During this two-hour generative workshop, participants will discover how randomness can beget fantastic ideas, and that we all have a natural story structure that we can work within. Meditative freewrites will fill the first hour. The second hour will involve guided rewrites where participants are at the whim of a Barker announcing changes to the…

Explore the possibilities of braided narrative in writing your life stories or memoir. We’ll read and discuss examples of braided narrative and participants will use generative writing exercises to discover an example(s) of figures or themes to illuminate and complicate the life story they would like to share. Using generative exercises, discussion, and reflection, participants…

In this workshop, we will give a close read and critique of each other’s fiction. We will use each other’s writing as opportunities to discuss and explore questions of fiction craft such as structure, characterization, and voice. We will study how to read as writers, how to read for craft, and how to talk and…

Dölen Perkins-Valdez says that, “Somewhere between written and oral traditions is a space the imagination can fill.” Excavating the past can be especially intimidating for those of us who come from places where history is kept through oral traditions or inscrutable scraps of information. Words like ‘exhaustive’ are often used to describe bodies of knowledge,…

The phrase "write what you know" has been uttered and dispensed as advice in thousands of writing classes–but what does it actually mean? Are fiction writers intended merely to translate the 'authenticity' of their lived experience on the page? How can writers effectively combine personal inspiration with invention? While the coinage of the term 'autofiction'…

In a moment when many communities are under duress, artists Dana Maya and Kate Vieira provide an opportunity to create and sustain a joyful literary community. They will offer strategies, prompts, and hands-on exercises to help participants think through their goals for their own writing practices and how those practices might be enriched by a…