Pikes Peak Writers Conference 2026

During the class, attendees will be reading and analyzing first pages as actors. Samples will be available, but attendees are encouraged to bring your own first pages to work on.

Humans hear emotions first, then pitch and rhythm, and only then words. I want to give writers the most fundamental and powerful performance tools their creative cousins, actors, use to bring words to life. This will cover performance and speech skills that will render their text clear and easily understood. Emotional, expressive and analytical tools that bring their characters to life, vocal tools that will render their characters distinct from each other and grounded in the character's truth, and recording and editing technical how-to that will make the final product polished and professional quality on any budget. If you only had a few hours to take someone from 0 to a world class actor, how would you do it? That's what we're going to find out. Realistically, acting is like playing the violin, with a very high skill-cap, but progress can be fast with the right tools, the most precious thing that will come from this is the continuing education tools, resources, drills, and understandings that will have would-be author/narrators growing for years to come.