’,” Brenda Hillman
1:30 pm – Fiction Craft Talk, “The Linear Novel: The Queen’s Gambit, by Water Tevis,” Lan Samantha Chang
Friday, July 25
9 am – First Books Panels, Fiction and Poetry
FREE DROP-IN COMMUNITY CLASSES (Community room, McCarthy Library, Napa Campus, Napa Valley College)
Monday to Friday – 10:30 – 11:30 am – Poetry drop-in generative workshop with Didi Jackson
Monday to Thursday – 4:30 – 5:30 pm – Evening reading guided class with Caroline Goodwin
Each daytime event takes place on the Napa Valley College main campus, at 2277 Napa Vallejo Hwy, Napa, CA 94558.
2025 PRICING for public admission (tickets sold on-site prior to each Reading and Craft Talk, no tickets sold in advance or online)
- Individual reading: $20
- Individual craft talk: $25
- Full week pass (all craft talks and readings): $275
- Lectures-only pass (all 9 craft talks): $200
- Readings-only pass (all 5 readings): $90
- Single-day pass (two lectures and one reading): $65