Gemini Ink

The Creative Writer’s Professional Toolkit with Lyzette Wanzer
2023-06-06 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
Tuesdays, June 6, 13, 20, 27 & July 11, 18, 6:30-8:30pm CST via Zoom
Instructor: Lyzette Wanzer
Nonmember: $150; Member: $130; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Are you ready to take the leap from writing hobbyist to professional writer? If so, gain the tools every professional writer needs to make it in a competitive field.
This intensive hands-on workshop will provide you with the career savvy you need to stand out from the crowd of writers who, though they may be talented, lack the marketplace acumen they need to boost their opportunities from good to great. Learn a comprehensive set of professional practices that translate your talent into actionable, real-world skills for elevating your literary career. Learn how to increase your chances of earning grants, landing residencies, and getting published.
Over the course of this workshop, you will acquire the practices and strategies you need to take advantage of scores of opportunities for your work–skills you can put into immediate effect! After completing this course, many students have garnered their first literary grant, writing conference invitation, or publication credit.
Students will leave this class with:

A short & long bio
A current writer’s curriculum vitae/resume that will get you noticed
Ideas for keeping track of professional achievements and updating your CV

Lyzette Wanzer is a San Francisco writer, editor, and writing workshop instructor. She received her MFA in Fiction from Mills College. A flash fiction connoisseur and essay aficionado, her work has appeared in Natural Bridge, The Los Angeles Review, Callaloo, Tampa Review, The MacGuffin, Ampersand Review, Journal of Advanced Development, Fourteen Hills, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Pleiades, Flashquake, Glossalia Flash Fiction, Potomac Review, International Journal on Literature and Theory, Fringe Magazine, and many others. She is a contributor to Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth From the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2022), The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012), Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019), and 642 Tiny Things to Write About (Chronicle Books 2015). Her articles have appeared in Essay Daily, The Naked Truth, and the San Francisco University High School Journal. Lyzette is the current judge of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition’s Intercultural Essay category and the Women’s National Book Association’s Effie Lee Morris Writing Contest’s nonfiction category.
Lyzette has been invited to present her work and/or panels at conferences across the country, including the American and Popular Culture Association, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), College English Association (CEA), Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900, Litquake Festival, San Francisco Writers Conference, and others.

'Tell All the Truth, but Tell It Slant:' Writing About Trauma with Thomas McNeely
2023-06-03 10:00 - 12:00 | Online via Zoom
Saturdays, June 3, 10, 17 & 24, 10am-12pm CST via Zoom
Instructor: Thomas McNeely
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

How do we tell the story of a traumatic event or its aftermath? What if, after the event, we were silenced by others or just by our own inability to put the experience into words?

In this generative course, we will experiment with different approaches to narrating real or fictional trauma while keeping in mind that each traumatic experience suggests a variety of different stories and may be narrated in a variety of different ways. We will explore writing different versions of the same story and decide which form–poem, short story, novel, memoir, or a hybrid of any of these narrative approaches–will best capture the traumatic experience and its after effects.
Our approaches will be based on short excerpts from work by Sylvia Plath, Brian Teare, Ocean Vuong, Mary Karr, Eimear McBride, and other creative writers, and will incorporate ideas from trauma narrative theorists and researchers, including Cathy Caruth and Bessel van der Kolk.
This class is open to writers of all skill levels.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

An understanding of how to write about trauma and its impact
Ideas on which narrative form can best capture the traumatic experience
A starting place for their own piece of writing

An East Side Houston native, THOMAS H. McNEELY has received National Endowment for the Arts, Wallace Stegner, MacDowell Colony, and Dobie Paisano fellowships for his fiction. Pictures of the Shark: Stories (Texas Review Press) is his second book. His first book, Ghost Horse, won the Gival Press Novel Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize in Writing. He has published short stories and non-fiction in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Mystery Stories and Algonquin Books’ Best of the South. His stories have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award anthologies. He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College, Boston, and has led writing workshops at the Grub Street Writers Workshops, the Lighthouse Writers Workshops, the Writers’ League of Texas, Writespace Houston, and Inprint Houston.

Spot Revision with Mary Helen Stefaniak
2023-05-20 10:00 - 13:00 | Online via Zoom
Saturday, May 20, 10am-1pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Mary Helen Stefaniak
Nonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Vet/Mil $50
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

How often could someone look up from reading your manuscript and say to the person across the table, “Listen to this!”?

Do you reward the reader with juicy details and interesting word choices to sink their mind into on every single page? In this spot revision class, we will examine our written work and find opportunities to expand, rephrase, and substitute words for attention-grabbing language. We will also discuss ways to make our work fresh and unpredictable and add texture. We are not focusing on small mistakes but on small ways to take our prose to the next level.
To prepare for this class, we will read mentor texts and prepare a page (250 to 300 words) pulled from our own fiction or creative nonfiction to use in practice. In class, we’ll exchange pages and provide suggestions for making our writing more riveting and our word choice more compelling. Then, we’ll assess the comments and apply the techniques learned in class to create a stronger draft.
This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels with work ready to edit.
In this class, you will:

Gain new editing strategies to pack powerful prose onto each page
Give and receive on-the-spot editing suggestions
Learn to sift through feedback to keep what’s useful

Mary Helen Stefaniak’s new novel, The World of Pondside, was released by Blackstone Publishing in April 2022. Booklist has said of the novel—a mystery set in a nursing home—that “Stefaniak infuses an often forbidding environment with joy and dignity in this Agatha Christie-esque cyber caper.” Mary Helen’s first book of nonfiction, The Six-Minute Memoir: Fifty-Five Short Essays on Life, was published by The University of Iowa Press in Fall 2022. The essays are selected from more than 20 years’ worth of monthly columns she wrote for The Iowa Source. Mary Helen Stefaniak is a writer of fiction and essays whose work has appeared in many publications, including The Iowa Review, EPOCH, The Yale Review, AGNI, The Antioch Review, and in several anthologies. You can read more about Mary Helen and her work at https://maryhelenstefaniak.com.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Andrew Porter
2023-05-17 19:00 - 20:30
RSVP

Wednesday, May 17th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Andrew Porter, author of the story collection, The Disappeared.
Join us for The Big Texas Author Talk, a free monthly lecture series that showcases Texas authors from different parts of the state, including New York Times bestsellers and Latinx border authors. The series offers informative and entertaining conversations with storytellers who represent the diverse spirit of Texas. Past featured authors include Kathleen Kent, Marisol Cortez, Joe Lansdale, and Carmen Tafolla, among others. Join us virtually on the third Wednesday of every month at 7 pm CST.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A collection of stories that trace the threads of loss and displacement running through all our lives, by the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Theory of Light and Matter

“What a beautiful book about the profound mystery of ordinary life.” —Alix Ohlin, author of We Want What We Want

A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances, both literal and figurative—lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one’s youthful self. From San Antonio to Austin, from the clamor of a crowded restaurant to the cigarette at a lonely kitchen table, Andrew Porter captures each of these relationships mid-flight, every individual life punctuated by loss and beauty and need. The Disappeared reaffirms the undeniable artistry of a contemporary master of the form.

ANDREW PORTER is the author of the story collection The Theory of Light and Matter and the novel In Between Days. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, and Ploughshares, and on public radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

(Poetry) Slam 201 with C.L. “Rooster” Martinez
2023-05-06 14:00 - 16:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Saturdays, May 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2-4pm, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: C.L. “Rooster” Martinez
Nonmember: $125; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.
Class Cancelled

Imagine stepping up to the mic at a poetry slam with less than 3 minutes to captivate the audience.
What will you say? How will you use your voice, face, and body language to take the audience on an emotional rollercoaster?

(Poetry) Slam 201 is a generative and performance workshop focused on individual and collaborative writing for live competition. We will briefly examine the history and rules of the Slam Poetry genre, write new and exciting work as individuals and teams, use a critique session to delve deep into the poem’s intended message, and focus on moving the written word from the page to the microphone. Participants will receive performance tips and feedback that will add emotional depth and impact to their spoken word delivery.
(Poetry) Slam 201 is designed for most writers (17 years old and up) of any experience level.
*For those who took Slam 101, this class will expand on the knowledge gained in the first class and is more generative and performance-focused. Please note (Poetry) Slam 101 is not a prerequisite, as this class will briefly reintroduce the lessons of the former class.
Participants will leave this class with the following tools:

Knowledge of Slam Poetry history & rules
Practice writing individual and collaborative poems
Writing and performance feedback for creating a powerful stage presentation

Christopher “Rooster” Martinez is an educator and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas. He earned a MA/MFA in Creative Writing, Literature & Social Justice at Our Lady of the Lake University. He is the author of two poetry books: A Saint for Lost Things (Alabrava Press, 2020) and As it is in Heaven (Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press, 2020). For twelve years, Rooster competed and won slams across the country and co-founded the literary nonprofit Write Art Out Inc.

Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.

Voices of San Anto Bilingual Storytelling Workshop with Marisela Barrera
2023-05-06 13:00 - 17:00 | Central Library, 600 Soledad, San Antonio, Texas, 78205
You have a story to tell, and we want to help you tell it!

Join poet and storyteller Marisela Barrera for a free, two-session workshop at the San Antonio Public Library. Craft a five to seven-minute story about a significant moment in your life and present it a public performance and celebration. Whether it’s that funny anecdote you share at parties, an event that changed your life, or a family story passed down for generations, your story matters, and we want to help you bring it to life.
This workshop is for adults 18+, and no writing or performance experience is required. Native Spanish speakers and bilingual folks are highly encouraged to register.

You will leave the workshop with:

A fully-formed story ready for performance
An understanding of story elements
Performance strategies for effective live storytelling
Experience sharing a story with friends, family, and the community

Dates:
Writing Sessions May 6 & 13, 1-5pm
Final Celebration May 20, 10:30am-12:30pm

To register, email Sarah De La Rosa:
sarah.delarosa@sanantonio.gov

(If email link is not clickable, cut and paste the email sarah.delarosa@sanantonio.gov into your email client.)

Marisela Barrera is a Tejana writer and teatrista who writes short stories and turns them into transmedia performances. She spins and eats fire with Jump-Start Performance Co., teaches writing at Northwest Vista College, and is a Resident Actor with the Public Theater of San Antonio.

Exploring the Etymology of Our Artistic Practice with Diana Lizette Rodriguez
2023-05-02 18:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Tuesdays, May 2, 9, 16 & 23, 6-8:30pm, CST, offered via Zoom
Instructor: Diana Lizette Rodriguez
Nonmember: $125; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.
Class Cancelled
Where does your artistic practice come from? How do artists in other disciplines approach their own artistic expression? And how does understanding the origin of our art and that of others open us to new creative possibilities?
This four-week workshop with Diana Lizette Rodriguez will help participants identify the roots of their art practice through writing and multimedia exercises. By closely examining creative texts, film, photography, and performance material and reflecting on other artistic processes, participants will fully envision or rethink their own. The workshop will also explore how ancestry, family trees, landscape, and location can inform the root of artistic expression.
The overall goal of these reflections, writing prompts, and multimedia assignments is to help writers deepen their own creativity and to open up the way they approach making art.
This workshop is open to writers 16 and older of all skill levels. Spanish speakers and writers are also welcome!
Participants will leave this course with the following:

An expanded viewpoint on how other mediums boost creative practice
Acknowledgment of where your creative energy comes from
New artistic foundations to create deeper work in your life

Diana Lizette Rodriguez is an experimental artist who works with installation, painting, performance, photography, and the illuminating world of poetry. A Mexican-American artist from San Antonio, Texas, Rodriguez explores the fragmented decay the world portrays. Her work holds reminders of impermanence, and she creates these reminders with disruption, disorientation, and unknown predictabilities. Rodriguez pushes to work with a conceptualized intention, questions the reason for Art, and finds concepts like the 4th Dimension to be an idea her path wants to follow. To dive into. Questions such as “If I go to the 4th Dimension, would I be able to come back to the 1st?” arise, and Rodriguez, as an artist, does not find the answer to such a question. She just creates.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Steve Adams
2023-04-19 19:00 - 20:30
RSVP
Wednesday, April 19th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Steve Adams, author of the novel Remember This. This session will be moderated by Ramona Reeves, author of the prize-winning collection It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories.

About the Book
John Martin, a talented graphic designer from Texas, has left his alcoholic mother behind and is now employed as a word processor for a prestigious New York investment bank. In the midst of the personal computer revolution and AIDS epidemic, John embarks on an affair with his supervisor Alena Marino, an Italian immigrant. When his oldest sister arrives unexpectedly, John is forced to confront his past and the complex relationships he has had with beautiful women. John must now come to terms with his damaged past as he embarks on his journey of understanding.

Steve Adams’ creative nonfiction has won a Pushcart Prize, been listed as “Notable” in Best American Essays, and published in The Pinch, The Millions, and elsewhere. In fiction, he’s won Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, and his stories have been anthologized and published in Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He’s been a guest artist at UT, a resident artist at Jentel, and a scholar at the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony, and his plays have been produced in NYC. His debut novel, Remember This, was published in October 2022. He’s a writing coach and freelance editor in Memphis.

Ramona Reeves is a native of Mobile, Alabama. Her linked short story collection It Falls Gently All Aroundand Other Stories won the 2022 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press last fall. She spent a decade in the Northeastern U.S., writing freelance articles, proofreading for a men’s fashion weekly, and performing production roles for Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, and Esquire before moving into technical editing and writing. She eventually moved to Texas for several years before leaving to pursue her MFA in fiction. She has since returned and is nearing completion on a novel. Ramona has served as a board member for A Room of Her Own (AROHO), moderated and appeared on conference panels, taught college-level writing courses, and was an associate fiction editor for Kallisto Gaia Press. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Southampton Review, Pembroke, Bayou Magazine, New South, Superstition Review, Texas Highways and other publications. She’s won the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize, been a resident at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and is a Community of Writers alum.

11th Annual San Antonio Book Festival
2023-04-15 09:00 - 17:00 | UTSA Southwest Campus, 300 Augusta St, San Antonio, Texas, 78205
Florinda Flores-Brown, Programs Director
Gemini Ink is thrilled to announce our presence at the upcoming San Antonio Book Festival on Saturday, April 15th. Join us from 9am to 5pm at the Central Library and UTSA Southwest Campus in downtown San Antonio, where we’ll be ready to engage with everyone who attends this exciting event!
The festival will be a splendid opportunity for literary enthusiasts to interact with prominent authors and poets and attend insightful panel discussions and book signings. This year’s author lineup features 100 notable local, regional, and national authors who will be participating in the festival and several related events. The lineup includes nationally renowned authors like Kiese Laymon, Geraldine Brooks, Stephen Graham Jones, and Pulitzer Prize–winning Jane Smiley, among many others. There will be something for everyone, from young adult and children’s sessions to insightful talks on current events and politics. Follow the link to see the schedule: https://sabookfestival.org/schedule/
Stop by our booth, pick up one of our class schedules, and discover more about our innovative projects, captivating readings, and upcoming events. Gemini Ink staff will be on hand to chat with you, answer your questions, and share insights about the writing arts in San Antonio. Come say hello!

Literary Movements with Rod Carlos Rodriguez
2023-04-15 09:00 - 13:00 | Government Canyon, 12861 Galm Road, San Antonio, 78254, United States
Saturday, April 15, 9am-1pm CST, in-person at Government Canyon (12861 Galm Road, San Antonio, Texas 78254)
Instructor: Rod Carlos Rodriguez
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Vet/Mil $60
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Nature has inspired countless writers and artists and played a key role in many literary movements, from Transcendentalism to SLAM poetry. As such, this class will examine these movements and their nature-based connections so that we may draw upon them for our own creativity.
For additional inspiration, we will be in nature’s classroom, the great outdoors! We will share and write from the comfort of the Government Canyon Gallery, which provides an enclosed classroom wrapped in windows and a gorgeous 360° view of the surrounding woods.
Class participants will use body movement as a source of creativity, find their own corners of nature to sit in and write from, and participate in small group work. Bring a bottle of water and a folding chair! Following the class, participants are encouraged to stick around and explore the park on their own.
After taking this class, students will be able to:

Fuse the great outdoors into their own writing process.
Identify multiple American Literary Movements (both past and present), from Transcendentalism and Surrealism to the Beat Generation, and more.
Gather inspiration from an array of writers associated with these literary movements.

*This class will be held in the Government Canyon Gallery. The event space is covered and still accessible in the event of rain.

Rod Carlos Rodriguez has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. He has trained as a guest lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio Writing Program. He is also an award-winning poet who has written for over 40 years. He has three books of poetry published and is the founder/chair of the Sun Poet’s Society, South Texas’s longest-running weekly open-mic poetry reading (1995-2022). He was nominated for the San Antonio Poet Laureate in April 2012, April 2014, April 2016, and April 2018. He was the poetry editor for Ocotillo Review (Kallisto Gaia Press), a literary journal/periodical, and he was the editor of Texas Poetry Calendar 2023 (Kallisto Gaia Press).

Words, Wine and Wisdom: A Night of Stories with Leticia Urieta, Rooster Martinez & Andrew Porter
2023-04-13 18:30 - 20:00 | Poetic Republic Coffee Co., 2330 S. Presa St, San Antonio, Texas, United States
A Night of Stories with Leticia Urieta, Rooster Martinez & Andrew Porter followed by a Community Open Mic
Thurs, April 13, 6:30-8pm, In-Person
Poetic Republic Coffee Co., 2330 S. Presa St
Free & Open to the Public
Join us for a night of poetry and literary celebration as we partner with our friends at Poetic Republic Coffee Co. to create an inviting space for the writing community to share words, wine, and wisdom, with a little latte or espresso on the side.
Get ready to be inspired by the mesmerizing worlds of three writers, each with their own ferocity of voice. The evening kicks off with Leticia Urieta reading from her hybrid collection of poems and short stories, Las Criaturas (2021), which “tells the stories of untold women.” She’ll be joined by special guests C.L. “Rooster” Martinez and Andrew Porter, who will share the gifts of their recent works.
Following the featured reading, we will host a community open mic. Bring your poems, stories, and thoughts to share (there will be a 3-minute limit for each reader). Open mic sign-up in person, starting at 6pm.

Leticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and the Regional Program Manager of Austin Bat Cave, as well as the co-director of Barrio Writers Austin and Pflugerville, a free creative writing program for youth. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chicon Street Poets, Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit, and others. Her chapbook, The Monster, was published in 2018 by LibroMobile Press. Her hybrid collection, Las Criaturas, was a finalist for the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction 2022 from the Texas Institute of Letters and is out now from FlowerSong Press.
Christopher “Rooster” Martinez is an educator and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas. He earned a MA/MFA in Creative Writing, Literature & Social Justice at Our Lady of the Lake University. He is the author of two poetry books: A Saint for Lost Things (Alabrava Press, 2020) and As it is in Heaven (Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press, 2020). For twelve years, Rooster competed and won slams across the country and co-founded the literary nonprofit Write Art Out Inc.
Andrew Porter is the acclaimed, award-winning author of the story collections The Disappeared (Knopf 2023) and The Theory of Light and Matter (Vintage), and the novel In Between Days (Knopf). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, Narrative, The Southern Review, and on Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. He teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

All Things Are Alive: Animating the Inanimate–Puppetry for Writers with Mobi Warren
2023-04-01 10:00 - 12:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Dates/Times: Saturdays, April 1, 8, 22, and 29, 10am – 12pm cst
Instructor: Mobi Warren
Cost: Nonmember: $165 Member: $145 Student/Vet/Mil: $95
*In person at Gemini Ink
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Are you looking for a different way to tap into your creativity? Are you ready to experience the curiosity, wonder, and empathy that puppetry naturally inspires?
Under the guidance of puppeteer and poet Mobi Warren, workshop participants will build a simple hand puppet from paper mâché and cloth, and breathe life into the personality that emerges. The process may culminate in a poem, a short prose piece, or a monologue puppet script. Participants will be encouraged to sense the livingness in the materials used and to explore unexpected insights that emerge as the puppet acquires form. No puppetry experience is required to attend this workshop, and writers of all levels are welcome.
Students will leave this workshop with the following tools:

A guide on creating a simple papier mache glove (hand) puppet
Techniques for animating a puppet through voice, character, and story
How to use puppetry to uncover new poems or songs
Exploration of puppetry as a new point of entry into the creative writing process

*Bring a journal to write in. Puppetry supplies will be provided for all participants.
*The cost of this workshop includes a $20 supply fee

Puppeteer Mobi Warren is the author of the young adult novel The Bee Maker and a poetry collection, Thread and Nectar. She is co-founder of the regional writers and artists collaborative, Stone in Stream, which advocates for environmental awareness and climate justice. Mobi serves on the Board of the National Capital Puppetry Guild. An animist at heart, she is enchanted by the livingness of all materials and is currently in thrall to the wild (and sometimes unruly) species known as puppets, and how making and animating a puppet can help a writer engage more deeply with creative and empathetic energies.

Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.

Open Writer's Labs
2023-03-27 18:30 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
These peer-driven workshops, held the last Monday of each month, are free and open to writers of all levels and focus on poetry, flash fiction, and short creative non-fiction.
Register

Online Via Zoom
For the online workshop, sign up the day before the class to ensure you receive the Zoom link.
This workshop is facilitated by Kevin Ramos. Originally from the northeast, Kevin studied theater arts at Rutgers University and The University of Washington. He’s lived all over the country before making his home in San Antonio, Texas. Kevin has written several novels and short stories. Most recently, publishing a short memoir called Enough about addiction, mothers, and missing graves. And a novel, Hayley’s Sense of Fire (DLG Publishing Partners), a modern re-telling of the classic fairy tale, The Little Matchgirl.

In-Person at Gemini Ink

Join our in-person Open Writer’s Lab with Robert Allen at Gemini Ink’s office, 1111 Navarro St., San Antonio, TX 78205.
Robert Allen has worked as a librarian and an electrical contractor for most of his life. Many moons ago, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied poetry under David Wevill. Allen has been active in local writer’s groups and open mics, including the Sun Poets Society. He’s been published in The Ocotillo Review, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Voices de la Luna, di-verse-city, the San Antonio Express-News, and Poetry on the Move. In 2006, he started attending Gemini Ink’s free Monday night writing classes and has attended regularly ever since. With more than a decade of attending writers’ groups, classes, and open mics, he now co-facilitates Gemini Ink’s Open Writer’s Lab.
Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.

How to Get Yourself Out on Social Media for Busy Writers with Andrea "Vocab" Sanderson and Zach Jewell
2023-03-23 18:30 - 20:45 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Thursdays, March 23 & 30, 6:30-8:45pm CST, Hybrid: participants may attend in-person at Gemini Ink or online via Zoom
Instructors: Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson and Zach Jewell
Nonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Are you a busy writer seeking balance between a hectic writing life and building a network of social media supporters?
Want to get to know your followers but just can’t find the time?

2020-2023 San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson and social media expert Zach Jewell are teaming up to share insider secrets for creating engaging, writing-related social media content that will keep your followers up-to-date and involved with you as a writer and human being.
In this two-part course, we will discuss time-sensitive strategies for promoting yourself and your artistry on social media. We will brainstorm creative ideas to interact, engage, and share relatable content without overwhelming ourselves or losing time. Finally, we will consider simple systems for managing the tedious challenge of social media and website upkeep.
You will leave the workshop with the following:

Ideas on how to better manage social media interaction while leaving room to breathe
A better understanding of a variety of social media platforms and their individual power
Tips on how to keep your followers engaged with you and your content

Click the link to watch the video where Vocab & Zach Jewell explain the importance of social media as a tool to share your work: instagram.com/p/CpBxA3zqzNP/.

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson is a San Antonio native that has been performing for over twenty years. She’s the co-host of the consecutive award-winning 2nd Verse Open Mic. She has served as a Writer in Community for Gemini Ink since 2009. She’s the winner of the 2019 People’s Choice Award, awarded by Luminaria Artist Foundation (formerly known as the Artist Foundation of San Antonio). Her debut book entitled: She Lives In Music, published on Flower Song Press, was released on Valentine’s Day 2020. Her album She Tastes Like Music is available on all music streaming platforms. On April 1st, 2020, Andrea became the first African American Poet Laureate of San Antonio 2020-2023. In May of 2020, she was awarded Best Live Entertainment/Band Musician of the Year by the SEA Awards.
Zach Jewell has been a poet and percussionist and has been creating and promoting community events and programs for the arts for over 20 years. He’s managed marketing initiatives and social media accounts for Costco, The YMCA, and Amazon. He is currently wearing many hats as an entrepreneur running a nonprofit for men’s mental wellness, creating programming, marketing, and social media platforms, among many other things. He also has a self-published book of poetry on Amazon titled Nomad Psalms.

Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.

Deadline to apply to the 2023 Bexar County Arts Internship
2023-03-19 17:00
The intern will assist the Director of Programs in revamping Gemini Ink’s Autograph Series, which presents writers of national and international stature—many of them recipients of major prizes such as the Pulitzer or National Book Award. This signature, two-day series includes a ticketed luncheon and a free public evening performance, followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. The Gemini Ink intern will focus on strengthening the curricular components of this event so the author’s visit is even more impactful and engaging for San Antonio students and teachers.
The intern will accomplish this by performing the following tasks:

Designing a high school study guide template to be used for future Autograph Series while also creating one specifically for our 2024 featured author, American poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who will be discussing her New York Times bestselling collection of nature essays: World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks.
Creating marketing and registration materials about the Autograph Series for educators and students.
Updating our current spreadsheet of high school contacts so we have the most up-to-date information on who to reach out to invite area high schools to this event.
Assisting with the design of surveys to assess educators’ and students’ experience attending the Autograph Series.
Providing support with general Gemini Ink program administrative duties, including data entry, material prep for summer writing workshops, note-taking in meetings, etc.

Who can apply?

The internship is open to currently enrolled undergraduate college students who are Bexar County residents attending a college or university in Bexar County or outside of the county, as long as the student is a resident of Bexar County and able to show proof of the same.

To apply, please provide the following items:

The completed application
A cover letter
A resume
Two creative or academic writing samples

**Please email your completed application to our Director of Programs Florinda Flores-Brown at fbrown@geminiink.org. Applications missing any of the above items will not be considered. **
The deadline to apply has been extended to Sunday, March 19th by 5 pm CST
This is a 40/hour per week internship at a pay rate of $8.75/hour. The internship begins on Monday, June 6th, and ends on Friday, August 11th. This is a hybrid internship (part in-person, part remote). Some nights and weekends may be required.

About the Autograph Series:
Recently featured authors have included world-renowned author Margaret Atwood, 2016 National Book Award recipient poet Terrance Hayes, beloved novelist and poet Sandra Cisneros, and New York Times bestselling novelist Ben Fountain. The Autograph luncheon attracts over 250 guests and includes 100-140 sponsored high school students. Through this luncheon, students experience up close the leading literary figures of our times and engage with the contemporary world of literature in exciting ways.
For more information about the Autograph Series, please visit this page. For any questions about the internship, please email Florinda Flores-Brown at fbrown@geminiink.org.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Leticia Urieta
2023-03-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
RSVP
Join us for a free author talk & discussion with Leticia Urieta, author of Las Criaturas. This session will be moderated by jo reyes-boitel, a poet, essayist, and playwright.

In Las Criaturas, Leticia Urieta hones the conventions of folklore and mythology to center girls & women in a present context. Otherworldly and musical, Las Criaturas positions the monstrous as a form of power and place of refuge, firmly asking readers the pertinent questions: “Who creates the monsters? How do las criaturas that pervade our past, present, and future find justice?” Urieta has gifted us a daring and playful new work that points us in the right direction.
–Reyes Ramirez, author of The Book of Wanderers

Leticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and a freelance writer. She graduated from Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cleaver, Chicon Street Poets, Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit and others. Her chapbook, The Monster was published by LibroMobile Press, and her hybrid collection, Las Criaturas, is out now from FlowerSong Press.

jo reyes-boitel is a poet, essayist, and playwright. jo is also a queer, mixed-Latinx parent working in community. Somehow born in Minnesota, their family calls Texas, Florida, Mexico, and Cuba home. Recent and forthcoming publications include Huizache, OyeDrum, Scalawag Journal, The Ice Colony, Windward Review, La Voz de Esperanza, Chachalaca Review, Borderlands, The Americas Review, and Your Impossible Voice. jo’s chapbook mouth (Neon Hemlock, 2021) addressed the struggle of working through others’ views and dominant culture’s impact on the body and the self – toward liberation. Their first book, Michael + Josephine, a novel in verse (FlowerSong Press, 2019), reimagined St. Michael the Archangel as a queer woman who begins a love relationship with Josephine, a disaster relief worker.

Author Silviana Wood at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center
2023-03-10 18:00 - 20:00 | The Guadalupe Latino Bookstore, 1300 Guadalupe St, San Antonio, Texas
“It is a masterpiece!” “Silviana Wood is La Mera Mera.”
-Denise Chávez, author of Loving Pedro Infante
“Highly recommended.”
-Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter
“This is a story to be savored, page by precious page.”
-Demetria Martínez, author of Mother Tongue
“… One of the best debut novels of the past decade.”
-Russ López, Editor/LatineLit
Learn more about La Quinta Soledad at aztlanlibrepress.com.

Deadline to enter the Ekphrastic Poetry Contest Sponsored by 2023 National Poetry Month San Antonio
2023-03-10
San Antonio & South Texas Adult & Youth poets!
Poets from San Antonio and South Texas are invited to enter the 2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest by writing poems inspired by selected artworks from five San Antonio arts institutions. There is no entry fee.
WHAT IS AN EKPHRASTIC POEM? A poem written in response to an artwork. The poem should not simply describe the artwork; it should express how the art enlightens, puzzles, moves, frightens you, etc. Enter original poems inspired by the artworks below.
2023 MUSEUM-SELECTED ARTWORKS
To see artworks, click on the links below or visit the art institutions in person:

The Briscoe Western Art Museum: Jerry Jordan, LISTEN TO THE DRUMS, 2013, Oil on Canvas. https://www.briscoemuseum.org/poetry/

The McNay Art Museum: vanessa german, BLACK GIRL WITH SNAKES, 2020, Assemblage. https://www.mcnayart.org/event/2023-national-poetry-month-ekphrastic-poetry-contest/

Ruby City: Isaac Julien, DREAMING RED, 2009, Light Box, 48 x 50 x 5 in. edition 1/10 https://www.Rubycity.org/npmsa2023/

San Antonio Museum of Art: ARMORIAL HANGING, ca. 1771, Viceroyalty of New Spain period. https://www.samuseum.org/events/event/2023-nation-poetry-month-ekphrastic-poetry-contest/?year=2023&month=3&day=10&hour=6&minute=0&second=0

The Witte Museum: JOVITA IDAR LITTLE PANTRY CABINET. https://www.wittemuseum.org/media/

CONTEST GUIDELINES

Contest Deadline: March 10. Only San Antonio & South Texas adult & youth poets are eligible.
Submit up to two (2) poems (each no more than 15 lines plus title; spaces between lines count as lines—except space after title).
Attach each poem as a PDF, Word doc or docx in a separate email to EkphrasticPoetryContest1@gmail.com
No name or identifying info on the poems. No poems in the body of the email.
Emails must include: Your Name, City/State, Contact Email Address. Youth must include age.
Email subject line must read: Ekphrastic Poetry (Adult or Youth) Contest – (Title of Artwork).
Contest Judges will select up to 3 poems per artwork. Only winners will be notified by email with further instructions. Winning poems will be published on the websites listed above throughout April.

Gemini Ink in Seattle for AWP!
2023-03-09 - 2023-03-11 | Seattle Convention Center, 705 Pike St, Seattle, Washington
Dear Writers & Readers,
If you’re in Seattle for AWP, we’d love to see/meet you. We’ll be at bookfair table T419 with the lovely Mandy Lynn Lara and Alexandra van de Kamp, and volunteers Laura Van Prooyen, Chibbi Orduña, Carmen Tafolla, Jen Yáñez-Alaniz and others. We have wonderful staff and SA representation this year—because of the support of people like you!
Here is the current list of authors and signing times:

Date
Day
Start Time
End Time
Author

March 9
Thursday
1:00 PM
3:00 PM
Kristine Esser Slentz

March 9
Thursday
3:00 PM
5:00 PM
Eduardo Vega

March 10
Friday
11:00 AM
1:00 PM
Laura Van Prooyen

March 10
Friday
11:00 AM
1:00 PM
Alexandra van de Kamp

March 10
Friday
11:00 AM
1:00 PM
Lucas Jacob

March 10
Friday
11:00 AM
1:00 PM
Ann Hudson

March 10
Friday
11:00 AM
1:00 PM
Hari Alluri

March 10
Friday
1:00 PM
3:00 PM
Wondra Chang

March 10
Friday
3:00 PM
5:00 PM
Edward Vidaurre

March 11
Saturday
10:00 AM
11:00 AM
Carmen Tafolla

March 11
Saturday
12:00 PM
1:00 PM
Chibbi Orduña

March 11
Saturday
3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Octavio Quintanilla

March 11
Saturday
3:30 PM
4:30 PM
Jen Yáñez-Alaniz

We hope to see you soon!
The Gemini Ink team

Reading Deeply, Writing Deeply: 3 Women Poets Talk to the Gods with Veronica Golos
2023-03-08 18:30 - 20:30 | Online
Wednesdays, March 8, 15 & 22, 6:30-8:30pm, CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Veronica Golos
Nonmember: $145; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75

I absolutely loved the workshop with Veronica Golos. Even with a larger turnout, she kept the community of the class intact. We had a great time reading deeply and sharing our own works. —Cathlin Noonan, previous student of Reading Deeply, Writing Deeply
Whether a writer is talking directly to God or using religious reflection to try and make sense of humanity, poetry is shrouded in spiritual mystery and is often used to explore both concrete and intangible concepts of a higher power.
In this three-week workshop, we will study impactful poems from three women poets who invoke ideas of God or the gods. Louise Gluck’s book The Wild Iris enlists flowers from the garden of eden to help tell a story. Lucille Clifton’s “brothers” is an eight-poem conversation between an aged Lucifer and God. Natalia Toledo’s body of written work speaks to the Zapotec gods in three languages: Zapotec, Spanish, and English.
Class readings and suggestions on how to write your own response poem to these poets (and these gods) will be shared prior to the workshop.
Participants will:

Study and analyze the work of 3 contemporary poets
Write poems that follow the selected poet’s structure and theme
Receive on-the-spot feedback for written work

Veronica Golos is the author of four poetry books: GIRL, awarded the Naji Naaman Honor Prize, 2019 (Beirut, Lebanon); Rootwork, winner of the Southwest Book Design Award in Poetry, 2016; Vocabulary of Silence, winner of the New Mexico Book Award, translated into Arabic and Persian; and A Bell Buried Deep, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Former co-editor of the Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, she is an instructor for SOMOS in Taos, NM, and Hugo House in Seattle, WA. Plume Magazine recently featured her work-in-progress, The Changing Same. Plume Poetry Feature: Veronica Golos. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her husband, David Pérez.

Get Back in Full Swing: Gemini Ink’s Literary Open House
2023-02-23 18:30 - 20:00
Please join us on Thursday, February 23rd at 6:30pm CST, for our open house at Gemini Ink and get your writing back in full swing!
We are excited to introduce the dynamic roster of teaching artists working with us this year. Connect with some of San Antonio’s most talented writers as they share new work and discuss the classes they’ll be teaching. Featured writers include poet and award-winning memoirist Kendra Allen; award-winning poet and Sun Poets Society founder Rod Carlos Rodriguez; haiku champion, storyteller, and Taco-Poet of Texas, Eddie Vega; and 2020-2023 San Antonio Poet Laureate and Hip-Hop artist Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson. We can’t wait for our creative community to inspire you!
The night kicks off with our teaching artists reading their work and offering insights into their 2023 workshops, followed by a bit of mix-and-mingling. Our evening then culminates in a community open mic.
We want to hear your latest work! The list is capped at six readers. Arrive early to grab a spot. It all happens at Gemini Ink’s downtown writing arts center–1111 Navarro Street. Don’t leave without our spring calendar of classes and events, chock full of events and offerings!
We bet after this, you’ll be inspired to run home and write that new piece!

Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Tx. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing Make Love in My Car, a music column for Southwest Review. Some of her other work can be found in, or on, The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She’s the author of the poetry collection The Collection Plate, and the essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch, her memoir, is out now.
Rod Carlos Rodriguez has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and has trained as a guest lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio Writing Program. He is also an award-winning poet who has been writing for over 40 years. He has three books of poetry published and is founder/chair of the Sun Poet’s Society, South Texas’s longest-running weekly open-mic poetry reading (1995-2022). He was nominated for the San Antonio Poet Laureate in April 2012, April 2014, April 2016, and April 2018. He was the poetry editor for Ocotillo Review (Kallisto Gaia Press), a literary journal/periodical and he was the editor of Texas Poetry Calendar 2023 (Kallisto Gaia Press).
Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson is a San Antonio native that has been performing for over twenty years. She’s the co-host of the consecutive award-winning 2nd Verse Open Mic. She has served as a Writer in Community for Gemini Ink since 2009. She’s the winner of the 2019 People’s Choice Award, awarded by Luminaria Artist Foundation (formerly known as: Artist Foundation of San Antonio). Her debut book entitled: She Lives In Music, published on Flower Song Press, was released on Valentine’s Day 2020. Her album She Tastes Like Music is available on all music streaming platforms. On April 1st 2020, Andrea became the first African American Poet Laureate of San Antonio 2020-2023. In May of 2020, she was awarded Best Live Entertainment/Band Musician of the Year by the SEA Awards.
Eddie Vega is a poet, spoken word artist, storyteller, and educator. His poetry has been displayed on VIA Buses and downtown San Antonio buildings. His first full-length poetry collection, Chicharra Chorus (FlowerSong Press) was published in 2019, and he is the 2021 recipient of the Literary Arts Grant from the Luminaria Artist Foundation. In 2022, Vega won the Haiku Death Match at both the Southern Fried Poetry Slam and the NSFPS BlackBerry Peach Slam. His latest project is a collection of poems written by South Texas poets entitled Asina is How We Talk. Vega writes about food, Tejano culture, social justice, and the intersections thereof. Known as the Taco-Poet of Texas, he can be found nightly at an open mic, slam, or taqueria anywhere throughout South Texas.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Vincent Cooper
2023-02-15 19:00 - 20:30
RSVP
February 15th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Poet Vincent Cooper, author of the poetry collection, Zarzamora. This session will be moderated by Christopher “Rooster” Martinez, an educator and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas.

About Zarzamora
“It’s time to celebrate the poet and buy this book, it’s a new voice, not one tied to timid convention or gimmicky stealth that results in poetry of cowardice— it tries to please no one, vociferates its own claim to Chicano identity and culture and does so with exuberance, even compassion and vulnerability—yes, compas y vatos y locos, get off it and go out and buy this book and pass it to other plebe, it’s time to celebrate this poet, unabashedly, honor this book written in blood, tears and laughter and pride, and love, adelante!!” Jimmy Santiago Baca – author of Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio.
Vincent Cooper is the author of Where the Reckless Ones Come to Die (Aztlan Libre Press), Zarzamora: Poetry of Survival (Jade Publishing), and Infidelis (forthcoming from Mouthfeel Press). He is a Chicano Marine Corps Veteran and Macondista based in San Antonio, Texas. Cooper’s poems have been seen in such fine publications as Huizache, Riversedge, Dryland Lit, and Somos En Escrito. He is currently at work on a hybrid genre book centering on his paternal heritage and how he came to be a Chicano named Cooper.

Christopher “Rooster” Martinez is an educator and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas. He earned a MA/MFA in Creative Writing, Literature & Social Justice at Our Lady of the Lake University. He is the author of two poetry books: A Saint for Lost Things (Alabrava Press, 2020) and As it is in Heaven (Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press, 2020). For twelve years, Rooster competed and won slams across the country and co-founded the literary nonprofit Write Art Out Inc.

Creating Fictional Characters with Personality and Presence with Johnnie Bernhard
2023-02-15 18:30 - 20:30
Wednesdays, February 15 & 22, 6:30-8:30pm, CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Johnnie Bernhard
Nonmember: $115; Member: $100; Student/Vet/Mil $75

*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

What separates memorable characters from forgettable ones? What about a character that will make you invest in their journey or root for their downfall?
In this workshop, we will discuss what grabs a reader’s attention and draws them to a character. Writers will develop authentic fictional characters with the building blocks of character development: physical description, dialogue, and action. But we won’t stop there! We will explore the history, psychology, weaknesses, and motives that keep the reader hooked.
The importance of the sensitive reader will be discussed as a means of reassuring appropriate cultural representation in character development.
Writers will leave the workshop with the following:

An understanding of the building blocks of character development
Techniques for fleshing out a memorable character
Suggestions on practicing cultural sensitivity when crafting characters different from yourself

Award-winning author Johnnie Bernhard has written four novels: A Good Girl (2017), How We Came to Be (2018), Sisters of the Undertow (2020), and Hannah and Ariela (2022). Early reviews are calling Hannah and Ariela her “best and bravest.” Johnnie’s novels focus on the family, social issues, and the human condition. She served as a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series. A Good Girl (2017) was a finalist in literary fiction, Kindle Book Awards. Her second novel, How We Came to Be (2018), received the Summerlee Book Prize, HM. Her third novel, Sisters of the Undertow (2020), was selected for discussion at the AWP Conference, the Pat Conroy Literary Center, and the Southern Book Festival/Humanities Tennessee. Named “Best of the University Presses, 100 Books” by the Association of University Presses, it also received First Place in the Press Women of Texas Communications Contest. All her novels are in the permanent collection of the Texas Center for the Book. Johnnie was a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series. Read an interview with Johnnie Bernhard on Texas settings and universal themes. Follow Johnnie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JABernhard
www.johnniebernhardauthor.com

Teen Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop with San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea "Vocab" Sanderson
2023-02-10 17:30 - 20:30 | Blue Star, 116 Blue Star, San Antonio, Texas, 78204
Deadline to apply is Wednesday, Feb 8!
Apply at bit.ly/MOSAICapp
Attention High School Students! — Create an original work of visual art and write an original poem as you explore Ekphrastic Poetry for National Poetry Month. This special series of workshops are led by San Antonio’s Poet Laureate, Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, in partnership with Gemini Ink. Open to High School Students. The workshop takes place in the MOSAIC Studio. Free to apply!
Workshop Schedule:

Fridays: February 10 – March 10, 5:30 – 8:30pm

Saturdays: February 11 – March 11, 11am – 2pm

Opening celebration: Friday, April 7, 2023 at 7:00pm

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson is a San Antonio native that has been performing for over twenty years. She’s the co-host of the consecutive award-winning 2nd Verse Open Mic. She has served as a Writer in Community for Gemini Ink since 2009. She’s the winner of the 2019 People’s Choice Award, awarded by Luminaria Artist Foundation (formerly known as: Artist Foundation of San Antonio). Her debut book entitled: She Lives In Music, published on Flower Song Press, was released on Valentine’s Day 2020. Her album She Tastes Like Music is available on all music streaming platforms. On April 1st, 2020, Andrea became the first African American Poet Laureate of San Antonio 2020-2023. In May of 2020, she was awarded Best Live Entertainment/Band Musician of the Year by the SEA Awards.

Deadline to Apply: Teen Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop with San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson
2023-02-08

Diving into the Weird with Leticia Urieta
2023-02-07 18:30 - 20:30
Tuesdays, February 7, 14, 21, 28 & March 7, 14, 2023, 6:30pm-8:30pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Leticia Urieta
Nonmember: $150; Member: $130; Student/Vet/Mil $75
Class Full. Email joshua@geminiink.org to add your name to the Wait List.
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.
Are you a storyteller? Have you ever considered how to push the boundaries of what storytelling could be? Ever wondered what blending genres of horror, folktales and traditional stories, as well as magical imaginings, could mean for your work? In this generative writing workshop for adults 16+, we will explore short stories, poems and hybrid pieces that unlock the strange, the magical, the grotesque, and the beautiful that we find in our everyday lives. You will have the opportunity to find the weird in the ordinary, explore traditional stories and urban legends, and reimagine realities.
Who should take this class? Storytellers of all levels interested in poetry, prose and genre-bending work who are eager to write about the weird.
Class Participants will:

Draft one or more new pieces based on sample readings, class discussion, and writing exercises.
Gain new insights into a diverse range of genres, from horror to speculative imaginings, to apply to their future writing.
Come away with an expanded knowledge of contemporary genres.
Receive feedback on your stories, as well as suggestions on where to submit and share your work.

Leticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and the Regional Program Manager of Austin Bat Cave, a literary community serving students in the Austin area, as well as the co-director of Barrio Writers Austin and Pflugerville, a free creative writing program for youth. Leticia is also a freelance writer. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chicon Street Poets, Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit, and others. Her chapbook, The Monster, was published in 2018 by LibroMobile Press. Her hybrid collection, Las Criaturas, was a finalist for the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction 2022 from the Texas Institute of Letters and is out now from FlowerSong Press.

Undressing the Secrets to Writing About the Erotic in Poetry with John Olivares Espinoza
2023-02-04 10:00 - 12:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Saturdays, February 4 & 11, 10am-12pm, CST, hybrid (via Zoom and in-person)
Instructor: John Olivares Espinoza
Nonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75

*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Would you like to have a sexy poem for that special someone by Valentine’s Day? Or maybe you’d like to gift it to yourself?
This course will focus on how to write poetry about love, eroticism, and sex without crossing into cheesy, hackneyed, and pornographic red zones. Through examination of poetry ranging from ancient Greece to the best contemporary pieces, we will study techniques poets use to create erotic imagery with skill and taste—without leaving out the spice– and use these tools to generate an original poem. Participants will receive constructive critique on their poems focused on how to apply and reinforce the techniques studied to capture love, desire, heartbreak, or sex in an exciting and fresh way.
The takeaways from this course:

Experience breaking apart poems in order to collect techniques, strategies, and moves to use in your own work
A selection of writing prompts to continue your momentum after the course
A fully developed poem by Valentine’s Day

Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is designed for writers of all skill levels. Prose writers are welcome. Given the nature of the subject matter and language used, we suggest this workshop for participants 18 years or older.
Get to know John ahead of his class at his Writer’s Desk.

John Olivares Espinoza has degrees in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside (BA) and Arizona State University (MFA). His poetry collection, The Date Fruit Elegies, was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Other honors include a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and first prize in the Swan Scythe Press Chapbook Contest. John’s poetry has appeared in Air/Light Magazine, Alta Journal, American Poetry Review, New Letters, ZYZZYVA, and various anthologies. Follow Espinoza on Twitter @JohnEspinoza, and Instagram @thepoetjohnespinoza.

Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.

Musicality and the Long Poem with Allison Hedge Coke
2023-01-21 10:00 - 12:00 | Online via Zoom
Saturdays, January 21, 28 & February 4, 10am-12pm, CST, offered via Zoom
Instructor: Allison Hedge Coke
Nonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75
This course is open to writers of all skill levels.
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.
Class Full. Email joshua@geminiink.org to add your name to the Wait List.
Music is a powerful force that moves us. It is also a treasure chest of tools that can breathe life and potency into poetry.
In this workshop led by American Book Award winner Allison Hedge Coke, we will study musical genres, influences, and elements that will develop our knowledge of structure and momentum and our musical ear so that we can infuse our lines with lyricism, sound, and rhythm from beginning to end. We will explore how playing with cadence, tone, and sonic delivery creates memorable lines and infuses a long poem with dynamic movement.
In this class you will :

Gain an understanding of how musical structures can be used in long poetry
Learn to apply elements of sound to make lines pop
Prepare for publication/production/performance with musicality as lead line and base structure.

Allison Hedge Coke will be featured on The Big Texas Read on Wed, Jan 18th. We’re talking with Hedge Coke about her book-length poem, Look At This Blue, Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award. RSVP https://bit.ly/3A0XejH

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke was born in Texas and raised in North Carolina, Canada, and on the Great Plains. Of mixed heritage, she is a poet, writer, and educator. Though she left school to work in the fields as a child, she later took advantage of tuition-free community ed classes at North Carolina State University while a field worker. She left North Carolina, escaping domestic violence as a young mother, and enrolled in former field worker retraining on the West coast when leaving manual labor due to disability. She then studied script, performance and sound/light/film tech at Estelle Harmon’s Actor’s Workshop, earned an AFAW in creative writing on the old Institute for American Indian Arts campus in Santa Fe, attended two Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Programs, and earned an MFA from Vermont College (1995), where she stayed for post-grad work.
She is the author of the poetry chapbook Year of the Rat (1996); the full-length poetry collections Dog Road Woman (1997), Off-Season City Pipe (2005), Blood Run (2006 UK, 2007 US), Streaming (2014), an illustrated (by Dustin Illetewahke Mater) special edition Burn (2017); and the memoir Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer (2004, 2014). Streaming includes a full album recorded in the Rd Klā project period with Kelvyn Bell and Laura Ortman. One inclusion was selected by Motion Poems and Pixel Farms to be made into an animated film and several of the poems in Streaming also influenced the documentary project she directed, Red Dust.

The Big Texas Read featuring Allison Hedge Coke
2023-01-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
RSVP

Up Next: 2022 National Book Award Finalist Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, author of the book-length poem, Look at This Blue. Acclaimed poet and memoirist Jan Beatty will moderate this session.

About Look at This Blue, Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award
Interweaving elegy, indictment, and hope into a love letter to California, Look at This Blue examines America’s genocidal past and present to warn of a future threatened by mass extinction and climate peril.

Truths about what we have lost and have yet to lose permeate this book-length poem by American Book Award winner and Fulbright scholar Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. An assemblage of historical record and lyric fragments, these poems form a taxonomy of threatened lives—human, plant, and animal—in a century marked by climate emergency.

Look at This Blue insists upon a reckoning with and redress of America’s continuing violence toward Earth and its peoples, as Hedge Coke’s cataloguing of loss crescendos into resistance.
Take a workshop with Allison Hedge Coke: Musicality and the Long Poem
Saturdays, January 21, 28 & February 4, 10am-12pm, CST, offered via Zoom
This course is open to writers of all skill levels.
Info at: https://geminiink.org/events/musicality-and-the-long-poem/

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke was born in Texas and came of age and worked in fields, factories, and waters in North Carolina until disabilities precluded further manual labors. After field-worker retraining programs in California at nearly thirty she began earning college credits.
She is currently a 2022-2023 UCR Mellon Dean’s Professor in the UCR Center for Ideas and Society, a Legacy Artist Fellow (California Arts Council) and a recent George Garrett Award recipient (AWP, 2021). Other awards include a King-Chavez-Parks Award, Fulbright to Montenegro, First Jade Nurtured Sihui (China) Female International Foreign Poetry Award, U.S. Library of Congress Witter Bynner fellowship, and an American Book Award.

Hedge Coke’s authored books include The Year of the Rat, Dog Road Woman, Off-Season City Pipe, Blood Run, Burn, Streaming, Look at This Blue: an assemblage poem (book length, 2022 National Book Award Finalist), as well as a memoir, Rock Ghost, Willow, Deer (2014, paperback), a play Icicles, and 28 documentary film shorts. She has edited ten anthologies, including Effigies III.

She is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and affiliated faculty for the UCR School of Medicine (narrative medicine), the newly proposed Department of Environment, Sustainability, and Health Equity (ESHE).

Jan Beatty’s sixth book, The Body Wars, was published in 2020 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. In the New York Times, Naomi Shihab Nye said: Jan Beatty’s new poems in “The Body Wars” shimmer with luminous connection, travel a big life and grand map of encounters. Beatty won the Red Hen Nonfiction Award for her memoir, American Bastard, 2021. Other books include Jackknife: New and Collected Poems (Paterson Prize), The Switching/Yard, Red Sugar, Boneshaker, Mad River (Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize). Beatty worked as a waitress, an abortion counselor, and in maximum security prisons. For many years, she directed creative writing, the Madwomen in the Attic workshops, and the MFA program at Carlow University.

Writing Vigil: Mourning Premature Queer Deaths and Anti-Queer Violence
2022-12-17 15:00 - 17:00
Please join us for this Writing Vigil honoring the Queer & Trans lives we’ve lost due to violence against our community. This event provides a creative space for LGBTQ+ people to write about the impact of increasing violence targeting Queer & Trans lives.
Princeso Santamaría will lead participants through visualization and movement exercises as strategies for soothing physiological distress and connecting to an inner sense of safety. Participants will respond to writing prompts coupled with healing-informed exercises as they write through challenging emotions.
This event is for lgbtq+ community members to receive support for their grieving process through writing, whether they are new or experienced writers. We appreciate our allies and ask that they help us honor the LGBTQ+ community’s need for an exclusive space to process Queer & Trans loss.
Participants are encouraged to bring a writing tool, something to write on, and a comfort item such as a soft sweater. Writing materials will also be available if needed.
Must be registered to participate. Space is limited to 25 participants. Sign up at: bit.ly/writingvigil

Princeso Santamaría is a queer, xicanx poet dedicated to documenting and uplifting queer peoples of color. They can be found dancing over dimly lit dance floors or reading about temporal-space travel. Their work has been hosted by El Comalito Collective, Ofrenda Magazine, the Gender Equity Resource Center at UC Berkeley, California Youth Connection, the Puente Program at Laney College, the Ethnic Studies Department at Cal State Fullerton, and foolsFURY SF Theatre. They are the Partner Classes Coordinator at Gemini Ink.

Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full, do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.
