Gemini Ink

Loss, Memory, and Mortality: A Mixed Genre Workshop with 2023 Texas Poet Laureate ire’ne lara silva
2024-03-02 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Mexico_City) | TX
Saturdays, March 2, 9, 16, & 23, 2024, 10am-12pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: ire’ne lara silva
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Educator/Military $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

CLASS FULL. To have your name added to the waitlist, email joshua@geminiink.org.
Our lives are marked by losses small and great. Dreams that don’t materialize; relationships that fail; bodies that age and get sick; friends, spouses, parents, children, and other loved ones that die. In these turbulent times, the world seems filled with tragedy and death. Few have the tools to handle these losses as individuals, much less as artists, yet many of us are expected to ‘move on’ from our grief without having the space to process what happened.
In this four-week workshop, we will read and discuss grief-focused poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written by ire’ne lara silva. We will explore strategies for writing about loss, memory, and mortality and apply them when responding to on-theme writing prompts. This workshop will create an open and empathetic space to discuss loss in our lives, so we can move forward with acceptance.
This course is open to writers of all genres, backgrounds, and skill level, 18+.
By the end of the class students will:

study grief-focused poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written by ire’ne lara silva
explore strategies for writing about loss, memory, and mortality
respond to 3-4 writing prompts per class regarding our workshop themes

ire’ne lara silva, the 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of four poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, and FirstPoems, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán.ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine and is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. A new poetry collection, the eaters of flowers, is forthcoming from Saddle Road Press in January 2024.

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.

Rev Up Your Writing in the New Year: Gemini Ink’s Spring Open House
2024-02-22 18:30 - 20:30 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
We’re excited to introduce our dynamic roster of teaching artists who can help you take your writing to the next level.
Come connect with talented writers from San Antonio and beyond as they share new work and discuss the classes they’ll be teaching. We will hear from award-winning fiction writer and founder of Gemini Ink Nan Cuba, poet and Zoeglossia Fellow Jonathan Fletcher, and other instructors. We’ll also get a sneak peek at Typewriter Rodeo and their on-the-spot-generated poetry!
The presentation will be followed by time to mix and mingle with fellow literature lovers and to enjoy light refreshments. Our evening will culminate with a community open mic. Bring your latest work and arrive early to grab a spot. The list is capped at 6 readers.
It all happens at Gemini Ink’s downtown writing arts center at 1111 Navarro Street. Don’t leave without our spring calendar of classes and events!

Sean Petrie & Rebecca Bendheim are part of the nationally-renowned Typewriter Rodeo, where they’ve written thousands of poems for strangers on the spot, and do weekly radio poems for NPR. Both have MFAs in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts, are writing teachers (Sean at UT, Rebecca at Trinity Episcopal School), and authors. Sean’s books include Typewriter Rodeo, the award-winning Pet Poems (also not just pets), and the Jett Ryder series for kids. Rebecca is represented by Patricia Nelson and has multiple books in the works. Join Sean and Rebecca for Poetry Flurry with Typewriter Rodeo! on March 30th, and get ready for National Poetry Month in April.
Nan Cuba is the author of Body and Bread, winner of the PEN Southwest Award in Fiction and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award; it was listed as one of “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in O, Oprah’s Magazine and was a “Summer Books” choice from Huffington Post. As an investigator of the causes of extraordinary violence, she is a featured journalist in the Netflix documentary, The Confession Killer, and another by Hulu, Wild Crimes: Murder in Yosemite. She is founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink, a nonprofit writing arts center. Nan is teaching a 6-week class in fiction beginning on March 18: Fiction Never Lies: Turning Personal Experience into Emotional Truth.
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Columbia University School of the Arts. He has been published in The Adroit Journal, Arts Alive San Antonio, FlowerSong Press, riverSedge, and The Thing Itself. He has served as a Columbia Artist/Teacher for iHOPE, a specialized school for students with traumatic brain injury, as well as a poetry editor for Exchange, Columbia’s literary magazine for incarcerated writers and artists. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow. Jonathan is teaching a Poetry for Beginners in April; a 4-session workshop for newbie poets who are ready to learn more about the genre.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Mag Gabbert
2024-02-21 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
A Free Monthly Online Lecture Series from WritingWorkshops.com & Gemini Ink
Wednesday, February 21st, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST

RSVP
Up Next: Poet & Essayist Mag Gabbert and her poetry collection, SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS. This discussion will be moderated by poet Séamus Fey.
ABOUT SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS

“This bewitching debut delivers everything the title promises and more.” –Electric Literature
In SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS, which was selected by Kathy Fagan as the winner of the 2021 Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry, Mag Gabbert redefines the bestiary in fiery, insistent, and resistant terms. These poems recast the traumas of her adolescence while charting new paths toward linguistic and bodily autonomy as an adult. Using dreamlike, shimmering imagery, she pieces together a fractured portrait of femininity—one that electrifies the confessional mode with its formal play and rich curiosity. Gabbert examines the origin of shame, the role of inheritance, and what counts as a myth, asking, “What’s the opposite of a man? / A woman? A wound? The devil’s image?”

ABOUT MAG GABBERT
Mag Gabbert is the author of SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS (Mad Creek Books, 2023), which was selected by Kathy Fagan as the winner of the 2021 Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry; the chapbook The Breakup, which was selected by Kaveh Akbar as the winner of the 2022 Baltic Writing Residencies Chapbook Award; and the chapbook Minml Poems (Cooper Dillon Books, 2020). Her awards include a Discovery Award from 92NY’s Unterberg Poetry Center, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Idyllwild Arts, and Poetry at Round Top. Mag’s work can also be found in The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review Daily, Copper Nickel, Guernica, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. Mag has an MFA from UC Riverside and a PhD from Texas Tech. She lives in Dallas, Texas and teaches at Southern Methodist University.
ABOUT S.FEY
S. Fey (they/he) is a Trans writer living in LA. Currently, they are the poetry editor at Hooligan Magazine, and co creative director at Rock Pocket Productions. Their debut poetry collection, decompose, is out with Not a Cult Media. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, The Sonora Review, and others. They love to beat their friends at Mario Party. Find them online @sfeycreates.

Unexplored Greats: A Study of Lesser Known African American Authors with Arrie Porter
2024-02-12 18:30 - 20:30 | TX
Mondays, February 12 & 19, 2024, 6:30-8:30pm CST, Hybrid (in-person at Gemini Ink and online via Zoom)
Instructor: Arrie Porter
Nonmember: $135; Member: $115; Student/Educator/Military $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Tupac Shakur, Toni Morrison, Nicki Giovanni, Richard Wright, and Maya Angelou. These gifted authors are all household names who have put African American literature on the map. However, so many Black writers outside of pop culture have contributed to the lexicon of settings, spaces, imagery, and poetics found in Black literature. Such authors include Henry Dumas, Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton, Christopher Gilbert, Yusef Komunyakaa, and others. Delving into their work is vital to gaining an expansive view of literature and our shared history as Americans.
In this two-session workshop, participants will study the works of non-mainstream African American authors who have made valuable literary contributions. Participants will explore the narrative and lyrical license, devices, and history of these authors, while learning to craft our own dynamic works in poetry and fiction. Join us and get acquainted with these Black authors!
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+.
Students will leave this class with:

A greater appreciation for lesser-known African American authors
An understanding of these writers’ craft techniques
A listing of anthologies where undiscovered writers may be found
Several beginnings to new creative work

Read Arrie’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!

Arrie Porter is a poet and fiction writer with publications in The Windward Review, Voices de la Luna, RiverSedge, The Thing Itself, and other noteworthy periodicals. She has reviewed books of fiction for Angelo State University and serves as a Gemini Ink Teaching Artist. She is the former host of the Coffee Loft Open Mic in Atlanta Georgia, and performs at various open mics. She is the creator of “Voices,” a DreamWeek San Antonio event, and creator and publisher of Nubian Notes, a magazine now maintained as a special collection at the John Peace Library, Institute of Texas Cultures. Her interviews and articles have appeared in the San Antonio Report and the San Antonio Express-News. Arrie has developed commentaries for Texas Public Radio, including “The George Floyd Protests in the Pandemic” and “Juneteenth–It’s Complicated.” She oversees the Poetry Ministry at Agape Christian Church and holds a MA/MFA degree in Literature, Creative Writing, and Social Justice. Arrie is a Professor of English at Our Lady of the Lake University.

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.

The Art of Zine Making with Caesar Morales
2024-02-03 10:00 - 12:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Saturdays, February 3 & 10, 2024, 10am-12pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: Caesar Morales
Nonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student $75.

*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Want to get your work out there but don’t want to wait for traditional publication? A zine is a quick, easy way to distribute your writing in a format that’s one of a kind and easily digestible. These small independent publications are usually handmade and combine a collection of photos, text, illustrations, poems, etc., around a common theme. Because there is no definitive structure or layout for a zine, this allows for highly creative book-making that can turn the publication itself into a work of art.
In this two-session workshop, we will use short writing prompts to generate new work around specific themes, add visual elements through photos and drawings, receive feedback, and complete a mini-zine. We will also learn how best to distribute hard copy or digital zines.
Basic supplies, including construction paper, writing utensils, scissors, glue, and collage materials will be provided. Students are encouraged to bring in their own clip art, magazines, or photos that fit on 5.5” x 8.5” paper.
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+.
Students will leave with the following:

New creative writing pieces
One handmade mini-zine
Instructions on how to make more zines independently
Ideas on how to distribute zines

Learn more about Caesar at his Writer’s Desk Q&A.
Caesar Morales has an MA in Playwriting and Screenwriting from City University of London in the UK. Prior to that, he obtained a BSc from the University of Greenwich, also in the UK. His photo essays have been published in Private Photo Review, and he will have an original short story published in the upcoming anthology, The 42 Anthology, featuring 42 stories from 42 different writers, each writing in 42 different genres/categories. Caesar’s story “The Outlaw Gerald Dorris” will be published in the Western category. He’s also taught podcast production, photography, filmmaking, zine publishing and screenwriting at Wac Arts College in London, UK and at the Institute for the Urban Arts in New York City. He’s also had two feature-length screenplays workshopped at the London Screenwriter’s Festival.

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.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Rudy Ruiz
2024-01-17 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
RSVP

Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Rudy Ruiz and his novel, VALLEY OF SHADOWS. Moderated by Guadalupe Garcia McCall.

ABOUT VALLEY OF SHADOWS
Winner of the Texas Institute of Letters’ Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction
New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection

Solitario Cisneros thought his life was over long ago. He lost his wife, his family, even his country in the late 1870s when the Rio Grande shifted course, stranding the Mexican town of Olvido on the Texas side of the border. He’d made his brooding peace with retiring his gun and badge, hiding out on his ranch, and communing with horses and ghosts. But when a gruesome string of murders and kidnappings ravages the town, pushing its volatile mix of Anglo, Mexican, and Apache settlers to the brink of self-destruction, he feels reluctantly compelled to confront both life, and the much more likely possibility of death, yet again.
Through luminous prose and soul-searching reflections, Rudy Ruiz transports readers to a distant time and a remote place where the immortal forces of good and evil dance amidst the shadows of magic and mountains.
ABOUT RUDY RUIZ
Rudy Ruiz is an American author, advocate and social entrepreneur. The son and grandson of Mexican immigrants, Rudy Ruiz was born in Brownsville, Texas and raised along the US-Mexico border, living in Matamoros, Mexico for extensive periods of time. He did not speak English until he entered school at the age of five. Once in school, he dreamt of becoming a writer, an entrepreneur, and a contributor to the wellbeing of immigrants and minorities, as well as to positive relations between diverse cultures and nations. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Harvard. Ruiz now resides in San Antonio with his wife, Heather, and their two children, Paloma and Lorenzo.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults, and many children’s poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. Visit Guadalupe at her website: https://ggmccall.com/.

So, You Want to Write Romance with Laura Castoro
2024-01-17 18:30 - 20:30 | TX
Wed, January 17, 24, 31 & February 7, 6:30-8:30pm CST, Hybrid (in-person at Gemini Ink and online via Zoom)
Instructor: Laura Castro
Nonmember: $155; Member: $130; Student/Educator/Military: $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE
Class Full
Compelling lovers, an emotionally driven plot, and steamy sex scenes–these are the ingredients of every great romance story. If you’ve always wanted to write a romance but didn’t know how, now is your chance! Bring your story idea to life with award-winning romance author Laura Castoro (aka Laura Parker).
In this 4-session, generative workshop, we will guide writers through the creation of an emotionally resonant plot with a unique slant and irresistible characters for a fascinating and unforgettable romance. Yes, there will be sex scenes! Writers will build on a story concept by constructing a synopsis and a first chapter while also learning about potential problems that can derail the creative process. By the end of the workshop, each writer will have the good bones of a riveting romance.
This course is open to fiction writers 18+ who want to write or finish a romance manuscript.
By the end of the class, students will have:

A story synopsis with characters and plot
The story structure and a good starting place
Ideas on how to keep the creative process going

Read Laura’s Writer’s Desk Interview!

Laura Castoro, a USA Today, Amazon top 100, and Apple Books bestseller, has published 47 novels with major publishing houses such as Dell Books, Berkley, Avon, Warner, MIRA, Harlequin, Kensington, Pocketbooks, St, Harper Collins, Martins Press, and William Morrow. She has also contributed to several fiction anthologies and has published non-fiction YA and short fiction in Good Housekeeping. Under the name Laura Parker, she writes historical and contemporary romance, westerns, and sagas. As Laura Castoro, she writes contemporary African American and contemporary women’s fiction. Writing as D. D. Ayres, she publishes a romantic suspense series called the K-9 Rescue Series. Her current release as Laura Castoro is Love On The Line (2021) through William Morrow. Laura has won multiple national writing awards. In 2005, she was inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame. She is a past president of Novelists, Inc. (2013), an international professional fiction writers’ organization. She is a past president and board member of the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, a writer residency program in the AR Ozarks. She speaks at numerous conferences and workshops in the U.S. and abroad. Laura currently lives in San Antonio, TX. Visit Laura at www.ddayres.com.

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

Voices of San Anto with Eddie Vega
2024-01-13 13:00 - 17:00, 2023-10-07 13:00 - 17:00 | San Antonio Public Library, 600 Soledad, San Antonio, Texas, 78205

Veterans Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
2023-12-20 18:30 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
The Veteran’s Writing Collective (VWC) encourages the art of writing in a workshop environment where participants are offered honest, positive, and constructive peer-to-peer and mentor feedback. The workshop is open to all active-duty military, veterans, retirees, and their immediate family members. Writers of all levels working in all genres are welcome.
The VWC meets monthly online via Zoom.
If you would like an invitation to this class, send an email to veteranscollective@geminiink.org

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

Open Writer's Labs
2023-12-18 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.

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.

Exploring Your Cultural Inheritance through Poetry with Ebony Stewart
2023-12-16 10:00 - 13:00 | Online via Zoom
Saturday, December 16, 10am-1pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Ebony Stewart
Nonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

When we think of cultural inheritance, we often think of language, music, food, holidays, and maybe even sports. But what about the way a culture approaches central concepts like race, religion, patriotism, literacy, and integrity?
In this workshop, we will explore the idea of our own unique heritage as a museum of poetic artifacts, reflect on spoken word pieces, and generate writing. In the discussion portion, we will explore the concrete and intangible elements of culture, any logical or illogical fears these may evoke, and the impact of that. We will study how “Hairitage,” “Fear,” and Nina Simone’s “Four Women” depict culture and use literary devices to create memorable pieces. We will use all of our explorations of culture and fear to create new poems that use some of the literary techniques covered.
Participants can expect a safe workshop space where they can take risks, be vulnerable, and give and receive feedback for future revisions.
This course is open to writers of all skill levels, 18+.
Students will leave this workshop with:

A deeper understanding of your own culture
Knowledge of literary devices
One complete poem that captures your cultural inheritance

Ebony Stewart is a poet, writer, and performance artist. Her work speaks to the Black experience, with emphasis on gender, sexuality, womanhood, queer-positivity, and race, with the hopes to remove shame, heal minds, encourage dialogue, and inspire folks in marginalized communities. Ebony is a respected coach & mentor, one of the top touring poets in the country, and the 2017 Woman of the World Poetry Slam Champion. She has performed in 48 states, at over 200 colleges and universities across the country, as well as featured internationally in Canada, Australia, and Ghana. She is the author of BloodFresh, Home.Girl.Hood., and Love Letters to Balled Fists. Her work has been featured in Button Poetry, AfroPunk, For Harriet, Teen Vogue, The Texas Observer, plus countless others.
Learn more about Ebony at her Writer’s Desk Q&A.

Gemini Ink Holiday Open House
2023-12-14 18:30 - 20:30 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Don’t miss Gemini Ink’s annual holiday gathering. Join us at 1111 Navarro as we eat, drink, celebrate our collective creative accomplishments, and merrily toast the closing of 2023 with our literary community of writers and friends.
We’ll gather around and listen to a wonderful sampling of stories from our Voices of San Anto bilingual storytelling workshop, with Eddie Vega and Marisela Barrera. We’re excited to share some amazing videos with you from our Literary Video Lab. Lastly, we’ll be honoring ??Volunteer of the Year for 2023, Violeta Garza!??
Drop by when you can, leave when you need to , but stay long enough for a little eggnog and comfort food. Wine, non-alcoholic beverages, and coffee will be served. We will provide the main fare, but you are also invited to bring a store-bought or prepackaged food item to share. Keeping with our annual tradition, we’ll have a table of books to trade and give away. Please bring a book to share.
We can’t be San Antonio’s writing arts center without you!

We appreciate Violeta for sharing her time, infectious laughter and poetic heart with us and our extended literary community. Please join us as we celebrate Violeta’s contributions to our team with a special volunteer spotlight!
Violeta Garza (she/they/ella) is a multilingual Latinx poet and weaver from the Historic West Side of San Antonio, Texas. She has been published in Acentos Review, Boundless, and Voices de la Luna, among others, and is a member of the Macondo Writing Workshop. She has also performed her original poems and stories for Texas Public Radio, The Alamo Chapter for Human Rights, The Curtain Up Cancer Foundation, Voices of San Anto, and elsewhere. Her safe space is listening to cheesy Mexican love ballads from the 1980s. You can peruse their work at violetagarza.com.

Creating Scenes that Move the Story with Desiree Kannel
2023-12-02 10:00 - 14:30 | TX
Saturday, Dec 2, 10am-2:30pm CST (with 30-minute lunch), Hybrid (via Zoom and in-person at Gemini Ink)
Instructor: Desiree Kannel
Nonmember: $105; Member: $90; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Great novels and short stories use scenes to gain momentum, escalate conflict, and reveal character. But how do writers decide which scenes push the action forward and which ones stagnate the story with unnecessary details?
In this 4-hour workshop, writers will analyze scenes from their own work and learn how to decide what to cut and what to revise. We will discuss scene structure, effective transitions, and how to let character motivation drive the plot instead of the author’s agenda. Writers will leave with a better sense of what may be missing from their work in progress and tips on how to move forward.
This workshop will include exercises on dialogue and setting. Each student will be asked to bring a scene from their own work to be revised in class.
This course is open to fiction writers of all skill levels, 18+. Writers who have written the first draft are encouraged to attend.
You will leave this workshop with:

A new approach to scene writing with purpose and movement
Ideas of what details can be cut and what to keep for revision
Knowledge of how to transition in and out of a scene
An edited piece of previously written work

Read Desiree’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!

Desiree Kannel is a writer and teacher from Southern California. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and a post-grad certificate in Rhetoric & Composition from California State University Dominguez Hills. Desiree’s fiction has appeared in the Running Wild Anthology of Short Stories (2019), Fourth & Sycamore, and others. Her novel, Lucky John (2020), was a finalist in the African American Fiction category in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her second novel, The Delany Bennets, was published in October 2023. Desiree leads creative writing workshops online and locally and is a Gemini Ink teaching artist.

Giving Tuesday
2023-11-28 | TX
https://www.givingtuesday.org/

Thanksgiving Holiday – Office Closed
2023-11-23 - 2023-11-24 | TX

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Carmen Tafolla
2023-11-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Wednesday, November 15th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Carmen Tafolla’s children’s book, Warrior Girl. Moderated by Dr. Rita Urquijo-Ruiz.

RSVP

ABOUT WARRIOR GIRL
An insightful novel in verse about the joys and struggles of a Chicana girl who is a warrior for her name, her history, and her right to choose what she celebrates in life.
Celina and her family are bilingual and follow both Mexican and American traditions. Celina revels in her Mexican heritage, but once she starts school, it feels like the world wants her to erase that part of her identity. Fortunately, she’s got an army of family and three fabulous new friends behind her to fight the ignorance. But it’s her Gramma who’s her biggest inspiration, encouraging Celina to build a shield of joy around herself. Because when you’re celebrating, when you find a reason to sing or dance or paint or play or laugh or write, they haven’t taken everything away from you. Of course, it’s not possible to stay in celebration mode when things get dire–like when her dad’s deported and a pandemic hits–but if there is anything Celina’s sure of, it’s that she’ll always live up to her last name: Guerrera–woman warrior–and that she will use her voice and writing talents to make the world a more beautiful place where all cultures are celebrated.
ABOUT CARMEN TAFOLLA
Carmen Tafolla is an internationally acclaimed Chicana writer from San Antonio, Texas, and a professor emerita of bicultural bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Tafolla served as the poet laureate of San Antonio from 2012 to 2014, and was named the Poet Laureate of Texas for 2015–16. Tafolla has written more than 40 books and won multiple literary awards. She is one of the most highly anthologized Chicana authors in the United States, with her work appearing in more than 300 anthologies. https://www.carmentafolla.net/

ABOUT DR. RITA URQUIJO-RUIZ

Dr. Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz is a Mexicana/Chicana queer educator, author, and translator who teaches Spanish as well as Queer, Chicana/o, and Latinx Studies at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is the translator of Xelena González and Adriana Garcia’s award-winning books: Where Wonders Grow (Donde las maravillas crecen) and Remembering (Te recuerdo). She was absolutely thrilled when Dr. Carmen Tafolla invited her to translate her novel in verse Warrior Girl (Guerrera). Rita’s story about being previously undocumented, entitled “First Visit,” was published in the award-winning anthology Somewhere We are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings, coedited by Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca.

The Big Texas Author Talk is a *free* lecture series devoted to showcasing Texas authors from across our big state. Each month we feature one Texas author in conversation with another—from New York Times bestsellers living in Dallas, Houston, and Austin to our rich Texas Latinx border authors living in Laredo and McAllen, not to mention from other deep pockets and corners of our culturally diverse state. Our lecture series is as entertaining as it is informative—and like Texas itself, we offer a vast array of storytellers who represent the spirit of our extremely distinct Lone Star State and continue to keep us on the literary map. In the past, we’ve featured novelists such as Kathleen Kent, Marisol Cortez, Joe Lansdale, and Antonio Ruiz-Camacho and Texas poet laureates such as Carmen Tafolla, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Jenny Brown, and Emmy Pérez.

Inkstravaganza 2023 honoring Jenny Browne
2023-11-10 18:30 - 21:30 | McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., San Antonio, TX, United States
SOLD OUT
“Fellow Travelers: Celebrating the Poetic Journeys of Jenny Browne”

Celebrating Jenny Browne at the McNay Art Museum Moroccan Courtyard and Leeper Auditorium, Friday, November 10th, 6:30-9:30 pm

Award for Literary Excellence
Jenny Browne
Honorary Co-Chairs
Dr. Vanessa B. Beasley, Trinity University’s 20th President
& Naomi Shihab Nye
Moderator
Dr. Rachel Pearson
Emcee
Molly Cox
2023 Inkstravaganza Committee
Wendy Atwell, Amie Charney, Eileen Curtright, Joey Fauerso, Meaghan Ritchey, Claudia Stokes, Burgin Streetman, Alexandra van de Kamp, and Laura Van Prooyen

Don’t miss Gemini Ink’s 23rd Inkstravaganza in celebration of the writing arts by joining us on November 10th in honoring Jenny Browne, as we celebrate her remarkable accomplishments as a groundbreaking poet, gifted educator, and community voice for the transformative impact of literature in our lives.

Jenny Browne is the author of four collections: Fellow Travelers: New and Selected Poems (2019), Dear Stranger (2014), The Second Reason (2007), and At Once (2003). A prolific poet and dynamic literary citizen at home and abroad, she served concurrent terms as City of San Antonio Poet Laureate (2016-18) and Poet Laureate of the State of Texas (2017) and, in 2020, was Distinguished Fulbright Scholar in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and the Cecil Hemley Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has been an integral part of the Trinity University faculty for 15 years, having joined the Department of English in 2007, where she currently teaches courses in creative writing and environmental studies, as well as co-directs Women and Gender Studies. In 2004, she received a prestigious three-year James Michener Fellowship from the University of Texas in Austin, where she received her MFA in Poetry.
Jenny Browne learned to walk on the grounds of Fort Sam Houston. After moving with her family to Maine and the Midwest, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1993. She continued her travels and lived in Alaska, West Africa, El Salvador and the South of France. These formative experiences with other cultures and landscapes shaped her commitment to literature as a means of opening minds, cultivating imagination, and creating empathy for people and places beyond one’s own skyline.
For most of her adult life, Browne has brought communities together to strengthen literacy and celebrate literary arts. From 1998-2004 she worked in local schools, libraries, and community centers with support from the Texas Commission on the Arts, the City’s UrbanSmarts Program, ARTSSanAntonio, and Gemini Ink. She created and designed a K-12 curriculum integrating writing, environmental education, and the poetics of place that was piloted in Gulf Coast schools. From 2000-2003, she founded and directed the Good Samaritan Center’s Literary Arts Program on San Antonio’s Westside.
Over the years, Browne’s work has created platforms and opportunities for people to engage in writing and to explore ideas and identities across cultures, economic backgrounds, and ages. She continues to build local, regional, and global partnerships and worked with Borderland Collective to create Narratives of Resettlement, a two-year-long creative collaboration with refugee families.
In 2012, Browne traveled with the U.S. Department of State and the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program on two cultural diplomacy tours, teaching poetry in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone. She also completed a semester-long sabbatical in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and Oaxaca, Mexico, and continues to return to Belfast, Northern Ireland.
When she is not teaching or traveling, Browne writes in a hundred-year-old house in the historic La Vaca neighborhood where she lives with her husband, photographer Scott Martin, and their daughters Lyda and Harriet.

About our Teaching Artist of the Year, Joyous Windrider Jimenez!
Joyous Windrider Jiménez, a Gemini Ink teaching artist since 2016, is a poet, teatrista, mixed-media visual artist, and video creator. She melds performance and visual elements to articulate her healing journey and emotional literacy. Since 2009, she’s showcased her work both in San Antonio and online, with a recent publication in Puro Chicanx: Writers of the 21st Century by Cutthroat, A Journal Of The Arts and The Black Earth Institute.
As a teaching artist since 2012, she has worked with notable organizations such as SAY Sí, Gemini Ink, the Magik Theatre, San Antonio Wolf Trap, the McNay Art Museum, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and Blue Star Contemporary’s MOSAIC program for youth. Her teaching experience spans diverse demographics, from preschoolers to retired adults, and includes cancer survivors, incarcerated youth, mental health warriors, title I students, and foster care children. Her students have achieved recognition through public exhibitions, performances, publication, and awards, including Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards.

Introduction to Playwriting with Mikaela Simon
2023-11-09 18:00 - 21:00 | Online via Zoom
Thursdays, Nov 9 & 16, 6-9pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Mikaela Simon
Nonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Excellent theatre has a way of getting a great story up on its feet. But how do you tell a story on the page so that it comes to life on the stage?
Join New Jersey-based playwright Mikaela Simon in this two-session course which will cover the fundamentals of writing a play.
Workshop participants will learn how playwriting differs from other genres, what “show don’t tell” means when writing for the stage, and how to use it to create dynamic storytelling on stage. This course will cover structure, format, dialogue, monologues, characters, dramatic action, and theatricality. Participants will explore these elements and use them to create their own short plays and/or scenes.
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+.
Students will leave this course with:

Knowledge of how to structure and format a play
An understanding of playwriting elements and how to use them
The ability to apply the concepts to long-form works, such as one acts, full-lengths, etc.
The first draft of a 10-minute play or the first few scenes of a larger work

Read Mikaela’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!

Mikaela Simon (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Jersey City, NJ. She graduated in 2019 from Drew University with a BA in Theatre Arts. While in college, Mikaela’s work was performed a number of times in the Plays in Process series, and she was also a recipient of the Robert Fisher Oxnam Award for Playwriting in 2018, resulting in a staged reading produced by the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Since graduating, she has taken on the role of teaching artist for the theatre program at Yavneh Academy in Paramus, NJ. Mikaela is also a multimedia visual artist, and is very involved in the Jersey City arts community with her small business (@doodlealldayy). Writing has always held a special place for her, and she looks forward to getting the chance to share the beautiful craft of playwriting with people who have a story to tell.

A Walk on the Dark Side: Gothic Erasure with Kristine Esser Slentz
2023-10-30 18:30 - 20:30 | TX
Mondays, Oct 30 & Nov 6, 6:30-8:30pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Kristine Esser Slentz
Nonmember: $135; Member: $115; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Want to take a walk on the dark side? Let Gothic classics and erasure take you there! From The Phantom of the Opera, to The Picture of Dorian Gray, to Frankenstein, Gothic fiction has captured our deepest fears and twisted our imaginations with the strange and unusual.
In this two-session class, we will explore erasure techniques and apply them to popular Gothic tales to create our own stories or poems. We will delve into erasure masterpieces from Chase Berggrun, Jennifer Tamayo, Francisco Levato, and Nicole Sealey to better understand this increasingly popular technique. We will then apply what we learned to the works of Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Gaston Leroux, or any other Gothic texts students would like to work with. This workshop will include close reading, a generative component, and a feedback session.
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+.
You will leave this workshop with:

A deeper understanding of erasure
A new perspective on Gothic writing
Your own Gothic story or poem

KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ is the author of woman, depose (FlowerSong Press, 2021) and the forthcoming artist book, The Archives (Kintsugi Books). She is originally from northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) from City College of New York (CCNY) where she is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor. Kristine is a Pushcart Prize nominee, finalist in the Glass Poetry Chapbook and F(r)iction’s Flash Fiction Contests, recipient of a CCNY English Department Teacher-Writer Award, and former Rifkind Fellow and Poets Afloat resident. Currently, she is the co-founder and organizer/host of the monthly artist series, Adverse Abstraction, in NYC’s East Village.

Unban the Book with Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson
2023-10-24 18:30 - 20:00 | TX
Tuesday, October 24th, 6:30-8pm
HYBRID: in-person at Gemini Ink or online via Zoom
Free and open to the public
Register to Join us for Unban the Book
Join Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, San Antonio Poet Laureate Emeritus, as we recognize Banned Books Week (October 1 – 7, 2023) by gathering and writing open letters to local and state lawmakers about the political attack on books and its impact on our community.
We will come together in shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas without fear of book bans. When lawmakers ban books, such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus, which tells a Holocaust survivor story, or Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which is about a former slave who survived abuse, we lose access to pivotal stories that speak to our history, bring to life the realities of marginalized communities, and challenge us to think critically.
Participants will be provided stationary, stamped envelopes, and writing guidance. We will then seal our letters and send them off. Light refreshments will be served. In-person seating is limited, please register here:
Register to Join us for Unban the Book

Andrea Sanderson, San Antonio, TX. Poet Laureate 2020-2023, performs as “Vocab” in her hometown of San Antonio, Texas. “Watching her perform, the word “hero” comes to mind. And not “hero” for the sake of just skill, but for her work in her community: Sanderson teaches poetry workshops, mentors, builds up and encourages artists to pursue their art, and gives them platforms to showcase their talent.
Sanderson’s interest in other people’s art and artistic development became a passion of hers, and she started curating her own shows and creating platforms for other artists to hone their craft by hosting open mics.” (From The San Antonio Current, Jan. 16, 2018.)
Her poetry is published in, The Texas Observer, January 2016 Issue, Pariah Anthology SFA Press, March 2016, and Sycorax’s Daughters, Cedar Grove Publishing, January 2017, Soundbite Vol. 3, Anti-Languorous Project, Spring 2019. Her debut book entitled: She Lives In Music, published on Flower Song Press, was released on Valentine’s Day 2020. Her album She Tastes Like Music, is available on all music streaming platforms.
She received awards, Performer of the Year, Influencer of the Year, from Project Forward, and Dream Voice, from the Dream Week Commission. Sanderson is the winner of the 2019 People’s Choice Award, awarded by Luminaria Artist Foundation (formerly known as: Artist Foundation of San Antonio).In May of 2020 she was awarded Best Live Entertainment/Band Musician of the Year by the SEA Awards.

Evoking Place Through Sensory Writing: An Open Genre Workshop with Award-winning Eco-Writer Camille T. Dungy
2023-10-20 10:00 - 13:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Friday, October 20, 10am-1pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: Camille T. Dungy
Nonmember: $135; Member: $115; Student: $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Place can be a tool for connection, history, freedom, discovery, and even tension. But how do we capture a setting with nuance so that a reader gains understanding and clarity of the world the story/poem lives in?
In this three-hour generative workshop, participants will examine passages that use strong sensory details to bring the texture, mood, geographic and/or aesthetic quirks of a place to life. We will then practice various approaches for generating descriptive language and apply it to our own work.
Don’t miss this chance to spend a morning with one of the most intriguing literary voices of our time, who is a ground-breaking author in the world of eco-writing! Walk away with several starts to new pieces of work evoking a sense of place in thought-provoking, nuanced ways.
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+. Students are encouraged to bring their favorite writing materials.
Students will leave this class with:

An understanding of how setting can be used in creative writing
Approaches to generating different kinds of sensory language
The ability to use sensory details to evoke place
Beginnings of several new pieces of work

Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan UP, 2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. She is also the author of the essay collections Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History (W.W. Norton, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Dungy has also edited anthologies including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry and From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, her honors include NEA Fellowships in poetry (2003) and prose (2018), an American Book Award, two NAACP Image Award nominations, and two Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominations. Dungy’s poems have been published in Best American Poetry, The 100 Best African American Poems, the Pushcart Anthology, Best American Travel Writing, and over thirty other anthologies. She is University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.

The Place of Poetry: An Evening on Eco-Writing with Jenny Browne and Camille T. Dungy
2023-10-19 19:00 - 21:30 | Trinity University, 1 Trinity Pl, San Antonio, Texas, 78212
Join us for a FREE reading at Trinity University!
October 19, 2023, 7-8:30pm
Trinity University, Margarite B. Parker Chapel, Free and Open to the Public
Directions to the Margarite B. Parker Chapel at Trinity
Join us on Thursday, October 19th, for an evening with Gemini Ink 2023 Recipient of the Award for Literary Excellence Jenny Browne, and award-winning poet, essayist, and editor Camille T. Dungy. These two contemporary poets at the top of their craft will discuss how their place-based writing addresses the increasingly complicated relationships humans have to the environment, whether manmade or wild.
This discussion will examine the role of the literary arts in addressing an ever-changing environment. How do we use writing to bring attention to our planet’s ecological crisis while exploring the intricate connection between humans and nature? How do we deepen our relationship to the earth and celebrate the wonder of the natural world? Don’t miss an opportunity to spend time with two thought-provoking literary voices!
The evening will include an audience Q&A and a book signing and reception following the author talk. The event takes place in the Margarite B. Parker Chapel at Trinity University.
This event is co-sponsored by Trinity University’s Humanities Collective.

Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan UP, 2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. She is also the author of the essay collections Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History (W.W. Norton, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Dungy has also edited anthologies including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry and From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, her honors include NEA Fellowships in poetry (2003) and prose (2018), an American Book Award, two NAACP Image Award nominations, and two Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominations. Dungy’s poems have been published in Best American Poetry, The 100 Best African American Poems, the Pushcart Anthology, Best American Travel Writing, and over thirty other anthologies. She is University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.
Jenny Browne is the author of four collections: Fellow Travelers: New and Selected Poems (2019), Dear Stranger (2014), The Second Reason (2007), and At Once (2003). She earned her MFA from the James Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas in Austin. She served concurrent terms as City of San Antonio Poet Laureate (2016-18) and Poet Laureate of the State of Texas (2018) and in 2020 was Distinguished Fulbright Scholar in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and the Cecil Hemley Award from the Poetry Society of America. In the introduction to Browne’s New and Selected Poems, Naomi Shihab Nye praised Browne’s vivid depictions of place and the strangeness of both life and language, “Her exuberant poems, rich with definite cadences, deep curiosities, and multi-layered textures, voices, and personalities, feel like wake-up calls. As if they say, Here is this life I find myself in, which fascinates and confounds me. Have we paid enough attention lately?” Browne teaches at Trinity University in San Antonio.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Katie Gutierrez
2023-10-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Wednesday, October 18th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Katie Gutierrez’s novel, More Than You’ll Ever Know, moderated by May Cobb.
Katie Gutierrez is the author of the national bestselling, Edgar Award-nominated debut novel More Than You’ll Ever Know, which was also a Good Morning America Book Club selection. She is a National Magazine Award finalist whose essays and features have appeared in TIME, Texas Highways, Harper’s Bazaar, and more, and acknowledged in Best American Magazine Writing and Best American Essays. She has an MFA from Texas State University and lives with her husband and two kids in San Antonio, Texas.
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About More Than You’ll Ever Know:
“Masterful . . . Elegance, darkness, even fear are deftly intertwined . . . A wonderful read.” — LUIS ALBERTO URREA, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels
Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Los Angeles Times• Washington Post• Parade • Good Housekeeping • NBC News • Today.com • Goodreads • Audible • The Millions • Popsugar • Tribeza • CrimeReads • Library Reads • She Reads • and more!
The dance becomes an affair, which becomes a marriage, which becomes a murder…
In 1985, Lore Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo, Texas, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international banker, Lore splits her time between two countries and two families—until the truth is revealed and one husband is arrested for murdering the other.
In 2017, while trawling the internet for the latest, most sensational news reports, struggling true-crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article detailing that tragic final act. Cassie is immediately enticed by what is not explored: Why would a woman—a mother—risk everything for a secret double marriage? Cassie sees an opportunity—she’ll track Lore down and capture the full picture, the choices, the deceptions that led to disaster. But the more time she spends with Lore, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself. Soon, her determination to uncover the truth could threaten to derail Lore’s now quiet life—and expose the many secrets both women are hiding.
Told through alternating timelines, More Than You’ll Ever Know is both a gripping mystery and a wrenching family drama. Presenting a window into the hearts of two very different women, it explores the many conflicting demands of marriage and motherhood, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone—especially those we love.

Illness as Story: Healing through Writing and Community with Suzanne Ohlmann
2023-10-07 10:00 - 12:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Sat, Oct 7, 14, 21, 28 & Nov 4, 11, 10am-12pm CST, Hybrid (online via Zoom and in-person)
Instructor: Suzanne Ohlmann
Nonmember: $155; Member: $135; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Do you carry the story of illness in your body?
No matter the diagnosis or disease, illness leaves a mark on the mind, body, and soul. Even caregivers or clinicians carry the story of how they’ve helped others navigate disease. Sometimes the first step toward health and healing can be sitting with the truth of how illness affects you.
In this six-week course, participants will study the therapeutic storytelling model of the Six-Part Story (6PSM), explore writing about their experiences with disease from different points of view, and practice combining facts and fiction to create a new version of their healing journey.
By creating a safe space for reflection, this workshop hopes to provide a path toward repair, healing, and empowerment. All students will write and polish a final essay for potential publishing. On the last day of class, students will share their stories with each other.
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+.
Students will leave this course with:

A polished essay in both first and third person
An understanding of how the Six-Part Story Method (6PSM) can be used to write about illness
Greater confidence in sharing personal stories

Suzanne Ohlmann is a writer, nurse, and musician. Her first book, Shadow Migration: Mapping A Life (University of Nebraska Press), was released in March 2022. She teaches storytelling as a means to navigate illness and the human condition. Her essays have been published by Texas Monthly, Intima: The Journal of Narrative Medicine, and Longreads. She lives in San Antonio with her husband, son, and a chorus of adopted pets.

Breaking Through: A Conversation on Pathways to Publication for Latinx Writers
2023-10-06 18:30 - 20:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Free and open to the public
Join Gemini Ink on Friday, October 6th, to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month 2023 with a timely and intimate literary discussion about current publishing trends and Latinx representation in books.
This event features Latinx authors and publishers and provides a space to discuss how to break barriers and create pathways toward publication in a literary landscape where Latinx writers account for only 7% of published authors. Our guests will talk about how they navigated the publishing industry and illuminate how Latinx writers can forge a path toward sharing their own stories.

Moderator:
Norma Elia Cantú recently served as the President of the American Folklore Society (2020-2022) and holds the Murchison Professorship of the Humanities at Trinity University. Her research and creative writing have earned her an international reputation. Her most recent publications include the co-edited anthologies: Teaching Gloria Anzaldúa: Pedagogies and Practices for our Classrooms and Communities and meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction; the novel, Cabañuelas, and a poetry collection: Meditacion Fronteriza: Poems of Love, Life, and Labor. She has two forthcoming publications, Fiestas in Laredo: Matachines, Quinceañeras, and George Washington’s Birthday Celebration &; The Folklorico Dance Tradition in US Latinx Communities. She is at work on a collection of poems tentatively titled Remedios.
Panelists:
Cloud Delfina Cardona is a poet and visual artist from San Anto, Tejas. Cardona is the author of What Remains, winner of the 2020 Host Publications Chapbook Prize. She is the co-founder of Infrarrealista Review, a literary nonprofit dedicated to publishing Texan writers. Cardona’s poems can be found in Prairie Schooner, Los Angeles Review, The Boiler, Tinderbox, and more.
Eddie Vega (the Taco-Poet of Texas) is a poet, storyteller, educator, and Macondista. He is the author of Chicharra Chorus (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and recipient of the literary arts grant from the Luminaria Artist Foundation (2021). Last summer, he was named best local poet by the San Antonio Current and won two major head-to-head haiku contests. Most recently, he’s published a collection of poems written by South Texans entitled, Asina is How We Talk. Vega hosts The Mouth Dakota Poetry Project, a biweekly open mic in San Antonio, TX.
Katie Gutierrez is the author of the national bestselling, Edgar Award-nominated debut novel MORE THAN YOU’LL EVER KNOW, which was also a Good Morning America Book Club selection. She is a National Magazine Award finalist whose essays and features have appeared in TIME, Texas Highways, Harper’s Bazaar, and more, and acknowledged in Best American Magazine Writing and Best American Essays. She has an MFA from Texas State University and lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband and their two kids.

Memory & Image: A Micro Memoir Workshop with Poet Joni Wallace
2023-10-02 18:30 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Mondays Oct 2, 9, 16 & 23, 6:30-8:30pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Joni Wallace
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Small, disconnected, and incomplete–this is how personal memories often come to us. But how do we take these moments and turn them into something meaningful? In micro memoir, a nonfiction piece is told in 200 words or less and is a perfect way to capture these tiny stories.
In this generative four-week class, we’ll explore micro memoir and how adding a visual component can add depth to personal stories. Beth Ann Fennelly, Bianca Stone, Karen Brennan, and Octavio Quintanilla are just some writers whose work we will study. After discussing these works, we will delve into our own memories, learn to identify powerful moments and explore them through micro memoir and simple visual art exercises.
The final class project will be a short, linked series of personal stories with visual elements. Students are encouraged to bring and use any art supplies they have around the house.
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+.
Students will leave this class with:

A short series of micro-memoir accompanied by visual elements
New critical reading techniques
Resources for submitting written work

Joni Wallace is the author of three books of poetry and a chapbook: LANDSCAPE WITH MISSING RIVER, Barrow Street Press, 2023; Kingdom Come Radio Show, Barrow Street Press, 2016; To the Lighthouse Award; Blinking Ephemeral Valentine, Four Way Books, 2011, winner of the Levis Prize (selected by Mary Jo Bang); Redshift (chapbook)(Kore Press, 2001). Her work has been featured by the Poetry Society of America and appears in journals such as Boston Review, Conduit, Connotations Press, Gulf Coast, and more. She explores micro memoir through her poetry, and her sound and video work appears on textsound.org and in The Drunken Boat.

Cosmic Memory Map with Anel I. Flores
2023-09-30 10:00 - 14:00 | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Saturday, Sep 30, from 10am-2pm CST (with 1-hour lunch), in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: Anel I. Flores
Nonmember: $125; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

Welcome to the Cosmic Memory Map Workshop, a transformative journey into the depths of your “autohisteorías,” Led by Xicane, Queer, Trans author and artist Anel I. Flores. We invite you to embark on a day of self-discovery, empowerment, and creative expression collectively.
In this immersive workshop, we will explore the intersection of memory and the cosmos, delving into the cosmic tapestry that shapes our individual narratives. Drawing inspiration from real-life experiences, we will learn techniques to extract the essence of our stories, weaving them into vibrant tapestries of imagination and emotion.
Through guided writing exercises, group discussions, and reflective meditations, we will navigate the cosmic landscape of our memories, unearthing hidden gems and untold tales. Together, we will celebrate the power of diverse voices, honoring the richness of our cultural heritage and the complexities of our identities.
No matter your writing background or level of experience, this workshop is a safe and inclusive space for all two-spirit, trans, queer, LGBTQIA+ individuals.
In this workshop, participants will:

Leave with a fresh perspective on memory
Generate at least 20 new story ideas
Draft the beginnings of 1 to 2 new stories
Connect with like-minded writers

Anel I. Flores is a trans-, queer Latina/x writer, artist, activist, entrepreneur, and coach, whose extensive body of work captures the essence of LGBTQIA+ experiences across professional and community spaces. Their areas of expertise encompass various themes such as Latina/x literature, sexuality, gender, race/border/diaspora, spirituality, self-discovery, and radical love.
They hold an MFA in Creative Writing, having penned notable works like the chapbook La Fea and Lambda literary award-nominated book, Empanada: A Lesbiana Story en Probaditas. Their upcoming novel, Cortinas de Lluvia, set to be released in 2024, along with Empanada’s 2nd Ed., doubled with its Spanish translation. Anel’s literary contributions can be found in esteemed publications such as Switchgrass Review, Camino Real, the Fifth Wednesday Journal, RiverSEdge, Entre Guadalupe y Malinche, Rooted: Queer Women of Color Anthology, and others. Furthermore, Flores is the founder of LezRideSA, Queer Voices Speak Out, and La Otra Taller Nepantla Residency.

In the Age of Social Media: A Literary Video Lab with Joyous Windrider Jimenez
2023-09-21 18:30 - 20:30 | TX
Thursdays, Sep 21, 28 & Oct 5, 12, 19, 26, 6:30-8:30pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: Joyous Windrider Jimenez
Nonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75
*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

In the age of TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts, how can you present your writing in a way that’s on trend and easily consumable? Would you like to use your digital platform to showcase your work in a new way and expand your audience?
In this 6-week course, we will use simple, open-genre writing prompts to generate short poems and/or impactful prose. We will polish our short pieces and explore gathering images that will visually accentuate our words. We will then create short literary videos that include an audio recording of the work, captions, and either moving or still images. Our entire project will be built and edited using a FREE video editing app available for phones and laptops!
This course is open to writers of all genres and skill levels, 18+. Students are welcome to bring in previously written work or images they want to transform.
In this course, students will leave with:

At least one drafted 1-minute poetry/prose video.
Several short written pieces that can be used for future videos.
Tools and knowledge to continue the Literary Video process independently.
An additional way to connect audiences to your writing that isn’t publication or a public reading.

Joyous Windrider Jiménez is an improv & performance poet, teatrista, mixed-media visual artist and video creator who blends performance and visual elements. During the pandemic, she directed and edited a video adaptation of an original operetta for the Jump-Start Performance Co’s INKubator series, and had her time-lapse video poem Quarantine is a Dragon screened at the Roxie Theater’s 2020 virtual summer film festival, Mixtape-In-Place. She also moved into video lessons for children in quarantine for the San Antonio Museum of Art, Gemini Ink, and SAISD. In 2022 and 2023 her video poetry was streamed for Urban 15’s annual global poetry streaming event, MegaCorazon.

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.

Luminescence and Grit: An Evening with Gemini Ink Teaching Artists, followed by a Community Open Mic
2023-09-21 18:30 - 20:00 | Poetic Republic Coffee Co., 2330 S. Presa St, San Antonio, Texas, United States
Join Gemini Ink on Thursday, September 21st, for a night of poetry, prose, and performance as we celebrate the personal artistry of our Gemini Ink Partner Class teaching artists. Every day these instructors bring their passion for the writing arts to community spaces and inspire students of all ages. Tonight we hear their stories!
Our featured writers will include theater artist and playwright Marisela Barrera, accomplished poet and educator Jim LaVilla-Havelin, award-winning fiction writer Desiree Kannel, and local poet and member of the Wyrdd Writers collective Annie Snider.
Following the featured reading, we will host a community open mic. Bring your poems, stories, and thoughts to share (there will be a 3-minute limit for each reader). Open mic sign-up in person, starting at 6pm.
