Mountain Words Festival 2026

Mapping the Inner Landscape of Your Work
We often talk about what we write, but rarely where it comes from. How do our identities, histories, and personal values come together to form the lens or prism through which our words appear? In this session, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen shares a cartographic approach to understanding our own creative ecosystems. Participants will be guided through a reflective inquiry before creating their own visual process maps, charting the unseen forces that shape not just our artistic voices, but our lives as creators.

John Hausdoerffer, author of the collection, How to Be a Good Ancestor, leads this session giving storytellers the depth and persepective to tell better stories.

For passholders, this is a very intimate conversation between Terry Tempest Williams and Nina McConigley about her life in art and words in the natural world