Name: Writing & Music
Start: 2027-01-16T11:30:00-0500
End: 2027-01-16T12:30:00-0500

Saturday January 16, 2027 11:30am - 12:30pm EST

This panel explores the deep, often surprising relationship between a musician's ear and a writer's instincts: how rhythm, structure, and improvisation carry over from the stage to the page. Panelists include David Ryan, original drummer for The Lemonheads and now a widely respected short story writer, alongside authors Rick Moody and Paul Harding, who have musical backgrounds in their own right. Together they'll dig into how their musical training shapes their prose, what literary writing and songwriting have in common structurally, and what writers without a musical background can still learn from thinking like a musician. Expect a conversation that's as much about craft as it is about the strange, resonant overlap between two art forms.

Moderators

Lisa Borders

LAST NIGHT AT THE DISCO, Author

Lisa Borders is the author of three novels. Last Night at the Disco, published in 2025, won a Silver Medal in Humor in the 2026 Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards, and is a finalist for the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her previous novels are The Fifty-First State and Cloud... Read More →

Speakers

Rick Moody

HOTELS OF NORTH AMERICA, Author

Rick Moody is the author of six novels, three collections of stories, and three works of non-fiction. He writes regularly about music at Salmagundi magazine.

David Ryan

ALLIGATOR, Author

David Ryan is the author of the story collections, Alligator (C4G Books) and Animals in Motion: Stories (Roundabout Press). Winner of the 2022 and 2023 O. Henry Prize For Short Fiction, his fiction and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Soft Union, Alaska Qu... Read More →

Paul Harding

THIS OTHER EDEN, Author

Paul Harding is the author of three novels: Tinkers, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; Enon; and This Other Eden, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and PEN America. He is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing in the Writing, Literature and Publishing... Read More →

Saturday January 16, 2027 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
TBA

Track 6: Grab Bag

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TBR 2027

Lisa Borders

Rick Moody

David Ryan

Paul Harding

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Success you have shared X tickets.

TBR 2027

Lisa Borders

Rick Moody

David Ryan

Paul Harding

Attendees (1)

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