Songwriters in Seattle is delighted to Welcome Jeff Lee as a special guest instructor for our 2020 Spring Songwriting Retreat at Pilgrim Firs in Port Orchard, WA!

Jeff will be leading a workshop entitled “A Storyteller’s Toolbox for Writing Songs”

Description: Though different from other writing, lyrics are still made of words, and we can piece them together using techniques borrowed from other written forms. As songwriters, we often use the tools of the poet–imagery, meter and rhyme–but there are other ways to tell stories with words. In this class, we’ll explore some of the tools that all writers and storytellers use, like conflict, misdirection, mystery, epiphany, and point of view. We’ll see how great songwriters used those tools to pry open our emotions, and dissect how some of our favorite songs were put together. Then we’ll pick up those tools and take a swing or two ourselves. By the end of the workshop, we’ll have some shiny new toys we can pull out when we need them.

Bio: Jeff Lee is a writer of songs, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and personal essays. He is an instructor at the Northwest Writer’s Retreat and at the Caz Northwest Family Performing Arts Camp. His album of original songs, “Over That River Wide,” was released in 2019. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.