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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Gemini Ink
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DTSTART:20240407T080000
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240806T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240806T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T081451
CREATED:20240523T013003Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240724T190925Z
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SUMMARY:Raising the Stakes: Fictionalizing Your Stories for the Stage with Amalia Ortiz
DESCRIPTION:Tuesdays\, August 6\, 13\, 20 & 27\, 6:30-8:30pm CST\, Hybrid (in-person at Gemini Ink and online via Zoom)\nInstructor: Amalia Ortiz\nNonmember: $145; Member: $125; Student/Educator/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\n \n  \nEvery day all around us we encounter interesting characters\, compelling scenarios\, and memorable conversations. Whether it’s in line at the grocery store\, on the city bus\, or walking down the street\, the real world is full of potential stories–you just need to stop and listen. \nIn this four-week class\, we will observe the world around us and collect snippets of real-world dialogue. Students will review dramatic structure and use collected material to develop characters in fictionalized\, high-stakes situations through monologues and scenes. The class will culminate in a dramatic reading of works-in-progress. We will follow the reading with an introduction to Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process\, an affirming and interactive feedback strategy that will help a writer grow in their craft.  \nThis class is open to writers of all skill levels 18+. \nBy the end of the class students will have:  \n\nTwo monologues and one scene drafted \nAn understanding of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process\nCritical feedback to take your written work to the next level\n\nRead Amalia’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!\n\nAmalia Ortiz appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. She was awarded the 2020 American Book Award for Oral Literature from the Before Columbus Foundation for The Canción Cannibal Cabaret (Aztlan Libre Press\, 2019). NBC Latino listed her book\, Rant. Chant. Chisme. among “10 Great Latino Books of 2015.” She won an Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Grant\, a residency at the National Hispanic Cultural Center\, the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Poetry Discovery Prize\, and the 2018 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant to film videos for her latest book\, The Canción Cannibal Cabaret. Amalia received a BA in Theatre from UIW and an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She is the Director of Theatre at SAY Sí\, a year-round afterschool arts program where she facilitates the creation of original theatre productions written by middle and high school students.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/raising-the-stakes/
LOCATION:Texas
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/8.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240810T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240810T143000
DTSTAMP:20260404T081451
CREATED:20240523T005424Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240805T170618Z
UID:10073-1723284000-1723300200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:World on Fire: Writing About Crisis and Hope in the Natural World with Sasha West
DESCRIPTION:Saturday\, August 10\, 10am-2:30pm CST (includes a 30-minute lunch)\, in person at Gemini Ink\nInstructor: Sasha West\nNonmember: $130; Member: $110; Student/Educator/Mil $75 \nClass Postponed\nBurning forests. Drought. Melting ice caps. Islands of plastic waste. With mounting natural disasters\, our anxiety about the environment is increasing. So how do we process these feelings and use writing to spark conversation about this very pressing topic?  \nIn this one-day generative workshop\, we will use poetry as a self-reflective tool to explore the multitude of feelings we have about the current state of nature.  We can identify and voice how the climate crisis affects us while also exploring the idea that something better is possible.  \nIn this eco-poetry workshop\, we will practice paying attention\, seeing connections\, and embracing contradictions in nature. We will study poets writing about the environment in celebration\, mourning\, and resistance. These explorations will be used to fuel our imagination. Poems will be written in class and generative exercises will be provided so you can continue to reflect and write about your relationship to nature.  \nOpen to writers of all skill levels. \nBy the end of the class students will have:  \n\nThe first draft of a poem\nGenerative exercise to fuel your writing after class\nResources for sharing eco-poetry\n\n\nSasha West is the author of Failure and I Bury the Body\, which was awarded the National Poetry Series\, a Texas Institute of Letters First Book of Poetry Award\, and a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship. Her second book\, How to Abandon Ship\, was published in 2024 by Four Way Books. Her multimedia eco-arts exhibits with visual artist Hollis Hammonds have been exhibited at the Columbus College of Art and Design\, Texas A&M\, ArtPrize 2023 Michigan\, and elsewhere. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward’s University\, where she founded and runs the Environmental Humanities program.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/writing-about-crisis/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/6-1.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240815T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240815T200000
DTSTAMP:20260404T081451
CREATED:20240708T193246Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240814T213427Z
UID:10356-1723746600-1723752000@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Gemini Ink Teaching Artists &  Community Open Mic
DESCRIPTION:Don’t miss our FREE Teaching Artists Reading & Community Open Mic on Thursday! Want to share your work or just listen to some amazing performances? Join Gemini Ink on Thursday\, August 15th\, for a night of poetry\, prose\, and performance as we celebrate the talent of our Gemini Ink Partner Class teaching artists. An open mic follows. Come early to sign up! ???? \nEnjoy a beverage and connect with fellow writers! Wine\, coffee\, and other refreshments will be available for purchase from Poetic Republic Cafe. We look forward to seeing you! \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/teaching-artists-reading-open-mic/
LOCATION:Poetic Republic Coffee Co.\, 2330 S. Presa St\, San Antonio\, Texas\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Gemini-Ink-Teaching-Artist-Reading.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240821T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240821T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T081451
CREATED:20191105T075945Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260109T181538Z
UID:9486-1724265000-1724272200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Veterans Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
DESCRIPTION: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. \nThe VWC meets monthly online via Zoom.\nIf you would like an invitation to this class\, send an email to veteranscollective@geminiink.org\n\nSarah 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.\n \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/veterans-writing-collective-2020-07-15-2021-11-17-2023-08-16-2023-12-20/2024-08-21/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event,Online Workshop,Workshop
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ORGANIZER;CN="Sarah Colby":MAILTO:veteranscollective@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240821T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240821T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T081451
CREATED:20240806T171835Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240819T183456Z
UID:10533-1724266800-1724272200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Sasha West
DESCRIPTION:Join us on Wednesday\, Aug 21st\, 2024 via Zoom for a conversation with poet Sasha West\, author of How to Abandon Ship\, Winner of the 2023 Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction\, Texas Institute of Letters. Moderated by Jill Meyers.\nRSVP\nAbout How to Abandon Ship\n\nIn How to Abandon Ship\, Sasha West emerges like a modern Cassandra\, one who doesn’t simply tell us of what is to come\, but one who teaches us\, “To bite. To keen. To howl.” West is an oracle whose words pop\, hiss\, and blaze. This terrific book has left me changed.  –Tomás Q. Morín \nThe poems in Sasha West’s How to Abandon Ship describe the anguish and disorientation of existing on a planet put in jeopardy by our very existence. Here we encounter a poet who has “spent a life sharpening the blade of [her]/imagination” slicing through the layered voices of greed\, complicity\, and blind faith that have left us with a world in peril and the painful task of telling our children the truth about it. Embodying the voice of a modern-day Cassandra\, West reveals a fundamental truth of our time: how a warning can be a blessing\, but only if we’re willing to receive it.—Carrie Fountain \nHow to Abandon Ship is equal parts prophetic and apocalyptic\, and Sasha West doesn’t shy away from the exigencies of the world: its floods and fires and earthquakes\, its wars and disease and mass graves\, its politics and tragedies and technology where “software reminded us / to have memories.” “I love: my country: it can break me\,” writes West\, and these powerful poems limn the urgency of our present moment\, as well as the tenderness and terror of new motherhood when the speaker becomes “permeable to the world.” How to Abandon Ship is a haunting book of grief and warning\, but also one of caregiving and survival. West’s poems ultimately offer a blueprint for meeting disaster head-on—with fierce love\, acts of service\, and the power of imagination. – Erika Meitner \n\nABOUT SASHA WEST\n \n\nSasha West was born and raised in Santa Fe\, New Mexico. Her first book\, Failure and I Bury the Body\, won the National Poetry Series and the Texas Institute of Letters First Book of Poetry Award. It was also selected as one of ten debut books by Victoria Chang for Poets & Writers. Her second book\, How to Abandon Ship\, was published by Four Way Books in March 2024. \nShe collaborates on multi-media\, eco-arts exhibitions with visual artist Hollis Hammonds as the collaborative Hammonds + West. Their collaborations have been featured at Texas A&M University’s Wright Gallery\, the Austin Public Library Central Gallery space\, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts\, the College of the Mainland\, ArtPrize2023 in Michigan\, and the Columbus College of Art and Design. Upcoming shows include Houston’s Art League and The Grace Museum in Abilene\, TX. \nHer work has been collected in the anthologies The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood\,Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency\, Still Life with Poem: 100 Natures Mortes in Verse\, Penned: Zoo Poems\, and others. Individual poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review\, Kenyon Review Online\, Ecotone\, The Georgia Review\, Agni\, American Poet\, Ninth Letter\, and elsewhere. \nHer awards include a Fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference\, a Houston Arts Alliance grant\, Pushcart nominations\, and Inprint’s Verlaine Prize. She has served as lead editor for and\, later\, board president of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. \nShe is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward’s University\, where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award and the Hudspeth Innovative Teaching Award. She lives in Austin\, TX\, with her husband and kid. \n\nABOUT JILL MEYERS \nJill Meyers is the editorial director of A Strange Object\, the Austin-based imprint of independent publisher Deep Vellum. Her acclaimed writers have received numerous awards and honors\, including the Whiting Award\, The Believer Book Award\, and the Discovery Award from the Writers’ League of Texas. Titles from A Strange Object have appeared on NPR’s Best Books of the Year list and have been selected as best debuts from Poets and Writers. Formerly\, Jill served as editor for the celebrated literary magazine American Short Fiction and worked on staff at Texas Monthly. Jill is the cofounder of Lit Crawl Austin\, a freewheeling literary showcase\, and she serves on the advisory board for the Texas Book Festival.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-sasha-west/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/TBTAT-Sasha-West.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240826T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240826T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T081451
CREATED:20191105T141203Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250212T145414Z
UID:9499-1724697000-1724704200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Open Writer's Labs
DESCRIPTION: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.\n \n  \n\n\nOnline Via Zoom\nFor the online workshop\, sign up the day before the class to ensure you receive the Zoom link. \nThis 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. \n\nIn-Person at Gemini Ink\n \nJoin our in-person Open Writer’s Lab with Robert Allen at Gemini Ink’s office\, 1111 Navarro St.\, San Antonio\, TX 78205. \nRobert 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. \nParking at Gemini Ink\nGemini 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.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/open-writers-lab-2-2020-08-31-2020-09-28-2021-06-28-2022-05-30-2022-06-27-2022-07-25-2023-03-27-2023-12-25/2024-08-26/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Open-Writers-Labs-1250-x-600-px-1.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
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