Gemini Ink

The Big Texas Read featuring Alexandra van de Kamp
2022-07-20 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
A Free Monthly Online Reading Series from Writing Workshops Dallas & Gemini Ink
(Zoom Meetings Monthly @ 7pm CST; RSVP for Zoom invite)
July 20th, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: We’re reading and discussing Alexandra van de Kamp’s poetry collection, Ricochet Script. Moderated by Sheila Black.

RSVP

ABOUT RICOCHET SCRIPT
​Alexandra van de Kamp’s Ricochet Script examines life as a plot slipping from our hands, veering in unexpected directions as years coalesce behind us. These poems bargain with time as a foreign, surreal, and elusive entity, where whole days can feel as if they were “written/in someone else’s script.” In vivid, at times playful musings, van de Kamp grapples with midlife, loss, and the strangeness of the body, while never forgetting the unrelenting beauty of being alive. These poems invoke a wide range of storylines, from Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and spy thrillers to aging parents, to confront the unpredictable and ricocheting world.
Alexandra van de Kamp tells us “I want to make sense of abundance.” In her beautifully wrought poems, we experience the sheer delight of all the sights, smells, and sounds of this world. Yet few poets are as deft at simultaneously evoking the precarity and consequent tenderness of existence. Van de Kamp’s is a world made magical through art. She is canny, funny, filmic, but she can also stop your heart with the sudden apprehension of how time moves through us, “coaxing us / to bear something so much larger than ourselves.” Ricochet Script is the book we need in these challenging times, a book that quite simply teaches us how to live more fully.
–Sheila Black, co-editor of Beauty is a Verb, author of Iron Ardent
This poet is a lithe acrobat, her ricocheting thoughts tightly woven by stunning images. The poems think, yet the movement is concrete, specific, tuned with details: “. . . watch the bright / balled-up leaves in the boiled water unfurl and float, / like mini-Ester Williams doing the backstroke.” Or “. . . let’s not forget the invisible; / the mosquito the size of a torn // eyelash . . .” The poems in Ricochet Script decry and bless the human condition. Alexandra van de Kamp’s use of irony, pathos to describe inner and outer worlds, and her close investigation of mortality brings us a book to savor, to read slowly, expectations raised to the excitement and beauty of what is next.
–Veronica Golos, author of GIRL
In the atmospheric Ricochet Script, poems are rendered not only in the high contrast of film noir, but in the flesh tones of unmediated raw material—the body and the life gathered around it. The powerful “Elegy to My Uterus with a Glass of Pinot Noir” blends the cinematic and the body effortlessly in its opening lines: “When they told me you had to go, / I envisioned myself on a train in a 1950s European war film, staring out / at a country I’d never see again.” Throughout Ricochet Script, Alexandra van de Kamp takes delight in the tools of her trade. Language shimmers with meaning and eroticism, words themselves become “rounded and ridged morsels.” While the mood sometimes darkens, the voice of these entrancing poems remains sophisticated, ardent, witty, and passionate.
–Stephanie Dickinson, author of Blue Swan Black Swan: The Trakl Diaries
ABOUT ALEXANDRA VAN DE KAMP
Alexandra van de Kamp is the Executive Director for Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center (www.geminiink.org). Her most recent book of poems is Ricochet Script, recently released by Next Page Press on April 1, 2022. Previous collections of poems 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, The Texas Observer, Denver Quarterly, Great Weather for MEDIA, Washington Square, 32Poems, Tahoma Literary Review, and Sweet: A Literary Confection. She has had her work featured on VerseDaily and her poetry has received Best of the Net nominations and more. Find out more about her poetry here.

ABOUT SHEILA BLACK
Sheila Black is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Radium Dream newly released from Salmon Poetry Ireland. Poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is a co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011), named a Notable Book for Adults for 2012 by the American Library Association. She likes rain and also sunflowers which does not feel like an oxymoron. She is a co-founder and current Executive Director of Zoeglossia, a non-profit that builds community for poets with disabilities. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Reusing the Imagination with Ito Romo
2022-07-12 18:30 - 20:30 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Dates/Times: Tuesday, July 12, 19, 26 & August 2, 6:30-8:30pm CST
Instructor: Ito Romo
Nonmember: $150; Member: $130; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*Hybrid – students may attend this workshop in person at Gemini Ink or via Zoom
Scholarships available

Writers are observers, but how do they translate what they see in the real world into evocative, impactful short stories that play like a mini-film in the readers’ mind?
In this class, we will discuss the process of becoming an observant “recorder” in every sense of the word. We will also discuss how to take these “recordings” that now live in our mind, reimagine them, then translate them into our writing so readers are invited to reimagine them too. We will examine how this movement from the real world to our mind to our work then to our reader’s imagination can be done seamlessly, with an emphasis on word choice and syntax. We will also discuss sentence visualization and the role our senses play in creating a written world as believable as our own “real” world.
Students will leave this workshop with the following tools:

Strategies for observing and recording real-world details
An understanding of how word choice and diction capture an image
How to use sentence visualization and sensory details to bring a written world to life

Ito Romo was born and raised on the border in Laredo, Texas. His recent work, dubbed “Chicano Gothic” and “Chicano Noir,” shows the dark and gritty life along Interstate 35 through South Texas, where his family has lived since 1750. He lives in San Antonio and is a Professor of English Literature and Language at St. Mary’s University, where he teaches Mexican American Literature, Multicultural Literature, and Creative Writing. Romo received his PhD from Texas Tech University’s Creative Writing Program and was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. He is the author of The Border is Burning (2013) and El Puente / The Bridge (2001), both published by the University of New Mexico Press. El Puente / The Bridge (2001) was also published in German by Europa Verlag, Munich. Romo is currently working on a novel, Filth Eaters.

The Poetic Voice with Dario Beniquez
2022-07-09 13:00 - 16:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Dates/Times: Saturday, July 9, 1-4pm CST. In-person at Gemini Ink.
Instructor: Dario Beniquez
Nonmember: $115; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75
Scholarships available
Class is limited to twelve participants.

Billy Collins answers the question of where we find our voice by stating, “Your voice has an external source. It does not lie within you… It lies on the shelves of the library, and the shelves of the bookstore. Your voice is in the voices of other poets.”
In this workshop, we will explore in-depth how to find our poetic voice. We will discuss the elements of the poetic voice such as speaker, diction, syntax, rhythm, tone and various other characteristics. In addition, we will study ways we can stretch and challenge our use of poetic voice. Finally, we will apply four questions that will reveal our own poetic voice.
*Participants should bring two or three copies of their poems for feedback. This all-level workshop is ideal for poets and students eager to unpack the craft choices that influence how we sound on the page.
Students will leave this workshop with the following tools:

An understanding of the elements of poetic voice
A four-step process on how to find your authentic voice

Dario R. Beniquez is a San Antonio poet and veteran. He is a graduate of Pratt Institute and has an MFA from Pacific University in Oregon. He’s been published in Red Palm Poetry Magazine, The Caribbean Writer, Rio Grande Review, Voices de la Luna, and elsewhere. His poetry collection, Zone of Silence, is available from FlowerSong Press.

Anything but Silent–A Book Celebration of Dario Beniquez’s Zone of Silence with Special Guest Readers Robert Allen & Jonathan Fletcher
2022-07-08 18:30 - 20:00
Friday, July 8th, in-person at Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro Street
6:30pm-8pm, CST.
Free and open to the public
Join us as we celebrate the release of Dario Beniquez’s debut poetry collection Zone of Silence (Flowersong, 2021) with a reception and reading. Dario has served our writing arts community in San Antonio and beyond for more than 23 years as a volunteer facilitator for Gemini Ink’s Open Writers’ Lab and more. We are excited to honor him and his work of heart, which takes on our complex times with poems that “confront the angst of contemporary life, space, war, theology, antibodies, economics, and love.”
Dario’s verses move readers through historical events, military experience, and the perils of PTSD. His poems have been described by reviewers as “anything but silent ” and able to “mirror current surreal experiences that test and taunt the reality of human life.” We are thrilled to be paying tribute to the breadth of Dario’s poems and to this new collection of his work!
He will be joined by Open Writer’s Lab co-facilitator, Robert Allen, and special guest poet Johnathan Fletcher.
Don’t miss this evening of poetry and literary community at Gemini Ink!

About the Authors
Dario R. Beniquez is a San Antonio poet and veteran. He is a graduate of Pratt Institute and has an MFA from Pacific University in Oregon. He’s been published in Red Palm Poetry Magazine, The Caribbean Writer, Rio Grande Review, Voices de la Luna, and elsewhere. His poetry collection, Zone of Silence, is available from FlowerSong Press.
Robert Allen 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 writers’ groups and open mics including the Sun Poets Society. He’s been published in The Ocotillo Review, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Texas Poetry Assignment, 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. He now co-facilitates Gemini Ink’s Open Writer’s Lab.
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher currently resides in New York City, where he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He has been published in Arts Alive San Antonio; FlowerSong Press; Lone Stars; University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Literary Magazine, riverSedge; Our Lady of the Lake University’s literary journal, The Thing Itself; TEJASCOVIDO; and Voices de la Luna. His work has also been featured at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.

City Songs Poetry Workshop with Reggie Scott Young
2022-06-29 18:30 - 20:30 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Dates/Times: Wednesdays 6/29, 7/6, 7/13, 7/20, 8/3, and 8/10; 6:30-8:30pm; Celebration & Open Mic 8/18
*In-person – Workshop takes place at Gemini Ink with a final celebration at Poetic Republic Cafe
Instructor: Reggie Scott Young
Nonmember: $145 Member: $125 Student: $75

In this 6-week workshop, we will write poems that celebrate and critique life in the city, with a special emphasis on San Antonio and its environs. This workshop is open to writers with various degrees of experience in poetry and will focus on crafting poems for the page with an emphasis on exploring poetic forms. Guest poets, including Natalia Treviño, John Olivares Espinoza, Clemonce Heard, and Emmy Pérez, will visit the course both in-person and virtually to discuss craft issues. There will be a final celebration and open mic at Poetic Republic Cafe on August 18th.
Students will leave this workshop with the following tools:

A knowledge of a variety of poetic styles and forms, including free verse and Ghazal poems
An understanding of poetic devices that bring a poem to life

Check out The Writer’s Desk with Reggie Scott Young
Learn More about Reggie’s workshop at: https://rycitysongs.wordpress.com

Reggie Scott Young grew up in Chicago and used writing to escape life in the streets. After that, he spent a quarter-century as a college and university professor. He’s published scholarly books and academic essays, but creative writing was his first love. He’s published a volume of poems, Yardbirds Squawking at the Moon, and is proud to be included in the upcoming Anthology of Chicago Poets. His poems, short stories, and works of creative nonfiction have appeared in Chicago Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Oxford American, riverSedge, and other publications.
Visit Reggie online:
www.reggiescottyoung.com
https://rycitysongs.wordpress.com
Instagram: @reggiey123
Twitter: @ReggieScottYou1

Open Writer's Labs
2022-06-27 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
The workshop is facilitated by Kathy West. Kathy’s writing has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Apalachee Review, Oxford Magazine, and elsewhere, and she has performed her personal stories on stage in a variety of storytelling venues. As co-founder of minetotell.com, Kathy helps people overcome writer’s block. Drawing on a dozen years of experience giving feedback to writers, she aims to help you feel encouraged and confident about your work.

In-Person at Gemini Ink
The workshop is facilitated by Gemini Ink volunteers Dario Beniquez and Robert Allen.
Dario Beniquez Ramos was raised in Far Rockaway, NY. He is a veteran and makes his home in San Antonio, Texas. He holds a BEIE from Pratt Institute, NY, and an MFA from Pacific University, OR. He also holds an MPA and MSIE from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. His works have been published in The Brave: a collection of poetry and prose, Voices de la Luna, Poetry, San Antonio-Express News, The Texas Observer, Austin International Poetry Anthology, Rio Grande Review, Red Palm, Chrysalis, El Placazo, the Mesquite Review, and elsewhere.
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 pretty 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.

Breakaway Republics, Debut Novels, & Tireless Fiddlers: A Night with Jim LaVilla-Havelin & Ken Waldman
2022-06-23 18:30 - 20:00
Date: Thurs, June 23, in-person at Gemini Ink
6:30pm-8pm, CST
Free and open to the public
Gemini ink is thrilled to bring back in-person author events in our office located at 1111 Navarro, San Antonio, TX 78205!
Join us for an unforgettable night of poetry, fiddling, and novels on “Alaska Time” as we celebrate San Antonio poet, educator, and arts advocate, Jim LaVilla-Havelin, with writer and Alaskan fiddler, Ken Waldman.
Jim LaVilla-Havelin is launching his chapbook Tales from the Breakaway Republic (Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, 2022). This collection of poems eerily prefigures some of the horrors of the current conflict in Ukraine. All proceeds from purchasing LaVilla-Havelin’s chapbook will be donated to Doctors without Borders.
Jim will be joined by the indefatigable poet, fiddler, traveler, and word weaver, Ken Waldman, who is celebrating the release of his novel Now Entering Alaska Time (Cyberwit Press, India, 2022). A percentage of proceeds from purchasing Waldman’s novel will be donated to Gemini Ink.
Don’t miss this chance to experience two unmistakable literary voices and meet up with fellow writers and book addicts.

LaVilla-Havelin is the author of five books of poetry. The most recent, West, poems of a place (Wings Press, 2017) chronicles and celebrates his move to the country, after a lifetime of city dwelling. His chapbook, Tales from the Breakaway Republic will be published by Moonstone Press in 2022. An educator, editor, and community arts activist, LaVilla-Havelin is the Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News, and the coordinator for San Antonio’s National Poetry Month activities. He was awarded the City of San Antonio’s Distinction in the Arts for Literary Arts in 2019. A creative writing teacher for almost fifty years, LaVilla-Havelin teaches at programs citywide, from the Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center for Gemini Ink’s Partners Program, to the Go Arts Program for senior citizens through Bihl Haus Cultural Arts.
Ken Waldman is a seasoned teacher of writing and performer. He combines original poetry, old-time string-band music, and smart storytelling for a performance uniquely his. Since 1995 he’s appeared from the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage to the Dodge Poetry Festival to the Woodford Folk Festival (Queensland, Australia). His 20 books consist of 16 poetry collections, a memoir, a creative writing manual, a kids’ book, and a newly published novel, Now Entering Alaska Time. Nine CDs include two for children. See kenwaldman.com and trumpsonnets.com for more. About his live shows, “Like a Ken Burns movie. . . . Always recommended.”—The Austin Chronicle; About his teaching: “He spreads the cheer of genuine work.”–Naomi Shihab Nye

The Big Texas Read featuring Wondra Chang
2022-06-22 19:00 - 20:30
A Free Monthly Online Reading Series from Writing Workshops Dallas & Gemini Ink
(Zoom Meetings Monthly @ 7pm CST; RSVP for Zoom invite)
Up Next: We’re reading and discussing Wondra Chang’s novel, Sonju. This session will be moderated by Jay Brandon.

RSVP

ABOUT SONJU
After she defies the rigid, oppressive Confucian tradition of order and conformity, Sonju descends from an aristocratic upbringing to working at a men’s club. In spite of social condemnations and personal tragedies, her determination to be her own person never wavers. Sonju’s life takes a turn when her mother marries her off to a man from a wealthy farming clan rather than allowing her to marry the man she loves. Set against the historical background of the humiliating Japanese occupation and the horrors of the Korean War, Sonju portrays one woman’s journey to personal liberation.
ABOUT WONDRA CHANG
Wondra Chang was born in South Korea and has lived in the U.S. since 1970. Her writing discipline began at age ten, writing five short stories a day under the tutelage of a writing teacher. She won first place in a province-wide in-person writing competition. She studied journalism at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, Korea. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Bernard Rauch.
ABOUT JAY BRANDON

Jay Brandon’s twentieth novel, From the Grave, was published in January of 2020. Booklist says of it, “The pace is brisk, the writing elegant.” His previous novel Against the Law (2018), Booklist called, “A fine, tense legal thriller with an offbeat plot.” Jay’s legal thriller Running with the Dead, was called by Kirkus “a brilliant entry in a series that just keeps getting better.” His books have been published in more than a dozen foreign countries, and have been optioned for movies by Steven Spielberg, among others.

Tame the Submission Process with Chibbi Orduña
2022-06-21 18:00 - 21:00
Dates/Times: Tuesday, June 21, 6-9pm CST
Instructor: Chibbi Orduña
Nonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*Hybrid – students may attend this workshop in person at Gemini Ink or via Zoom

Trying to get your work published? Overwhelmed with the entire submission process? We are too!
This workshop will provide a 360° view of the publication process, from understanding your own writing to finding places to submit your work. Writers will gain familiarity with the ins and outs of

the literary journal world and chapbook/manuscript contests while learning practical ways to submit work and track submissions. Participants will walk away feeling confident they can manage the beast that is the submission process.
Students will leave this workshop with the following tools:

ideas for organizing and tracking submissions
an understanding of the submissions process
best practices on when/where/how to effectively submit
resources for publication opportunities

M.R. “Chibbi” Orduña is a Mexican-born, Texas-raised queer poet and spoken word artist. He is the editor-in-chief of Write About Now Publishing and The Mixtape Literary Journal, and director and co-host of the Words and Shit video podcast. He has self-published two books, was a finalist for the 2021 Wax Nine Chapbook Competition, and was the co-editor of the anthology Contra: Texas Poets Speak Out (Flowersong Press, 2020). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Texas Review, Wax Wing, Los Angeles Poet Society, Allium, Cosmonaut Avenue, The Acentos Review, The Latino Book Review Magazine, Buzzfeed, We are Mitu, Button Poetry, Write About Now, and elsewhere. He travels the country performing his work in hopes that audiences feel empowered to embrace their identity, and each other, and share their stories. You can find him on Instagram @gemineyes and on Twitter @geminey

Poesía Migrante: Writing about the Migrant Experience with Juan Felipe Herrera
2022-06-18 11:00 - 16:00 | Online via Zoom
Sat, June 18, 11am-4pm CST with a lunch break at 12pm; via Zoom
Instructor: Juan Felipe Herrera
Class Limit: 15
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil: $75

For decades the migrante experience has been depicted in a negative manner or has been left unseen or “invisibilized.” Join Juan Felipe Herrera’s Mesa Familiar in this workshop focused on bringing the migrante into the light as participants reflect on their personal journeys and that of their ancestors. In this laid back session, workshop participants will write about the migrant experience by exploring personal journeys, family stories, the news, and photographs through various activities such as letter writing, making a piñata migrante, and creating a one-sheet poetry book. Students will be encouraged to incorporate bilingualism (Spanish words will be provided if needed) into their writing and to read their poetry out loud.
This workshop is geared toward anyone with roots in the migrante experience or anyone who would like to write about it in new, thought-provoking ways. All levels are welcome, but novice writers who want to unlock the beauty of their own voice are highly encouraged to register.
Students will:

learn how to draw inspiration from and incorporate family stories, photographs, media stories, and other sources of material into their writing.
experiment with adding rhythm, colors, and created words to their work.
practice shaping their poem using caesura, stanzas, and enjambment.

AuthorBio
Campesino farmworker family boy born on the road. Juan Felipe Herrera grew up in villages, trailer courts, barrios and downtowns; lived in mountain tops, villages and big cities. Graduated from UCLA, Stanford, and the University of Iowa. His interests are culture, art, creative writing and activism. Herrera has won many awards and was professor of Creative Writing and Chicano & Latin American Studies – Fresno State and UC-Riverside. He has written over thirty books for all ages. His poems have been published worldwide, part of the Un-crewed, Robotic, Interplanetary Lucy NASA Mission orbiting the Sun, compositions for Symphonies and for the University of Iowa Stanley Art Museum Jackson Pollock Exhibit. He has been the Poet Laureate of California and USA.

Gemini Ink at the Poetic Republic Cafe
2022-06-17 18:00 - 20:00 | Poetic Republic Coffee Co., 2330 S. Presa St, San Antonio, Texas, United States
A Night of Poetry with Alexandra van de Kamp & Natalia Treviño, followed by a Community Open Mic
Fri, June 17, 6-8pm
In-Person
The Poetic Republic Cafe, 2330 S. Presa St
Free & Open to the Public
Join Gemini Ink this coming Friday, June 17th, for a night of poetry and literary celebration as we kick off the summer with our first in-person poetry event at the perfectly named (if we may say so ourselves) Poetic Republic Cafe! We’d love you to join us and sip some coffee or wine as you enjoy literary community in this inviting and welcoming space, created “for people to connect, engage, and create memorable moments” according to our awesome hosts and their wonderful manifesto!
The night will begin with two featured poets: Executive Director of Gemini Ink, Alexandra van de Kamp, reading from her new collection of poems Ricochet Script, and award-winning, always-riveting, San Antonio poet Natalia Treviño, who will be reading from recent work.
Following the featured readers, we’d love to hear from you! Share your blazingly new words, poetic explorations, stories or snippets of stories, and more (there will be a 3-minute limit for each reader) during our community open mic. Sign-up in person, starting at 5:45pm.
We can’t think of a better way to start off the weekend, and would love to start it off with you!

Alexandra van de Kamp is the Executive Director for Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center. Her most recent book of poems is Ricochet Script, just out from Next Page Press in April. Other 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) and Dear Jean Seberg, which won the 2010 Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. Her poems have been published in journals nationwide and nominated for five Pushcart Prizes as well as Best of the Net. Work was recently featured in: Contra: Texas Poets Speak Out (Flowersong Press). Find out more about her poetry here: http://alexandravandekamppoet.com.
Born in Mexico, Natalia Treviño is the author of VirginX (Finishing Line Press) and Lavando la Dirty Laundry (Mongrel Empire Press), which has been translated to Albanian and Macedonian and published in Macedonia (2021). Her work has won several awards including the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the Literary Award from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, and several others. Natalia works as a Professor of English and as an affiliate Mexican American studies faculty member at Northwest Vista College. Her publications appear widely and have been featured in several anthologies including Contra: Texas Poets Speak Out (Flowersong Press), Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century (Cutthroat Press), and most recently in Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of the Great Southwest (University of New Mexico).

Writing Your Way Out of the Pandemic Wilderness: Journaling for Educators
2022-06-11 10:00 - 15:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Saturday, June 11, 10am-3pm (with 1-hour lunch break), in-person
Instructor: Jim LaVilla-Havelin
Nonmember: $125; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*Earn CPE’s

How do we unblock, open up, and find balance after teaching students in a pandemic? How do we heal ourselves so we may better serve our students, families, and communities? We will explore strategies and writing exercises focused on three main areas:
Reflection: Acknowledging the reality of what happened and its impact on you and your students.
Processing What Happened: Accepting the pandemic experience and finding ways to process and move forward without re-traumatizing yourself.
Creating: Focusing on the triumphs and using your experience to create new written work.
Participants will leave this workshop with the following tools:

How to use reflection to identify internal blockages
How to use mini-writing prompts and journaling to process difficult experiences
Additional ideas for staying balanced in an ever-changing world

*Class will be provided with journals, a recovery reading list, and worksheets to continue feeding creativity in the face of adversity.

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of five books of poetry. The most recent, West, poems of a place (Wings Press, 2017) chronicles and celebrates his move to the country, after a lifetime of city dwelling. His chapbook, TALES FROM THE BREAKAWAY REPUBLIC was published by Moonstone Press in 2022. An educator, editor, and community arts activist, LaVilla-Havelin is the Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News, and the coordinator for San Antonio’s National Poetry Month activities. A creative writing teacher for almost fifty years, LaVilla-Havelin teaches at the Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Treatment Center for Gemini Ink’s Partners Program, works with senior citizens in the Go Arts program through Bihl Haus Cultural Arts, and teaches high school students as Poet in Residence for the Young Women’s Leadership Academy.

Black and Blue: 400 Years of Struggle and Transcendence
2022-06-09 19:00 - 22:00 | Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St, San Antonio, Texas
Photograph of author by Joan Frederick from UTSA Special Collections

Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center, will present a dramatic reading of Black and Blue: 400 Years of Struggle and Transcendence. One of Houston’s seminal works chronicling the African American journey, this performance weaves together historical figures and moments, words of Dr. Martin Luther King, primary sources gathered by Houston, vocals, and music. Presented in readers’ theatre format, this multi-faceted piece features a cast including SkudR Jones, Marcie Edwards Willis, Chris Knox, and Danielle King, who is also directing.
After the reading, there will be a panel discussion and Q&A exploring the significance and impact of Houston and his body of work. Panelists include Dr. Sandra Mayo, Antoinette Winstead, Nan Cuba and Danielle King. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Charles Gentry. This free, public event will take place at the historic Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St.
For the full festival line-up, visit www.sterlinghoustonfestival.com.

Sterling Houston (1945-2006) was a beloved San Antonio cultural icon. A playwright, actor, author, and musician, Houston was a prolific and innovative artist whose work often explored themes of identity and gave voice to characters and communities whose stories were not often told. He was a master of blending history and fact with his own brand of mythology and fiction. His fruitful career spanned across four decades during which he wrote over thirty plays, four novels/novellas and appeared countless times on stage throughout San Antonio and around the country.
Prior to the pandemic, a collective of arts organizations and individuals formed to produce a festival honoring the life, work and legacy of Sterling Houston. The group, now referred to as the SHF Planning Collective, is comprised of several arts organizations and individuals throughout the San Antonio community. Some are former collaborators, friends and colleagues of Houston. Others, while never having had an opportunity to work with or know the artist personally, are nonetheless inspired by him. All are united in their desire to produce a festival befitting of Houston’s artistic excellence, while paying tribute to the indelible imprint he left on the San Antonio arts community and all those who knew him.
The organizations comprising the SHF Planning Collective are Carver Community Cultural Center, Creative Circuit Studios, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, Gemini Ink, Jump Start Performance Co., Magik Theatre, Teatro Anasi, The Classic Theatre, UTSA Libraries Special Collections and Urban-15. In addition, many individuals have lent their time and talents to the collective including Danielle King, Antoinette Winstead, Dr. Charles Gentry, Dianne Green and others.
The festival will be held June 4-19, 2022 with events taking place at various venues throughout San Antonio and will include an offering of performances, workshops, panels and social gatherings.
For the full festival line-up, visit www.sterlinghoustonfestival.com.

Open Writers Lab with Dario Beniquez and Robert Allen
2022-05-30 18:30 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
This peer-driven workshop, held the last Monday of each month, is free and open to writers of all levels and focuses on poetry, flash fiction, and short creative non-fiction. The workshop is facilitated by Gemini Ink volunteers Dario Beniquez and Robert Allen.
Due to Covid-19, the Open Writers Lab will meet online via Zoom until further notice.

For a Zoom invite, email Mandy Lynn Lara, Public Class Coordinator, at mllara@geminiink.org.
Register

Gemini Ink Zoom Workshop Etiquette

The format is a peer critique session using discussion as a vehicle for feedback and improvement.
Note that a critique focuses on subjective reaction and trying to figure out what caused the reaction. This is not “right” or “wrong.” Set ego aside, whether you are the writer or poet, and regard this as an opportunity to exchange ideas and not as a contest to determine which ideas are the best.
In general, the participant remains silent as others discuss the poem or piece. At the end of the discussion, you may comment (1-2 minutes).
Format for a poem is font 12, single-spaced
For other genres, the format is three-pages, double-spaced
Turn your microphone “on” when you want to speak, and “off” when you are not.
Feedback to other writers should be brief, highlighting what is working, and suggestions for improvements. End your comment on a positive note.
Discussion/feedback time per writer’s work is approximately 10-15 minutes.
Prior to the Gemini Ink Lab Session, you will be sent a Zoom Invite.

See you there,
Dario

Dario Beniquez Ramos was raised in Far Rockaway, NY. He is a veteran and makes his home in San Antonio, Texas. He holds a BEIE from Pratt Institute, NY, and an MFA from Pacific University, OR. He also holds an MPA and MSIE from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. His works have been published in The Brave: a collection of poetry and prose, Voices de la Luna, Poetry, San Antonio-Express News, The Texas Observer, Austin International Poetry Anthology, Rio Grande Review, Red Palm, Chrysalis, El Placazo, the Mesquite Review, and elsewhere.
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 pretty 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.

The Big Texas Read featuring Johnnie Bernhard
2022-05-18 19:00 - 20:30
May 18th, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: We’re reading and discussing Johnnie Bernhard’s Sisters of the Undertow. Moderated by Marjorie Herrera Lewis.

ABOUT SISTERS OF THE UNDERTOW
Sisters Kim and Kathy Hodges are born sixteen months apart in a middle-class existence parented by Linda and David Hodges of Houston, Texas. The happy couple welcomes their “lucky daughter” Kim, who is physically and mentally advanced. Following several miscarriages, Linda delivers “unlucky” Kathy at twenty-nine weeks, ensuring a life of cognitive and physical disabilities. Kathy enters public school as a special education student, while Kim is recognized as gifted.
Both sisters face life and death decisions as Houston is caught in the rip current of Hurricane Harvey. Kim learns the capricious nature of luck, while Kathy continues to make her own luck, surviving Hurricane Harvey, as she has survived all undertows with the ethereal courage of the resolute.
Sisters of the Undertow examines the connotations of lucky and unlucky, the complexities of sibling rivalry, and the hand fate delivers without reason.
ABOUT JOHNNIE BERNHARD
A former English teacher and journalist, Johnnie Bernhard is passionate about reading and writing. A traditionally published author, her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines, both nationally and internationally.
A Good Girl was shortlisted in the 2015 Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Competition, one of America’s most prestigious literary awards. It is a finalist in the 2017 national Kindle Book Awards, a nominee for the Bingham Prize, a 2018 nominee for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Fiction, and part of the permanent collection of The Texas Library Archives, Texas Center for the Book.
Johnnie’s second novel, ​How We Came to Be, was named a “Must Read” by ​Southern Writers Magazine in its March 2018 issue. It was also recognized by ​Deep South Magazine ​in its 2018 Summer Reading List and by the international Pulpwood Queen Book Club as a 2019 reading selection. It was shortlisted by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters for 2019 Fiction of the Year, as well as the recipient of the Summerlee Book Prize, HM by the Center for History and Culture at Lamar University.​​​
Sisters of the Undertow, Johnnie’s third novel, was chosen by the Association of University Presses as one of the hundred best books published by a university press. It received first place in the Press Women of Texas annual writing competition.
Her fourth novel, HANNA AND ARIELA is set for release on August 1, 2022.

Fascinating Characters in the Time of Netflix—An Intensive Workshop with Award-Winning Producer Marilyn Atlas
2022-05-12 18:30 - 21:00 | Online via Zoom
May 12, 6:30-9pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Marilyn Atlas
Nonmember: $125; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75

Spend an evening with LA producer and Talent Manager Marilyn Atlas, as she offers an insider’s look into the world of book-to-TV projects, TV screen-playing, and creating those memorable characters and scenes that everyone wants to binge-watch. Atlas will offer user-friendly advice, hands-on guidance, and an industry pro’s know-how and passion to discuss a range of techniques to take your screenplays and prose projects to the next level. In her workshop, you will learn:

tactics to combat writers’ block
practical ways to reanimate how you approach a scene or outlines of a scene
methods to create natural, conversational dialogue derived from a specific point-of-view
how interesting characters actually are co-creators in the writing process.
techniques for how to incorporate subtext into writing your screenplay or prose piece

Special opportunity: All participants will have a chance to pitch some of their TV and prose projects to Marilyn during the last portion of this workshop and receive feedback on how to make their pitch compelling and ready for the professional TV and literary worlds.
Who is this workshop for? Screenplay and prose writers of all levels interested in finding out more about the professional world of writing and screenplays and are ready to adopt some new approaches to how they write.

MARILYN R ATLAS is a talent and literary manager, author, and award-winning producer. Among her credits as a film producer are “Real Women Have Curves,” for HBO, which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival; “A Certain Desire,” starring Sam Waterson; and “Echoes,” which won the Gold Award at the Texas International Film Festival, and the movie “Choke” for Lifetime. Previously, Marilyn developed the “Brides’ March” for Lifetime Television as well as a limited television series. She produced the musical version of “Real Women Have Curves” in LA in 2009. “Real Women Have Curves” is currently in development as a musical for Broadway for 2022.
Marilyn has long been committed to issues surrounding diversity in Hollywood. As a member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, she spoke at many of their writers’ and producers’ retreats. Atlas is a mentor in DIVERSE WOMEN IN MEDIA INITIATIVE. She is a founding member of Women in Film’s Luminas Committee, which supports the portrayal of women in non-stereotypical roles in film and television.
Marilyn has guest spoken at writer’s conferences and colleges in Europe and in the United States. She is currently developing a TV pilot based on the Gary Phillips series of novels “High Hand” and “Shooter’s Point,” featuring strong-willed African-American protagonist Martha Chainey. She is additionally developing a Chinese historical epic with the Metan Development Group and the Wolper Organization. Presently in development is “The Trouble with Dreamers” based on the forthcoming YA book with Neo Studios.
Marilyn is also the co-author of a relationship-based, screenwriting guide called Dating Your Character, about an organic approach to character creation for Stairway Press’s 2016 catalog. For the e-book visit Dating Your Character: A Sexy Guide to Screenwriting (mymustreads.com)

CONFESS! (ional) poetry with Veronica Golos
2022-05-11 18:00 - 20:30
May 11, 18, and 25, 6-8:30pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Veronica Golos
Nonmember: $145; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75

CONFESS! (ional) poetry with Veronica Golos
What brings a poem from a first-person narrative, to what has been termed Confessional poetry? Looking at poems by groundbreaking poets Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Ai, we will explore how these women poets broke through barriers of sex and language, how they shaped their work, and, using their examples, we will break through our own boundaries. A packet will be sent to participants before the workshop, with poems from each of the poets and background information of their eras, along with suggestions for our own writing. Each participant will write 3 poems, inspired by each of these Confessional poets, and poems by participants will be read carefully and discussed.

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.

How to Practice Successful Editing: A Craft Lecture with Johnnie Bernhard
2022-05-07 10:00 - 12:00 | Online via Zoom
Sat, May 7, 10am-12pm, CST, offered via Zoom
Instructor: Johnnie Bernhard
Nonmember: $75; Member: $50; Student/Vet/Mil: $25

“To write is human, to edit is divine.”–Stephen King.
Bestselling author Stephen King understands one of the most important, yet difficult parts of the writing process is editing. All writers, if they are committed to producing the most compelling versions of their work, must tangle with this aspect of craft at some point. Join award-winning author Johnnie Bernhard as she demystifies the editing process for prose writers of all levels and unpacks the different types of editing you can take part in to unlock your truest voice and push your work to its highest level. All participants will come away with concrete examples of tools that improve writing and a deepened awareness of the editing process and how best to apply it to their own work. By the end of this craft lecture and interactive workshop, we hope you will also see, as King does, the essential, even “divine,” role of editing in empowering your writing practice.

“Good writing comes from good editing & reading. It is the trinity writers cannot ignore. Read good literature, books that keep you up at night.” Read Johnnie Bernhard’s Writer’s Desk interview. https://buff.ly/3tubmkE

Johnnie Bernhard’s debut novel, 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 also a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series.

The Big Texas Read featuring Barbara Ras
2022-04-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
RSVP
UP NEXT: April 20th, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
We’re reading and discussing Barbara Ras’s novel The Blues of Heaven (Pittsburgh Press, 2021).
This session will be moderated by Jenny Browne.

In The Blues of Heaven, Barbara Ras delivers her characteristic subjects with new daring that both rattles and beguiles. Here are poems of grief over her brother’s death; doors to an idiosyncratic working-class childhood among Polish immigrants; laments for nature and politics out of kilter. Ras portrays the climate crisis, guns out of control, the reckless injustice and ignorance of the United States government. At the same time, her poems nimbly focus on particulars—these facts, these consequences—bringing the wreckage of unfathomable harm home with immediacy and integrity. Though her subjects may be dire, Ras also weaves her wise humor throughout, moving deftly from sardonic to whimsical to create an expansive, ardent, and memorable book.

PRAISE

It is in this collection—the poems at once tender and world-weary, weathered but endlessly hopeful—that we see Ras at her best.
–Sewanee Review

The Blues of Heaven, by Barbara Ras, radiates with immense tenderness—here are poems of vivid painterly wonderment, perfect pacing and weight, elegantly woven counterpoints of shimmering imagery. How does she do this? A book of infinite love and depth.
–Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Everything Comes Next

The color blue (cobalt, baby, wan, damn, recklessly blue) in Barbara Ras’s latest collection, The Blues of Heaven, is so exquisitely employed, it’s hard not to gush. Her poetry remains as capacious, as endlessly curious as ever. By turns elegiac, nostalgic, and outraged, Ras gives us the world—‘a blue ball spinning at a 1000 mph’—in all its glorious imperfection.
–Ellen Bass

The sweet and dark weight of being has never been more capably measured than in The Blues of Heaven. In poems about personal and national griefs, about the world at hand and the world that must be journeyed to, and about the creatures of creation and the tender, creatural self, Barbara Ras engages in acts of vision, ecstasy, and conscience. As the speaker in one poem declares, “I will work in fields of fire.” And true, in the midst of a period in our human history that has been nearly unendurable, Ras has given us a book of extraordinary shining.
–Rick Barot, author of The Galleons

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barbara Ras is the author of the poetry collections Bite Every Sorrow (winner of the Walt Whitman Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award), One Hidden Stuff, and The Last Skin. She has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, and Orion, as well as in other magazines and anthologies. Ras has taught in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and at workshops nationally and internationally. She lives in San Antonio and is the founding director emerita of Trinity University Press.

ABOUT JENNY BROWNE

Jenny Browne’s most recent book is Fellow Travelers: New and Selected Poems, from TCU Press. A former James Michener Fellow at the University of Texas, she has received the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and two Literature Fellowships from the Texas Writers League. Her poems and essays have appeared widely, most recently in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Copper Nickel, Oxford American and The Nation. She lives in downtown San Antonio and teaches at Trinity University. She served concurrent terms as the 2016-2018 City of San Antonio Poet Laureate, and the 2017-2018 State of Texas Poet Laureate. In 2020 she was the Distinguished Fulbright Scholar in Creative Writing at Seamus Heaney Centre at Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Poetry Reboot 2022 with Edward Vidaurre
2022-04-09 10:00 - 13:00 | Online via Zoom
Sat., April 9 & 16, 10am-1pm, via Zoom
Instructor: Edward Vidaurre
Nonmember: $135; Member: $115; Student/Vet/Mil $75

Part One: Writing the Beautiful and Painful Truth
Work with award-winning poet Edward Vidaurre to dismantle the obstacles that stop your creative process. By welcoming pain and allowing the beauty of the same pain to flow in your writing, you will learn to write without reserve. We will welcome whatever ridiculous ideas and prompts come forth when thinking of what to write and be witnesses to our hearts and minds as we document those feelings and ideas. Students will bring 1-2 current pieces of writing to the class for feedback as well as generate new work.
Part Two: Small Press Publishing Pains and Gains
Following the first week’s generative workshop, we will focus on practical aspects of the poetry publishing process: the importance of editing, research, community, submitting, rejection, and staying focused.

Edward Vidaurre is an award-winning poet and author of eight collections of poetry with Cry, Howl (Prickly Pear Publishing 2021) and Pandemia & Other Poems (Aztlan Libre Press 2020) his most recent books. He is the former 2018-2019 City of McAllen, TX Poet Laureate, publisher & editor-in-chief of FlowerSong Press and its sister imprint Juventud Press, and a five-time Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. Vidaurre is from Boyle Heights, CA and now resides in McAllen, TX with his wife and daughter.

Television Writing 101 with Amie Charney
2022-04-05 18:30 - 20:30
Tues, April 5, 12, 19, 26 & May 3 & 10, 6:30-8:30pm. Hybrid—students may attend in-person or via Zoom.
Instructor: Amie Charney
Nonmember: $150; Member: $130; Student/Vet/Mil: $75

Have an amazing idea for a television or streaming pilot, but don’t know how to start? This six-week Fundamentals of Television Writing course is the perfect introduction. You’ll learn how to take your idea from the early stages of concept to an outline to write a pilot. We will also focus on how to structure your plot specifically for the television platform in a simulated writer’s room. You can expect six real-time craft lectures, lively conversation, and feedback from your instructor and fellow students, written assignments and exercises, and a solid jumpstart on your own script. Here are some of the elements we will cover:

Why is the television/streaming platform different from screenwriting. What are the types of television shows/platforms for today’s market?
Take your concept for a show to outline
The beats of the plot, and how to create a strong story structure.
Creating dimensional characters driven by both external and internal motivations, and how to arc them.
Techniques for improving your dialogue
How to create conflict that moves the plot forward
Techniques to help you work in a visual format, like beat boards, mood boards, storyboards
Proper Formatting – learn industry standards and techniques
And now what… create a powerful logline, one-sheet (leave behind), and synopsis that can be used to pitch your story to industry experts.

Read Amie Charney’s Writer’s Desk interview!

Amie Charney is a screenwriter who lives in San Antonio, Texas. She has a BA in Literature from California State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside Palm Desert. She is also the current Director of Creative Writing for the Northeast School of the Arts. Her work can be found in literary journals such as Southern Missouri Press Journal, Proud to Be, As You Were, Oh! Cat!, High Country Magazine, and others. Amie is the inaugural recipient of the Harlequin Creator Fund for Television Writing and is currently developing a new television show with eOne and Harlequin. She’s the wife of a pilot, mother of two fantastic young adults (both Aggies), and a proud Marine Corps wife! She was recently featured in Script Magazine and the Harlequin Creator Space, as well as San Antonio Magazine.
Connect with Amie:
Twitter: @amiecharney
Facebook: facebook.com/amiecharneywriter
Instagram: @amiecharney
Website: www.amiecharney.com

MOSAIC Youth Writing Workshop
2022-04-03 13:00 - 15:00 | MOSAIC Studio, 116 Blue Star, San Antonio, Texas, 78212
Blue Star Contemporary and Gemini Ink present a special afternoon workshop for middle and high school students interested in exploring their creative writing and visual arts skills. Join us for this special National Poetry Month event featuring writer Chibbi Orduña. Cost is $5. Register at https://bit.ly/3qa0E0R

Standing with Ukraine Poetry Reading
2022-03-18 15:30 - 18:00 | Main Plaza, 115 N Main Ave, San Antonio, Texas, 78205
San Antonio Poets in Solidarity with Ukraine are joining together for a reading in support of Ukraine on Saturday, March 19th, from 3:30-6pm in the Main Plaza. Please stay as long as you can in solidarity with one another and the people of Ukraine on this day we can peacefully and safely stand together in public for peace and equity and justice at this time of crisis. You can bring a sign. You can BE a sign. You already are a sign of peace to come.

The Big Texas Read featuring Mike Soto
2022-03-16 20:00 - 21:30 | Online via Zoom
RSVP
Up Next: We’re reading and discussing poet Mike Soto‘s collection A Grave is Given Supper (Deep Vellum, 2020), a Narco-Acid Western in profound poetic form, using themes from the ongoing drug war taking place in a fictional U.S./Mexico border town.
This session will be moderated by Deep Vellum poetry editor Sebastián H. Páramo.

ABOUT A GRAVE IS GIVEN SUPPER
A Narco-Acid Western told in a series of interlinked poems, Soto’s striking debut collection follows the converging paths of two protagonists through El Sumidero, a fictional US/Mexico border town where an ongoing drug war is raging. The surreal verse of Soto’s poems portrays a bleak political climate as it coincides with the rituals of love & loss, culture & spirituality, & the quest for a better life at all costs. Following the narrative arc of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s classic cult film, El Topo, A Grave is Given Supper builds a world saturated with a mystical aura that describes the finite tensions & complicated desires of lives taking place in the borderland.

ABOUT MIKE SOTO
Mike Soto is a first-generation Mexican American, raised in East Dallas and in a small town in Michoacán. He is the author of the chapbooks Beyond the Shadow’s Ink, and most recently Dallas Spleen (Deep Vellum). He received his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, & was awarded the James Merrill Poetry Fellowship by Vermont Studio Center in 2019. A Grave Is Given Supper is his debut collection of poetry.

ABOUT SEBASTIAN H. PARAMO

Sebastián H. Páramo is a CantoMundo Fellow and a former Dobie Paisano Fellow. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Southern Indiana Review, Southeast Review, The Cortland Review, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. He is the founding editor of The Boiler and Poetry Editor for Deep Vellum. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Vermont Studio Center. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. His manuscript, Portrait of Us Burning, has been a finalist for the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, and the Hudson Prize.

Reading Deeply/Writing Deeply: Writing the Ineffable with Veronica Golos
2022-03-09 18:30 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Wed, March 9, 16 & 23, 6:30-8:30pm CST via Zoom
Instructor: Veronica Golos
Nonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil: $75

CLASS FULL.
This workshop will explore the paradox of writing the Ineffable: how to describe what is almost gone, the lost moment, extreme beauty, depth of fleeting feeling. We will discuss the different techniques used in the work of Jorie Graham, Susan Stewart, and Joanna Klink, three poets that capture the Ineffable. We will generate work of our own, for deep discussion in this collaborative workshop. A packet of poems by these poets will be sent to the participants previous to the workshop. This workshop is ideal for intermediate and advanced poetry students.
Learn more about Golos at her Writer’s Desk interview.

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.

Test Event Page: Reading Deeply, Writing Deeply with Veronica Golos
2022-03-08 18:30 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
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.

So, You Want to Go Places With Your Art! with Ken Waldman
2022-03-05 10:00 - 13:00
Hybrid–Students may attend in-person or via Zoom
Sat., March 5, 10am-1pm
Instructor: Ken Waldman
Nonmember: $75; Member: $50; Student/Vet/Mil: $35

Finally, a workshop for artists of all disciplines. It’s for writers who want to be published for the first time or published more often in more competitive venues. It’s for musicians who want to perform for the first time, or who want to go from smaller San Antonio venues to larger ones, or to Austin, Houston, or beyond. It’s also for actresses, actors, comedians, dancers, visual artists. How can we get bloggers or podcasters to pay attention? How can we help more people become aware of our work? Attendees will leave inspired with concrete ideas to take their art further.

Ken Waldman is a seasoned teacher of writing and a performer. He combines original poetry, old-time string-band music, and smart storytelling for a performance uniquely his. Since 1995 he’s appeared from the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage to the Dodge Poetry Festival to the Woodford Folk Festival (Queensland, Australia). His 20 books consist of 16 poetry collections, a memoir, a creative writing manual, a kids’ book, and a newly published novel, Now Entering Alaska Time. His nine CDs include two for children.
About his live shows: “Like a Ken Burns movie. . . . Always recommended.”—The Austin Chronicle; About his teaching: “He spreads the cheer of genuine work.”—Naomi Shihab Nye
Visit kenwaldman.com and trumpsonnets.com for more.

The Big Texas Read featuring Deb Olin Unferth
2022-02-23 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
RSVP
UP NEXT: February 23rd, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
We’re reading and discussing Deb Olin Unferth’s novel Barn 8 (Graywolf, 2020), named a best book of 2020 by NPR, Slate, Austin Chronicle, and Literary Hub.
This session will be moderated by Elizabeth McCracken, the author of seven books, including Thunderstruck & Other Stories and The Souvenir Museum.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Two auditors for the US egg industry go rogue and conceive a plot to steal a million chickens in the middle of the night—an entire egg farm’s worth of animals. Janey and Cleveland—a spirited former runaway and the officious head of audits—assemble a precarious, quarrelsome team and descend on the farm on a dark spring evening. A series of catastrophes ensues.
Deb Olin Unferth’s wildly inventive but utterly plausible novel is a heist story of a very unusual sort. Swirling with a rich array of voices, Barn 8 takes readers into the minds of these renegades: a farmer’s daughter, a former director of undercover investigations, hundreds of activists, a forest ranger who suddenly comes upon forty thousand hens, and a security guard who is left on an empty farm for years. There are glimpses twenty thousand years into the future to see what chickens might evolve into on our contaminated planet. We hear what hens think happens when they die. In the end the cracked hearts of these indelible characters, their earnest efforts to heal themselves, and their radical actions will lead them to ruin or revelation.
Funny, whimsical, philosophical, and heartbreaking, Barn 8 ultimately asks: What constitutes meaningful action in a world so in need of change? Unferth comes at this question with striking ingenuity, razor-sharp wit, and ferocious passion. Barn 8 is a rare comic-political drama, a tour de force for our time.

ABOUT DEB OLIN UNFERTH
Deb Olin Unferth’s novels and short story collections are widely celebrated as wickedly comic and cutting edge. She is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent book is the novel Barn 8 (Graywolf, 2020 ), named a best book of 2020 by NPR, Slate, Austin Chronicle, and Literary Hub. Her most recent short story collection is Wait Till You See Me Dance (Graywolf, 2017), which the New York Times says “swerves from the mundane to the extraordinary, from biting to soaringly celebratory.”

Her other books include the graphic novel I, Parrot (Catapult 2017) in collaboration with the illustrator Elizabeth Haidle; the memoir Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War (Holt 2011) a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, about dropping out of college to join the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua; the novel Vacation (McSweeney’s 2008), winner of the Cabell First Novel Award; and the story collection Minor Robberies (McSweeney’s 2007). She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Granta, Vice, Tin House, NOON, the New York Times, and McSweeney’s.
An advocate of prison reform, Unferth founded and runs the Pen City Writers, a creative-writing certificate program at a maximum-security prison in south Texas. For this work, she won the 2017 Texas Governor’s Criminal Justice Service Award and the 2017 American Short Fiction Community Star Award. Discussing the work she does in prisons with Conflict of Interest, Unferth notes, “The incarcerated students I teach don’t have access to the internet. So the books and stories they read blow their minds a little more, maybe, than those of us who are numbed into submission by our screens. The incarcerated students inspire me to lie on the sofa all afternoon reading—to see what the fuss is all about. They remind me what books are for, re-instilling my faith every class like church.”
Unferth grew up in Chicago. She studied philosophy and graduated with a B.A. from the University of Colorado in Boulder. After college, she began writing fiction while working at a women’s homeless shelter in Chicago. She received an M.F.A. from Syracuse University. She has taught at Wesleyan University and the University of Kansas. She is now an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center for Writers and the New Writers Project. She lives with her husband and dog, Henry.

ABOUT ELIZABETH McCRACKEN
Elizabeth McCracken is the author of seven books: Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry, The Giant’s House, Niagara Falls All Over Again, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Thunderstruck & Other Stories, Bowlaway, and the forthcoming collection of short stories The Souvenir Museum. She’s received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Liguria Study Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Thunderstruck & Other Stories won the 2015 Story Prize. Her work has been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Prize, The New York Times Magazine, and many other places. You can find her rather often, entirely too often, really, on Twitter.

The Attuned Art of Writing Dialogue with William Jack Sibley
2022-02-23 18:30 - 20:30 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Hybrid: Students may attend in-person or via zoom if they prefer
Wed., Feb. 23 & Mar 2, 6:30-8:30pm
Instructor: William Sibley
Class Limit: 15
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil: $75
Classes are 20% off through February—click the registration button for the sale price.

Writing believable, memorable, smart dialogue is a frequent hurdle for many writers. Is it “real” – too much, too little, or simply the not quite right words conveying the not quite right essence? Tricky stuff. Take this opportunity to work closely with award-winning author and screenplay pro William Sibley to learn some expert advice on what makes for unique dialogue that “sells” the writing for the reader—whether for a novel, play, film, or TV series. Students will bring in a piece of dialogue they’re working on – or will write a few paragraphs/ a page of dialogue – and receive practical feedback on the character, spirit, and authenticity of each one. The class will also address the critical need of developing a “writer’s ear” for incorporating a myriad of character attributes (regionalism, differing ages, differing backgrounds, differing sex, etc). This open-level workshop is designed to have each participant clear that most challenging craft hurdle—creating authentic dialogue that moves their story in crucial ways.
Read our latest Writer’s Desk Q&A with Bill Sibley here: geminiink.org/the-writers-desk-with-william-jack-sibley

William Jack Sibley has written dialogue for the late “longest-running TV soap” in history, THE GUIDING LIGHT. He was chosen from 44 playwright members of New York’s esteemed, THE NEW DRAMATIST, because of his grasp and facility with the spoken word. Or, as Sibley explains, “Dialogue is not how people talk – but how they sound.” His plays have been produced Off-Broadway, and he is the author of over a dozen screenplays optioned and sold while living in L.A. Sibley has also written three award-winning novels, including his recent release Here We Go Loop De Loop (Atmosphere Press, 2021). Newspaper column, freelance journalist, and currently Secretary of the Texas Institute of letters, Sibley returned to his home state of Texas and now resides in San Antonio. www.williamjacksibley.com

Holiday Party & Book Swap
2021-12-16 18:30 - 20:30 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
RSVP

Mingle with fellow writers and literary fans for this festive in-person gathering and help us celebrate the resilience of our writing community and the joy of words.
Featured readers include SA Poet Laureate Andrea Vocab Sanderson and Octavio Quintanilla. Other outstanding writers include our 2021 mentor, award-winning author and seasoned writing teacher Kurt Caswell (via Zoom), and Caswell’s prose mentees, Marisol Villalobos and Carson Frame–which means the audience will be among the first to hear original new material from these talented voices. We’re also featuring Sarah Colby, the facilitator of our Veterans Writing Collective, along with a dynamic veteran writer, Terri Harmon. The brilliant and funny Florinda Flores-Brown emcees.
Take your chance on winning a free writing workshop, a limited-edition signed frontexto by Octavio Quintanilla, or chapbook bundle in our raffle. Or swap a book!—we’ll have a table of giveaways which you can add to.
Wine, non-alcoholic beverages, coffee, and a selection of lite bites will be safely served.
*Due to our small space, we are requesting vaccination cards or a photo of your card. We ask that attendees wear masks. We will also have extra masks on hand. Seating is limited to allow for adequate social distancing.
