Writing the Past

Writing Family History Workshop

Perhaps you’ve come across a photo or a family heirloom that intrigues you. Maybe you’ve found your immigrant grandparents’ citizenship papers. Or perhaps you can’t stop thinking about the last time you saw Cousin Ellen at Aunt Helen’s funeral and the conversation did not go well. Maybe that story Uncle Irving told you about your great-grandparents still commands your attention. Or that cookbook your mother inherited that became the basis of holiday meals.

In each session, we’ll write to timed prompts to help you put your thoughts on the page. Family history can be preserved forever if someone, maybe you, writes it down.

Submission Party!

Join fellow writers in a nurturing hour to send your literary work out into the world! At the onset of the hour, we’ll share our submission goals. Then we’ll go off to do the work and return to share and celebrate what we’ve accomplished.

Writing to Themed Prompts: A Potpourri from Literary Magazine Calls for Submissions

Many literary magazines have calls for submissions for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on certain themes. Whole issues could be devoted to these themes or just special sections. These themed calls provide focus and offer perhaps easier entry, because there tends to be less competition for themed submissions. Join me for this four-week series where I’ll curate literary magazine themed prompts and we’ll write to them using the AWA method.

Writing to Save Your Life

Using Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s book, Writing Poetry to Save Your Life, you’ll write to timed prompts that encourage you to climb into the cave of truth, knock that critic crow off your shoulder, and write your stories (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) from your heart. Whether your intent is to write for yourself or to publish, you’ll find these prompts (presented five at a time, you choose one that speaks to you the most) accessible and catalyzing. All levels and genres welcome. Join me and we’ll enter the cave together!

Writing from Photographs

Consider photography as a form of documentation, representations of what has been. Using a unique set of prompts, deeply examine your own photographs and develop new insights to craft story.

Silence Speaks: Writing into and about Silence

In this four-week series of two-hour sessions, we’ll write to timed prompts that explore, interpret, and translate silence onto the page. Through poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or hybrid forms, we’ll consider the many shapes silence can take—trauma, absence, secrecy, isolation, denial, memory, and loss. Open to writers of all levels and genres.

Moments That Matter: Writing Flash and Micro

In this four-week series of two-hour sessions, we’ll write to timed prompts that explore the possibilities of micro and flash forms. Prompts will encourage us to create complete pieces that move beyond moments and vignettes toward stories that linger with readers. Open to all levels and all genres.

First Impressions: A Workshop on Titling Poetry and Prose

In this four-week workshop, you’ll learn a variety of strategies for generating titles for poetry and prose and apply them to works in progress. We’ll explore the many roles a title can play—from establishing tone and context to creating tension and deepening meaning—and how to choose the one that best serves your work. You’ll leave each session with a range of potential titles and the confidence to select the strongest option.