Gemini Ink

Teen Writing Circle with Daniel Ramirez
2025-11-29 12:00 - 13:30, 2025-12-27 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-01-31 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-02-28 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-03-28 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
Register
Last Saturday of Every Month 12-1:30pm cst via Zoom
For ages 13-19 years old
Are you a teen who enjoys writing in their free time? Or are you someone who’s never had the chance to write on their own? If so, this Online Teen Writing Circle is for you!
In this once-a-month writing circle, teens will enjoy writing in a judgment free zone. We’ll break the ice with one another and perform various writing exercises. You are encouraged to share your work with your peers and get constructive feedback, but it is not required. Our only goal is to keep you writing!
This course is open to teen writers of any skill level.
Participants will leave the writing circle with:

New, unique written work
Listening and sharing experience
Constructive feedback to help improve their writing

Want to learn more about our Teen Writing Circle? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions!

Daniel Ramirez has been an educator for over 15 years. After studying History in grad school, he tromped around the outdoors doing conservation with teenagers. Spending time as a Montessori educator revealed the power of incorporating creativity with learning. Encouraging youth to tap into their creative abilities convinced him to discover his own. Since then, in addition to his original love of storytelling, he’s found a penchant for calligraphy, puppetry, poetry, and block printing. A San Antonio native, he explores the crystalline waters of Central Texas in his free time.

Gemini Ink Holiday Open House
2025-12-11 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | UTSA Southwest Campus – Coates Chapel, 300 Augusta, San Antonio, Texas, 78205
Save the date for Dec 11!

Join our community of writers, readers, and friends to share your work, make connections, and close the year on a high note.
We’ll also be celebrating our Partner Classes Teaching Artist of the Year for 2025 is Daniel Ramirez! Daniel is our TA of the Year for the amazing work he has been doing, especially with youth, for his wonderful creativity, and his ability to be a great co-teacher and to take the lead when the situation calls for it. He has an excellent way of building rapport quickly with students, whether they are reluctant 5th graders or busy public health workers. Through this rapport, he helps participants feel safe enough to take risks in their writing and play creatively with ideas and words. We are so excited to honor Daniel this year!
Open mic sign-up starts at 6:30pm.Hosted by Mandy Lynn, Public Classes Coordinator.
Wine, non-alcoholic drinks, coffee, and snacks will be served.
Thank you to our sponsors!

Poetry as Praise with Amanda Johnston
2025-12-13 10:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Saturday, December 13, 10am–1pm CT, online via Zoom
Nonmember $75; Member $65; Student/Educ/Mil $53
*EARN CPEs
TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Honor that special someone, a major milestone, or that first sip of coffee with a praise poem!
Through times of hardship and joy, poetry connects us to our shared human experience. Praise poems give writers a vessel to carry wonder and gratitude and to deliver loving messages to their community.
In this one-day workshop led by Texas Poet Laureate Emeritus Amanda Johnston, participants will explore poetic forms of praise, learn how to identify and celebrate the awe-inspiring everyday moments of life, and craft new works that can be given as gifts to loved ones.
This class is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
In this workshop students will:

Explore poetic forms of praise.
Write and share new praise poems.
Build an idea catalog for future works.

Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 61st Poet Laureate of Texas. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter, and editor of the anthology Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas, coming Fall 2025 from Host Publications. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, The Rumpus, and the anthologies Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, Prizer Arts & Letters, and the Academy of American Poets. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, and founder of Torch Literary Arts.
IG: @poetamandajohnston
Facebook: Amanda Johnston
Website: AmandaJohnston.com

Veterans Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
2025-12-17 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-01-21 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-02-18 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-03-18 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-04-15 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
The Veteran’s Writing Collective (VWC) encourages the art of writing in a workshop environment where participants are offered honest, positive, and constructive peer-to-peer and mentor feedback. The workshop is open to all active-duty military, veterans, retirees, and their immediate family members. Writers of all levels working in all genres are welcome.
The VWC meets monthly online via Zoom.
If you would like an invitation to this class, send an email to veteranscollective@geminiink.org

Sarah Colby was born in northern New Mexico and raised in the Rocky Mountains. She is married to a retired Army Chaplain and is mother to a son in the Navy. Sarah has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada College and an exuberant interest in making the ordinary luminous. Her war-time experiences have motivated her to be a voice for the mostly untold stories of families and loved ones during these years of protracted conflict. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems about her experiences as a military family member.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Cyra Sweet Dimitru
2025-12-17 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago)
Join us on Wednesday, December 17th, 2025, via Zoom for a conversation with Cyra Sweet Dimitru, to discuss her new book, Words Make a Way Through Fire: Healing After My Brother’s Suicide (Simon & Schuster).

(Virtual Readings Quarterly @ 7pm CST)

RSVP
Words Make a Way through Fire is an intimate, courageous memoir of a woman shattered by witnessing her eldest brother’s horrific suicide when she was a teenager. The book traces her creative journey of recovery and healing with poetry as a constant companion.
The primary means of Cyra Dumitru’s healing process, from age sixteen through adulthood, is writing poetry and journaling. During this decades-long journey, Cyra experiences a transcendent, loving presence called Voice who guides her and helps her imagine wholeness. She finds community with others through the sharing of poems. She studies poetry as craft and as medicine—becoming a published poet with multiple books, an award-winning college instructor of poetry writing, and a certified practitioner of poetic medicine who creates spaces where others can heal through poetry.
In Words Make a Way through Fire, Cyra explores the specific medicinal properties of poetry—giving order to interior anxiety, trusting the wisdom within—and invites her brother David to speak through her as he reflects upon his final hours. In doing so, poem by poem, she shifts gradually from being traumatized and feeling haunted to feeling empowered and spiritually expansive.

About the Author
Cyra Sweet Dumitru is a published poet and instructor of poetry, and one of four certified practitioners of poetic medicine in Texas. Her poems have appeared on the walls of City Hall, been spoken on national public radio and in museums, and appeared in city newspapers and national literary journals. Her collections of poems include What the Body Knows, Listening to Light, Remains, and Elder Moon. She offers therapeutic writing circles for adults learning to live with trauma, bereavement, depression, anxiety, and religious trauma. Cyra lives in San Antonio, Texas with her family.

About the Moderator
Natalia Treviño‘s fiction appears in Mirrors Beneath the Earth (Curbstone Press), The Platte Valley Review, and her non-fiction appears in Wising Up Anthologies, Complex Allegiances and Shifting Balance Sheets: Women’s Stories of Naturalized Citizens. Her first book of poetry, Lavando La Dirty Laundry, is available from Mongrel Empire Press and most online bookstores. A member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, Natalia has been working to increase young adult literacy since 1992 in her teaching career and through programs sponsored by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, Gemini Ink, and the Bexar County Juvenile Detention Center.

MOSAIC Poetry Reading & Print Sale
2025-12-18 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Contemporary at Blue Star, 116 Blue Star, San Antonio, Texas
We’re celebrating the work of high school students who created original visual art and poetry in this special series of workshops, in partnership with MOSAIC Studio, Contemporary at Blue Star. The celebration will be held at MOSAIC Studio at Contemporary at Blue Star.
Learn more about our Partner Classes Program!

Open Writer's Labs
2025-12-29 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-01-26 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-02-23 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-03-30 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | 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.

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.

LitMinds Book Club
2026-01-14 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us for the LitMinds Book Club at Gemini Ink. We’re reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
Register

The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over.
New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
“A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence—forces that continue to threaten them even today.”—The New York Times Book Review
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
Since its publication in 2003, Kite Runner has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic of contemporary literature, touching millions of readers and launching the career of one of America’s most treasured writers.

About the Author

Khaled Hosseini is one of the most widely read and beloved novelists in the world, with over thirty-eight million copies of his books sold in more than seventy countries. The Kite Runner was a major film and was a Book of the Decade, chosen by The Times, Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. A Thousand Splendid Suns was the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year in 2008. Hosseini is also a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee Agency, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and lives in northern California.
Visit our LitMinds page to see what we’re reading next!

For a Girl Becoming with Joy Harjo
2026-01-30 17:30 - 19:00 (America/Chicago) | Las Palmas Branch Library, 515 Castroville Rd, San Antonio, Texas, 78237
Join us for a special family-friendly reading of For a Girl Becoming with Joy Harjo, featuring illustrator Adriana Garcia and guest poets Laurie Ann Guerrero and Xelena González.
This free community event celebrates poetry and storytelling. Hosted at the Las Palmas Branch Library. All are welcome.

Tapping Into Your Senses: A Memoir Workshop with Denise Tolan
2026-02-03 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Breathe life into your memoir

Tue, Feb 3, 10, 17 & 24
6:30-8:30pm CT, Hybrid (in-person at Gemini Ink or online via Zoom)
Nonmember: $200; Member: $170; Student/Educ/Mil: $140
*EARN CPEs
Class Full
Are you in the throes of writing your memoir but unsure how to make readers truly feel your story? Learn to transform your personal experiences into an immersive, resonant journey by tapping into your senses!
This four-week hybrid course will help you unlock the power of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell to bring your memoir to life. Through engaging activities and guided exercises, you’ll explore the sensory details of key moments in your story and use them to develop your memoir more fully. We’ll build from these moments to create stronger characters, richer plotlines, and breakthroughs in your writing. Students are encouraged to bring a memoir-in-progress, if they have one. We will also generate work in class.
This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

Strategies for using sensory elements to recall memories
Guidance on how to incorporate sensory elements into your work, including how to negotiate difficult moments in your memoir with confidence and control
A polished section of your memoir to build on

Denise Tolan‘s work has appeared in The Best Small Fictions, The Penn Review, Cherry Tree, and Lunch Ticket. Denise was a finalist for Best of the Net and the International Literary Awards: Penelope Niven Prize in Nonfiction. Her memoir, Italian Blood, was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer book award and the Reader’s Choice Awards. Denise has taught Creative Writing classes at the college level for over 20 years and given workshops at conferences in Texas, Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

In Conversation with Katie Gutierrez
2026-02-06 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | Maverick Carter House, 119 Taylor St, San Antonio, 78205
Join us for In conversation with Katie Gutierrez at the Maverick Carter House on Friday, February 6 at 7pm presented by UT San Antonio Creative Writing Program in partnership with Gemini Ink.
Katie Gutierrez is the bestselling author of the mystery novel More Than You’ll Ever Know, a Good Morning America Book Club pick and Edgar Award finalist. Her essays and features have appeared in TIME, Texas Highways, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. She has an MFA from Texas State University and lives in San Antonio, Texas. Gutierrez will read from her work and share her approach to writing in conversation with Dr. Kimberly Garza. An audience Q&A and book signing will follow. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.
Location: The Maverick Carter House, 119 Taylor St., San Antonio 78205

Creating an Immersive Setting and Atmosphere with Andrew Porter
2026-02-16 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Literary Masters Lecture Series
Write a World for Readers to Explore

Monday(s), February 16 & 23, 2026, 6:30-8pm CT, online via Zoom.
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Educ/Mil: $63
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Join us for the first Literary Masters Lecture of the year and learn to craft an immersive setting and atmosphere readers can truly sink into! Each session features an engaging craft talk, actionable writing strategies, and a live Q&A with the author.
In this two-part intensive lecture, award-winning fiction author Andrew Porter will share practical techniques for building immersive settings and atmospheres, explore their vital role in fiction and nonfiction, and offer craft tools participants can practice on their own after the lecture.
This lecture is open to writers of all genres and skill levels 18+.
Participants will leave this lecture series with:

An understanding of the important role setting and atmosphere play in a piece of writing
Techniques for creating an immersive setting and atmosphere in any genre
Additional activities to complete at home following the lecture

Andrew Porter is the author of four books, including the story collections The Disappeared (Knopf) and The Theory of Light and Matter (Vintage) and the novels In Between Days (Knopf) and The Imagined Life (Knopf, 2025). 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 Best American Short Stories, One Story, Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, 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.

Poets & Coffee
2026-02-21 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
A morning of poems and conversation
Saturday, February 21 · 10am–12pm · FREE * OPEN TO EVERYONE!
We’ll have the coffee ready—just bring a friend and settle in among fellow poetry lovers.
Explore what’s happening now in the world of contemporary verse. We’ll share a few favorite poems and spotlight contemporary poets who are making waves both on the page and on the stage. This is your chance to join the conversation! Share the poems that have moved you and tell us why poetry matters in your life.
What to Expect
• Fresh coffee and a relaxed, come-as-you-are atmosphere• A guided, informal conversation led by Gemini Ink Executive Director Alexandra van de Kamp• Readings of contemporary poems• Space to listen, reflect, and share (only if you want to)• New poems to take home and simple prompts to spark your own writing• A room full of people who love poetry—or are just getting curious
• No lectures. No pressure. Just good poems, good conversation, and good company.
You’ll leave with a sense of community. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or simply curious, everyone is welcome at our poetic gathering.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
​​Alexandra van de Kamp is the Executive Director for Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center. Her third book of poems, Ricochet Script, was published by Next Page Press in 2022. Her previous full-length collections include: Kiss/Hierarchy (Rain Mountain Press 2016) and The Park of Upside-Down Chairs (CW Books 2010). She has also published several chapbooks, including A Liquid Bird Inside the Night (Red Glass Books 2015) and Dear Jean Seberg (2011), which won the 2010 Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. Her poems have been published in journals nationwide, such as The Cincinnati Review, Connecticut Review, The Texas Observer, and Denver Quarterly.

LitMinds Book Club
2026-03-11 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us for the LitMinds Book Club at Gemini Ink. We’re reading Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel by Zora Neale Hurston.
Register
“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.”—Zadie Smith
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has, since its 1978 reissue, become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person—no mean feat for a black woman in the ’30s. Janie’s quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

About the Author

Zora Neale Hurston was a celebrated author, anthropologist, and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, known for novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God that focused on Black American life and folklore. Educated at Howard University and Barnard College, she was a groundbreaking ethnographer who studied Black culture in the rural South and Caribbean, incorporating her research into her fiction. Despite achieving literary fame, she died in poverty, and her work was largely forgotten until its revival in the 1970s, led by authors like Alice Walker.

Visit our LitMinds page to see what we’re reading next!

Publishing Made Possible: How to Get Your Work into Literary Magazines & Presses with Diamond Braxton
2026-03-14 10:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago)
Get your written work out there!

Saturday, March 14, 10am-1pm CT, Hybrid (in-person at Gemini Ink and online via Zoom)
Nonmember: $75; Member: $65; Student/Educ/Mil: $53
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Are you a budding writer who’s ready to get your written work out into the real world? Abode Press founder Diamond Braxton will teach you how!
In this one-day workshop, we will guide writers of all levels through the ins and outs of getting published. We’ll cover how to identify the right journals and presses for your work. Then, we’ll walk you through essential submission materials such as artist statements, query letters, and writer bios. Whether you’re sending out a short story, poem, or full manuscript, you’ll learn strategies to help your application rise above the slush pile.
Perfect for anyone who feels daunted by the submission process, this workshop offers a clear roadmap and practical tools to navigate your publishing journey. Participants are encouraged to bring a piece of writing they’d like to publish, but it’s not required—everyone is welcome to join.
This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

A writer bio
An artist statement and/or query letter
A list of potential publishers and agents that align with their work

Diamond Braxton is a writer, editor, publisher, and lecturer based in Texas. Their award-winning work has been published in Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, Foglifter, The Forge, and the forthcoming anthology I Love Us: Queer on the Borderlands (Flowersong Press, 2026). She has received fellowships for her work from Tin House, Lambda Literary, and Hedgebrook. She has held apprenticeships with Sourcebooks and Feminist Press. They are the Founder and Director of Abode Press, a 501(c)3 publishing press based in the American South dedicated to uplifting underrepresented voices.

Old Drafts, New Writing: Turning Text into Graphic Literature with Octavio Quintanilla
2026-03-23 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Literary Masters Lecture Series
Infuse your writing with stunning visual art

Monday(s), March 23 & 30, 6:30-8pm CT, via Zoom
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Educ/Mil: $63
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Join us for our second Literary Masters Lecture of the year and learn to transform your old writing into graphic literature! Each session features an engaging craft talk, actionable writing strategies, and a live Q&A with the author.
In this two-part lecture, led by 2025 Texas Poet Octavio Quintanilla, we will explore how writers can use new and existing work to create graphic literature—a form that merges text with visual storytelling to evoke powerful, multidimensional pieces. Together, we will trace the history and evolution of the graphic form, from visual poetry, poetry comics, and illustrated memoirs to experimental hybrids that blur the line between image and word.
This lecture is open to writers of all skill levels, 18+.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

Models from authors and artists who successfully blend literature and visual art.
An understanding of how to break down existing writing (poems, essays, short stories) into panels and visual sequences.
Quick sketch methods for turning a written scene into a graphic draft.

Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and the author of the poetry collections, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets (University of Arizona Press, 2025). He is the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX.
His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely, including in the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio, El Paso Museum of Art, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley as part of their “Distinguished Artist Series,” Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, and in the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center/Black Box Theater in Austin, TX. His poetry and Frontextos can be found in public spaces such as at the San Antonio Labor Plaza and at Poet’s Pointe.
Octavio is also the recipient of the Nebrija Creadores Scholarship which allowed him a month-long residency at the Instituto Franklin at Alcalá University in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and teaches at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. He was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.

Climb Inside Other Minds: Exploring Persona Poetry with Leticia Urieta
2026-03-28 10:00 - 14:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Write Persona Poetry for Fresh Perspective

Saturday, March 28, 10am-2pm CT, in-person at Gemini Ink
Nonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Educ/Mil $70
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Are you a writer searching for a new perspective? Persona poems–written in another person’s voice or from their point of view–offer a way to slip into someone else’s skin, converse with those who have passed, or see the world through another’s eyes.
In this one-day generative workshop, participants will learn about persona, call-and-response dialogue, epistolary techniques, and how to apply these to our own writing. We’ll then create our own narrative poems that shift perspective, get into someone else’s head, and/or engage with ancestors, historical figures, etc. Students will be invited to share work and receive feedback.
Participants are encouraged to bring their lunch. This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

Techniques for shifting into someone else’s perspective
At least one persona poem
Feedback on your poems and ideas on where to submit your work

Leticia Urieta (she/her) is Tejana writer from Austin, TX. Leticia is a graduate of Agnes Scott College with a BA in English/Creative Writing and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. She works as a teaching artist for adults and youth and offers a variety of workshops for all ages.
Leticia writes across several genres, including poetry, comics, speculative fiction and horror. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit, Uncharted Magazine and others. Her chapbook, The Monster was published in 2018 from LibroMobile Press. Her hybrid collection, Las Criaturas, from FlowerSong Press was a finalist for the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction 2022 from the Texas Institute of Letters and a finalist for the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Short Story Collections. Leticia’s dark fiction collection, The Remedy is the Disease, is forthcoming in 2026 from Undertaker Books. Leticia loves her husband and dogs who are terrible work distractions. Despite all that, she is fueled by sushi, horror movies, and pug videos on Instagram.

Telling a Story of Your Life: A Personal Essay Workshop with Kendra Allen
2026-04-02 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Write your truth

Thursday(s) April 2, 9, 16 & 23 6:30-8:30pm CT, via Zoom
Nonmember: $200; Member: $170; Student/Educ/Mil $140
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

In the span of every life are countless moments, stories, and revelations. When writing a personal narrative, how do writers go about selecting what will most speak their truth and resonate with readers?
In this four-week course, we’ll demystify the personal narrative process by figuring out the difference between a snapshot and a story. First-time writers may assume they have to include their entire lives in one piece, which can make getting started on a personal essay confusing and overwhelming. This workshop will help you pinpoint storylines within yourself by leaning into your unique style and tone. Through games, prompts, and other exercises, we’ll focus on generating work every week.
This course is open to adult writers of all skill levels.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:
A starting point for a personal essay
An understanding of how to differentiate between a situation and a story
Techniques for nurturing your voice on the page
Ideas on how to create prompts for yourself to generate material

An award-winning essayist and poet, Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, TX. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing. Some of her other work can be found in The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She’s the author of the New York Times lauded poetry collection The Collection Plate (Harper Collins, 2022) and essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch (Ecco, 2022), her memoir, is out now and receiving praise from all corners. Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls, states: “A stunning and original memoir about Black girlhood and coming of age. Allen is both storyteller and poet, observing the world with curiosity and humor. Fruit Punch is simultaneously brilliant cultural commentary and an intimate portrayal of family and community, and it will stay with me for a long, long time.”

In Short Order: Finding Form in Flash Fiction with Kathryn Kulpa
2026-04-06 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Flash fiction is for readers on the go

Monday(s), April 6, 13, 20 & 27, 6:30pm – 8:30pm CT online via Zoom
Nonmember: $200; Member $170; Student/Educ/Mil: $140
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Flash fiction–very short stories with the distilled power of poetry–may be the ideal form for busy writers and readers. These stories take minutes to read, but linger in the mind long after the last sentence.
This four-session workshop will introduce you to a range of flash fiction forms–from the shortest pieces, such as 50-word dribbles and 100-word drabbles, to microfiction (400 words or fewer), flash fiction (1,000 words or fewer), and short-short stories (under 2,000 words). We’ll learn how to apply poetic techniques like anaphora, metaphor, lists, and short sections to create vivid, memorable stories that prove less is more.
We’ll read example stories, write our own, and talk about our work, with the goal of shaping drafts for publication. By the end of the workshop, you will have at least two completed flash stories and ideas for where to publish your work.
This workshop will help students:

Experiment with different forms and structures
Learn how constraint and compression can, paradoxically, free your inner writer
Write at least two complete flash stories
Gather ideas on where to publish flash fiction works

Kathryn Kulpa was born in Rhode Island, the smallest state, and her favorite kind of stories to write are also small: flash and microfiction. She is an editor at Cleaver magazine and has stories in Flash Frog, Florida Review, Fractured Lit, Ghost Parachute, HAD, Monkeybicycle, Smokelong Quarterly, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and other journals. Her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and the Wigleaf longlist. Kathryn won the Gold Line Press chapbook competition for her collection A Map of Lost Places (Gold Line Press). She is also the author of For Every Tower a Princess (Porkbelly Press) and Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted (New Rivers Press).
