January Kickoff: Reading & Writing & the Kitchen Sink

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For fifty years, husband and wife team Amanda West Lewis and Tim Wynne-Jones have navigated careers as artists while negotiating a life filled with children, books, music, theatre and art. It’s been fifty years filled with successes and failures and always, thankfully, a lot of love. For our kickoff to WIFYR, they'll talk about their lives as writers and how they’ve continued to inspire, support and encourage each other — and make dinner, too.

Mark your calendar for January 8, 2026 (6:30-8:30 pm, MST). This virtual celebration will kick us off and into a New Year of Writing. There will be giveaways, writing prompts and contests, and just a whole lotta fun.

Tim Wynne-Jones will teach the Full Novel Morning Workshop at our Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference, June 15-19, 2026. Amanda West Lewis will teach the "The Three Bears' Chairs: Finding Just the Right Size for Your Story" Workshop. Attendees can focus on picture books, middle grade, YA or a little bit of all the genres! Seats are limited and registration begins on January 1, 2026.

TIM WYNNE-JONES

With a writing career spanning more than forty years and with thirty-eight books to date, Tim Wynne-Jones has published nine young adult novels, three middle-grade books, four short story collections, and "a whole lot of picture books."

He's also written adult novels, radio dramas, songs for the CBC/Jim Henson production Fraggle Rock, as well as a children's musical, and an opera libretto.

Tim taught for eighteen years at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in their master’s degree program: Writing for Children and Young Adults. He knows what a novel needs to make it shine and can help you understand how to strengthen your work.

AMANDA WEST LEWIS

Amanda West Lewis is a writer, theatre artist, and calligrapher. She is the author of eleven books, including the poetry collection A Planet is a Poem, and the semi-autobiographical novels Focus Click Wind, and These Are Not the Words. Her books have been recognized with a wide range of awards and nominations.

Amanda has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine

Arts, with a specialist certificate in Picture Books.