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
Have a draft you don’t know what to do with? Learn how to transform it into graphic storytelling.
Monday(s), March 23 & 30, 6:30-8pm CT, via Zoom
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Educ/Mil: $63

In this 2-part master session, you’ll learn how to:

Model from authors and artists who successfully blend literature and visual art.

Develop an understanding of how to break down existing writing (poems, essays, short stories) into panels and visual sequences.

Practice quick sketch methods for turning a written scene into a graphic draft.

Learn how to transform your old writing into graphic literature! 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 narratives. Each session features an engaging craft talk, actionable writing strategies, and a live Q&A with the author.
Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and an award-winning poet and visual artist exploring the intersection of text and image. Learn from one of Texas’s leading literary voices.

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), and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets. He’s the founder and director of the literature & arts festival VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio.

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; ONE 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 16+.
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

Read Leticia’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!

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.

Teen Writing Circle with Daniel Ramirez
2026-03-28 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-04-25 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-05-30 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-06-27 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.

Open Writers' Labs
2026-03-30 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-04-27 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-05-25 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-06-29 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.

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).

Gemini Ink at the San Antonio Book Festival
2026-04-11 09:00 - 17:00 (America/Chicago) | San Antonio Public Library, 600 Soledad, San Antonio, Texas, 78205
Join us at our table during the festival. Stop by to learn about upcoming classes, meet our team, and connect with the local writing community.
✨ Mark your calendars, San Antonio!
The San Antonio Book Festival returns on Saturday, April 11 for a full day of stories, ideas, and inspiration. Join us at the Central Library and UT San Antonio Southwest Campus for this FREE, family-friendly celebration of books and the people who love them.
With 110+ authors, engaging panels, kids’ activities, and conversations with bestselling, award-winning writers, there’s something for every reader.
Start planning your day, bring your friends, and get ready to fall in love with reading all over again.
Make your schedule and learn more: sabookfestival.org

Veterans' Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
2026-04-15 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-05-20 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-06-17 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
The Veterans’ 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.

Voices of San Anto Workshop with Daniel Ramirez
2026-04-25 13:00 - 17:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Schaefer Library, 6322 US Hwy. 87 E., San Antonio, Texas, 78222
Class is Full
Whether it’s that funny anecdote you share at parties or an event that changed your life, we want to help you bring your story to life.
Join writer and performer Daniel Ramirez for a free, two-session bilingual storytelling workshop at the San Antonio Public Library.
Workshop participants will craft a 5-7-minute story about a significant moment in their lives and present it at a live storytelling show.

Attendance at all three sessions is mandatory.
Workshop dates: Sat, April 25 & May 2, 2026, 1-5pmFinal Celebration: May 9, 2-4pm

Registration is required.
Space is limited to 15!
Please email Sarah.DeLaRosa@sanantonio.gov to request being added to the waitlist.

Poetry’s Cinematic Propositions with Elena Karina Byrne
2026-04-28 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Explore parallels between poetry and film

Five Tuesdays • April 28–May 266:30–8:30 PM CT • Zoom
Nonmember $250 | Member $215 | Student/Educ/Mil: $175
*EARN CPEs
Film has the power to evoke striking images, capture history, and transport us to alternate realities. Poetry does the same. But what happens when poets borrow elements from film?
Over five weeks, we’ll explore the intersections between cinema and poetry, and imagine the poet as director, cinematographer, actor, screenwriter, stage designer, documentarian, and editor–all at once. Through an eclectic mix of poems, essays, and screenplay excerpts, we’ll uncover how poetry and film share the key elements of discovery, the transformative tools of language and image, and the uniting of the speaker’s inner and outer worlds. This class will strengthen your writing skills, help you to see your work with new eyes, and deepen your revision process.
For intermediate poets (18+)
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

An understanding of how film elements can strengthen poetry
Strategies for using cinematic elements in poetry
Fresh revision techniques

Former 12-year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, Elena Karina Byrne worked as a Contributing Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a final judge for PEN’s “Best of the West” award, one of the final judges for the Kate and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards in Poetry from 2016-2018, and one of three 2018-2019 Georgia Circuit visiting poets. Elena also served as a co-judge for the 2022 international Laurel Prize, the annual award for the best collection of environmental poetry.
Elena Karina Byrne holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from Antioch University. She has curated programs for the J. Paul Getty Center, MOCA, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, and USC’s Doheny Memorial Library, among others. She is a private manuscript editor, freelance lecturer, longtime Programming Consultant and Poetry Stage Manager for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and Poetry Programs Director for the historic Ruskin Art Club. A Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient, she is the author of five poetry collections, including If This Makes You Nervous, No, Don’t, Squander, MASQUE, and The Flammable Bird. Her work has appeared in POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.

Launch Your Substack with Jennifer Nguyen
2026-05-02 10:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Saturday, May 2, 10am-1pm CT via Zoom
Nonmember: $75; Member: $65; Student: $53

Blogs are out, substacks are in! Learn to build your own and get your writing to your audience ASAP.
In this one day workshop you will learn how to use Substack, a popular online writing platform, to find your audience and amplify your voice. If you are looking to develop a marketing strategy for your long-term writing goals, this class is for you. Participants will reflect on where they are as writers, where they want to go, and how they want to use a Substack to get there. We will examine other online platforms but focus on how to use Substack and its tools to build an audience, maximize visibility, and cultivate your own unique flavor. This course is designed for practicing writers 18+, who want to connect with new readers.
Students will leave this course with the following:

A deep dive into Substack
Short-term and long-term writing goals
An assessment of your audience
Increased confidence in your authentic voice

Jennifer Thuy Vi Nguyen is a writer currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a creative nonfiction writer who writes about assimilation, belonging, and power. Her work has been supported by Tin House, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops, Macondo, Vermont Studio Center, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Lambda Literary Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, where she received the Emerge Editorial Fellowship and edited Emerge, the retreat’s anthology.
Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, a “notable” selection in The Best American Essays 2024, and has appeared in Longreads, The Offing, Foglifter, the Ponder Review, and New Rivers Press as the winner of the American Fiction Award. She writes humorist pieces in “Thursday Letters with Jen” via Substack. Along with writing, Nguyen is currently the director of postsecondary success at the Stupski Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation that will spend down its assets and sunset by 2029.

Mind Over Mic: A Gemini Ink Storytelling Show & Open Mic
2026-05-07 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Open mic sign-up starts at 6 PM.
Thu, May 7, 2026, 6:30-8pm, in-person at Gemini Ink
1111 Navarro St. San Antonio, Texas 78205
Free & Open to the Public
About the Event
Join Gemini Ink and a collection of local storytellers as we share gripping stories of solitary struggles, tiny triumphs, and soothing self-care in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month 2026.
Our featured truth-tellers will include Jen Yáñez-Alaniz, Jonathan Fletcher, Joyous Windrider Jiménez, and Daniel Ramirez. These writers will deliver powerful personal stories in support of Mental Health Awareness Month’s mission to draw attention to the importance of mental health and wellbeing for all.
Following the featured reading, we will host a community open mic. Bring your poems, short stories, and thoughts to share (there will be a 5-minute limit for each reader). Open mic sign-up in person, starting at 6pm. Light refreshments will be served.
We will have a list of community mental health resources available.

Featured Readers
Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Daniel Ramirez is a longtime educator and writer from San Antonio. He has published nature writing essays in Foliate Oak, Twisted Vine, and you are here journals and nature-based journalism with StateImpact Texas (KUT Austin) and Texas Public Radio. He also writes stories, puppet shows, and poetry; as a teaching artist, he’s taught in multiple genres. He believes that the quest to develop one’s inner creativity parallels the quest to encounter one’s deeper, truer self.
Jen Yáñez-Alaniz is a Chicana Cúelcahén Ndé scholar, poet, and community organizer whose work centers cultural preservation, land-based ceremony, and decolonial epistemologies. Her poetry can be found in There is So Much I Want to Tell You (Mouthfeel Press) and Somos Xicanas (Riot of Roses Publishing House), as well as in various anthologies and journals. She is the author of Surrogate Eater (Alabrava Press). Her current manuscript, Pain Theory: Sweetness Ferments into a Beast, reflects poetically and critically on healing, endurance, and living beyond multiple autoimmune conditions.
Joyous Windrider Jiménez is an educator, artist, and trauma-informed somatic coach. A storyteller at heart, she blends performance and visual elements into stories that articulate her own journey of self-growth and emotional literacy.

Voices of San Anto Storytelling Showcase
2026-05-09 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Schaefer Library, 6322 US Hwy. 87 E., San Antonio, Texas, 78222
Participants gather during a Voices of San Anto bilingual storytelling workshop led by Marisela Barrera in 2025.
Join Gemini Ink and the San Antonio Public Library for an afternoon of live bilingual storytelling featuring local San Antonio storytellers.
Over the past several weeks, community members from across San Antonio have worked with writer and performer Daniel Ramirez to craft original stories rooted in family history, neighborhood memory, music, identity, immigration, friendship, and everyday life in San Antonio. This final celebration brings those stories to the stage in English and Spanish.
Voices of San Anto is a free bilingual storytelling workshop series presented in partnership with the San Antonio Public Library and designed to help local residents shape and share their personal stories in a welcoming community setting.
Event Details
Free and open to the public.
Saturday, May 9, 2026
2–4pm
Schaefer Library
6322 US Hwy 87 E
San Antonio, TX 78222
Presented by Gemini Ink and the San Antonio Public Library.

About Voices of San Anto
Since 2023, Gemini Ink has partnered with the San Antonio Public Library to offer free bilingual storytelling workshops led by local writers and performers including Daniel Ramirez, Marisela Barrera, Eddie Vega, and Chibbi Orduna.
Participants develop original 5–7 minute stories and share them during a live public celebration with family, friends, and the community.

LitMinds Book Club
2026-05-13 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 Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace.
Register

The “dazzling, exhilarating” (San Francisco Chronicle) debut novel from one of this century’s most groundbreaking writers
Published when David Foster Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990, and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.

About the Author

David Foster Wallace was an American author and professor who wrote novels, essays, and short stories. His work is known for its linguistic skill, inventive structure, and exploration of moral and existential questions. His 1996 novel Infinite Jest, a complex, sprawling dystopian tale, is his best-known work. Wallace’s essays, published in magazines like The Atlantic and Harper’s, are also celebrated.
Visit our LitMinds page to see what we’re reading next!

Application Deadline: Public Classes Program Coordinator
2026-06-02 00:00 - 23:59 (America/Chicago) | TX
Now Hiring: Public Classes Program Coordinator
Gemini Ink seeks a full-time Public Classes Program Coordinator to oversee workshops and projects under our Public Classes program. This is
Participants in a Voices of San Anto workshop—one of the public programs this role helps coordinate.
a hybrid, salaried position reporting to the Director of Programs.
Compensation: $41,000–$45,000 depending on experience, plus benefits.
Deadline to apply: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 at 11:59pm CT.
View full job description and apply →

Exploring Africa: Inspiration from International Poets with Veronica Golos
2026-06-03 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Wed, Jun 3, 10, 17 & 24, 2026
6:30-8:30pm CT, Online via Zoom
Nonmember: $200; Member: $170; Student/Educ/Mil: $140

Class closed.

In a time of worldwide strife and disconnection, poetry reacquaints us with humanity in a way that transcends borders, time zones, and languages. Join master poetry teacher Veronica Golos for the final stop on our international poetry tour!
In this four-week generative poetry workshop, we will read, discuss deeply, and draw our inspiration from foundational African poets Chris Abani (Nigeria), Kwame Dawes (Ghana), Tsitsi Jaji (Zimbabwe), and Agostinho Neto (Angola). We will explore each poet’s craft tools and apply these techniques to our work. Participants will receive a packet with poems and suggestions for developing their writing.
This class is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
Students will leave this course with:

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 in 2019; Rootwork, winner of the 2016 Southwest Book Design Award in Poetry; Vocabulary of Silence, a 2011 New Mexico Book Award winner that was translated into Arabic, Spanish and Persian; and A Bell Buried Deep, a Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize winner. She teaches poetry for Hugo House, Gemini Ink, and SOMOS. She reviews poetry books for Tupelo Press and works as a manuscript editor. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her husband, David Pérez.

Rooted in Stories with Daniel Ramirez
2026-06-06 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Sat, Jun 6, 13, & 20
10 am-12 pm CT, Hybrid (online via Zoom and in-person at Gemini Ink)
Nonmember: $150; Member: $129; Student/Educ/Mil: $105

Where do I belong? This question is central to the human experience. One way to explore it is by tracing our connections to our family lineage, our communities, and the living world around us.
In this workshop, we will use ancestry as a lens to excavate our sense of connectedness from within. We will imagine belonging as a series of concentric circles: starting with family, widening to community, and expanding outward to the Earth as a whole. Each session will focus on one of those circles. Through reflection, discussion, and generative writing exercises, we will transform our discoveries into stories, essays, or poems that express this sense of connection. Readings will primarily feature voices from across the United States, representing various regions, ethnicities, and family histories–all of which will model how writers have grappled with the question of belonging.
This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
Students will leave this course with the following:

Familiarity with American writers who have tapped into an ancestral current to examine and express their deeper sense of belonging
One piece of writing per class based on the theme of family, community, or Earth
Ideally, a deeper sense of how their self is connected to a greater whole

Daniel Ramirez is a longtime educator and writer from San Antonio. He has published nature writing essays in Foliate Oak, Twisted Vine, and you are here journals and nature-based journalism with StateImpact Texas (KUT Austin) and Texas Public Radio. He also writes stories, puppet shows, and poetry; as a teaching artist, he’s taught in multiple genres. He believes that the quest to develop one’s inner creativity parallels the quest to encounter one’s deeper, truer self.

MOSAIC Summer Session: The Art of Gathering | Zine and Poetry Workshop for Teens
2026-06-10 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago) | Contemporary at Blue Star, 116 Blue Star, San Antonio, Texas
Zine & Poetry Workshop with Mariana Cid De León
Presented by Contemporary at Blue Star in Partnership with Gemini Ink
The Art of Gathering invites high school students to explore community and celebration through creative writing and self-publishing. As a collaborative extension of Contemporary at Blue Star’s MOSAIC Student Artist Program and Gemini Ink’s literary initiatives, this workshop guides students to write three original poems and learn zine-making techniques to combine text and imagery into a cohesive, self-published visual piece.

Cost: Free (All materials provided; no experience required)
Eligibility: Open to High School Students

Schedule & Format

Dates: June 10 – July 2, 2026
Days/Times: Wed–Fri, 9am–12pm
Format: Flexible, open-studio format. Students can select the specific sessions and dates that best fit their schedules and work at their own pace.

Application Requirements
The MOSAIC Student Artist Program provides free access to quality arts education, studio practice, and leadership development.

How to Apply: Submit a portfolio of work samples via the Application Form.
Deadline: Tuesday, June 4, 2026, at 11:59 pm
Acceptance Notice: Friday, June 5, 2026
Questions? Contact Juan Zavala Castro (Education and Public Programs Manager) at Juan@contemporarysa.org with the subject line “MOSAIC Inquiry,” or call 210-985-3732.
Or visit: https://contemporarysa.org/events/mosaic-summer-session-the-art-of-gathering-zine-and-poetry-workshop-with-mariana-cid-de-leon/

Poetry Crush: A Pride Month Literary Event
2026-06-18 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Coates Chapel – UTSA Southwest Campus, 300 Augusta St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join Gemini Ink as we celebrate Pride Month 2026 with a lovestruck literary event! Poetry Crush invites generations of queer poets to read their own work and the works of their poetry crushes. Because poetry is our love language, we’ll reflect on lovesick lessons from the past and present, and imagine a liberated future.
Featured artists will include Dee Lalo Garcia, Lace Garcia, Marcela Hernandez, Barbie Huerta, and Debra Munoz-Bratina.
We’ll have writing prompts available for anyone who feels inspired to write. Bring a poem by your favorite queer author to read during the community open mic. We’ll end the evening with a dance party.
We’ll have plenty of time to mix and mingle, as we rock the chaotic sounds of DJ Mexistenialism. Light refreshments will be served. We’ll end the evening with a dance party!
This event is designed to introduce our community to emerging queer authors and to celebrate queer writers in a fun, sober space.
Coffee sponsored by Poetic Republic.

Finding Voice Through Dialogue with Carmen Tafolla
2026-07-07 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Literary Masters Lecture Series
Tue, Jul 7 & 14
6:30-8pm CT via Zoom
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Educ/Mil: $63
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Rhythm, pacing, vocabulary, slang, and tone all shape how someone speaks. Whether you’re looking to refine your novel-in-verse or craft more impactful dialogue in your poetry or prose, mastering dialogue is a powerful way to create more vivid, compelling storytelling.
Award-winning author of more than 40 books, Dr. Carmen Tafolla presents a two-part Master Class focused on shaping characters’ voices, so they reflect depth, individuality, and authenticity. In session one, we will explore examples of compelling dialogue and review useful tools, patterns, and exercises that can be used long after the lecture ends. Participants should bring some of their writing to class and be prepared to apply the techniques from the first session to their work. In the second session they can expect to share and discuss their revisions.
This lecture is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
Students will leave this course with the following:

An understanding of the elements of effective dialogue
Strategies for mastering the art of dialogue writing
Ideas on how dialogue can provide writers with insights into themselves and their characters

Dr Carmen Tafolla is a storyteller, professor emeritus, performance artist, and award-winning author of more than 40 books and hundreds of poems and performance pieces. The 2015 State Poet Laureate of Texas, and San Antonio’s first and inaugural City Poet Laureate, she is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including seven International Latino Book Awards; an Américas Award, presented to her in 2010 at the Library of Congress; three Tomás Rivera Book Awards; the Charlotte Zolotow; the Art of Peace; Top Ten Books for Babies (by the Fred Rogers Corporation 2010), and has been recognized by the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies for work which “gives voice to the peoples and cultures of this land.”
Her latest book, Warrior Girl, received a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly, and was a finalist for the Jane Addams Award.

LitMinds Book Club: The Safekeep
2026-07-08 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 Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden.
Register for the Book Club

A house is a precious thing…
It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.
Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.
Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is “a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires” (The Guardian).

About the Author

Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher. She currently lectures in creative writing and comparative literature in the Netherlands. Her essay on Dutch identity and Jewishness, “On (Not) Reading Anne Frank”, has received a notable mention in The Best American Essays 2018. The Safekeep is her debut novel and was acquired in hotly-contested nine-way auctions in both the UK and the US. Rights have sold in a further twelve countries.
Visit our LitMinds page to see what we’re reading next!

Poets & Coffee with Alexandra van de Kamp
2026-07-11 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Gemini Ink
Coffee. Poetry. Conversation.
Join Alexandra van de Kamp for an informal gathering focused on the poems and poets shaping today’s literary landscape.
Come listen, share, and connect.
You’ll leave with new poems to read and prompts to keep writing.

​​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.
