Gemini Ink

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

Teen Writing Circle with Daniel Ramirez
2025-12-27 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-01-31 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-02-28 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-03-28 12:00 - 13:30, 2026-04-25 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
Register
Last Saturday of Every Month 12-1:30pm cst via Zoom
For ages 13-19 years old
Are you a teen who enjoys writing in their free time? Or are you someone who’s never had the chance to write on their own? If so, this Online Teen Writing Circle is for you!
In this once-a-month writing circle, teens will enjoy writing in a judgment free zone. We’ll break the ice with one another and perform various writing exercises. You are encouraged to share your work with your peers and get constructive feedback, but it is not required. Our only goal is to keep you writing!
This course is open to teen writers of any skill level.
Participants will leave the writing circle with:

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

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

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

Open Writer's Labs
2025-12-29 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-01-26 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-02-23 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-03-30 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-04-27 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Online via Zoom
These peer-driven workshops, held the last Monday of each month, are free and open to writers of all levels and focus on poetry, flash fiction, and short creative non-fiction.

Online Via Zoom
For the online workshop, sign up the day before the class to ensure you receive the Zoom link.
This workshop is facilitated by Kevin Ramos. Originally from the northeast, Kevin studied theater arts at Rutgers University and The University of Washington. He’s lived all over the country before making his home in San Antonio, Texas. Kevin has written several novels and short stories. Most recently, publishing a short memoir called Enough about addiction, mothers, and missing graves. And a novel, Hayley’s Sense of Fire (DLG Publishing Partners), a modern re-telling of the classic fairy tale, The Little Matchgirl.

In-Person at Gemini Ink

Join our in-person Open Writer’s Lab with Robert Allen at Gemini Ink’s office, 1111 Navarro St., San Antonio, TX 78205.
Robert Allen has worked as a librarian and an electrical contractor for most of his life. Many moons ago, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied poetry under David Wevill. Allen has been active in local writer’s groups and open mics, including the Sun Poets Society. He’s been published in The Ocotillo Review, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Voices de la Luna, di-verse-city, the San Antonio Express-News, and Poetry on the Move. In 2006, he started attending Gemini Ink’s free Monday night writing classes and has attended regularly ever since. With more than a decade of attending writers’ groups, classes, and open mics, he now co-facilitates Gemini Ink’s Open Writer’s Lab.
Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.

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

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

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andrew Porter is the author of four books, including the story collections The Disappeared (Knopf) and The Theory of Light and Matter (Vintage) and the novels In Between Days (Knopf) and The Imagined Life (Knopf, 2025). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, One Story, Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, and on Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

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

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

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

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Lauren D. Woods
2026-03-18 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Join us on Wednesday, March 18th, 2026, via Zoom for a conversation with Lauren D. Woods, to discuss her new book, The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe (Autumn House Press).

(Virtual Readings Quarterly @ 7pm CST)

RSVP

Winner of the 2024 Autumn House Fiction Prize, these lyrical, haunting stories invite us to question the stories we tell ourselves and to imagine other paths—joyful, whimsical, even absurd—through the world.
A wife finds herself literally shrinking in her house, day by day; a mother recalls the surreal day when her infant daughter survives a close encounter with a bear; and, inside her lover’s heart, a woman discovers a secret nightclub populated by all the women he’s loved and left.
In the worlds Woods conjures, childhood memories ripple through adult lives, and characters test the limits of their self-created realities. The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe urges us to contemplate how we can escape loneliness and heartbreak and live on our own terms.

About the Author

Lauren D. Woods, originally from the Dallas area, now lives and writes in Washington, DC, where she was a 2024-25 Washington, DC Arts and Humanities Fellow for Fiction. Her writing has appeared as a spotlighted story in The Best Small Fictions, as well as in The Antioch Review, The Normal School, Passages North, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Red Rock Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Lunch Ticket, among others. Lauren works in consulting and lives with her husband, four children, two cats, and a guinea pig. The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe is her debut collection.

About the Moderator

Michael Don is the author of the story collection Partners and Strangers, a finalist for the 2019 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award in short fiction. His stories and essays have appeared in journals such as The Southampton Review, World Literature Today, Puerto Del Sol, The Baltimore Review, Passages North, Southern Humanities Review, and Washington Square Review. He is a professor at George Mason University, co-editor of Kikwetu: A Journal of East African Literature, and co-organizer of the Fox City Lit reading series.

Old Drafts, New Writing: Turning Text into Graphic Literature with Octavio Quintanilla
2026-03-23 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Literary Masters Lecture Series
Have a draft you don’t know what to do with? Learn how to transform it into graphic storytelling.
Monday(s), March 23 & 30, 6:30-8pm CT, via Zoom
Nonmember: $90; Member: $75; Student/Educ/Mil: $63

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

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

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

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

Learn how to transform your old writing into graphic literature! In this two-part lecture, led by 2025 Texas Poet Octavio Quintanilla, we will explore how writers can use new and existing work to create graphic literature—a form that merges text with visual storytelling to evoke powerful, multidimensional narratives. Each session features an engaging craft talk, actionable writing strategies, and a live Q&A with the author.
Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and an award-winning poet and visual artist exploring the intersection of text and image. Learn from one of Texas’s leading literary voices.

Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and the author of the poetry collections, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets. He’s the founder and director of the literature & arts festival VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio.

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

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

Are you a writer searching for a new perspective? Persona poems–written in another person’s voice or from their point of view–offer a way to slip into someone else’s skin, converse with those who have passed, or see the world through another’s eyes.
In this one-day generative workshop, participants will learn about persona, call-and-response dialogue, epistolary techniques, and how to apply these to our own writing. We’ll then create our own narrative poems that shift perspective, get into someone else’s head, and/or engage with ancestors, historical figures, etc. Students will be invited to share work and receive feedback.
Participants are encouraged to bring their lunch. This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels 16+.
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

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

Read Leticia’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday(s), April 28 & May 5, 12, 19, 26, 6:30-8:30pm CT, via Zoom
Nonmember: $250; Member: $215; Student/Educ/Mil: $175
*EARN CPEs; TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Film has the power to evoke striking images, capture history, and transport us to alternate realities. Poetry does the same. But what happens when poets borrow elements from film?
Over five-weeks, we will explore the intersections between cinema and poetry, and imagine the poet as director, cinematographer, actor, screenwriter, stage designer, documentarian, and editor–all at once. Through an eclectic mix of poems, essays, and screenplay excerpts, we’ll uncover how poetry and film share the key elements of discovery, the transformative tools of language and image, and the uniting of the speaker’s inner and outer worlds. This class will strengthen your writing skills, help you to see your work with new eyes, and deepen your revision process.
This intermediate-level workshop is for poets 18+
Workshop participants will leave with the following:

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

Former 12-year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, Elena Karina Byrne worked as a Contributing Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a final judge for PEN’s “Best of the West” award, one of the final judges for the Kate and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards in Poetry from 2016-2018, and one of three 2018-2019 Georgia Circuit visiting poets. Elena also served as a co-judge for the 2022 international Laurel Prize, the annual award for the best collection of environmental poetry.
Elena Karina Byrne holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from Antioch University. She has curated programs for the GRI at the J. Paul Getty Center, MOCA, the Craft Contemporary, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, The Clark Library, and USC’s Doheny Memorial Library, among others. Currently, she is a private manuscript editor, freelance lecturer, 29-year Programming Consultant and Poetry Stage Manager for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, as well as Poetry Programs Director for the historic Ruskin Art Club. Elena Karina Byrne is a Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient, and author of five collections of poetry, including If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn), No, Don’t (What Books Press), Squander (Omnidawn), MASQUE (Tupelo Press), and The Flammable Bird (Zoo Press/Tupelo Press). Her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews can be found in POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Poetry International, Poetry Daily, Ploughshares, BOMB, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, New American Writing, Verse Daily, LARB (LA Review of Books), APR (American Poetry Review), Plume Anthologies, Oxford Review of Books, Kyoto Journal, TriQuarterly, The Yale Review, The Adroit Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Braving the Body anthology, Republic of Apples Democracy of Oranges: New Eco-Poetry from China and the United States, Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies, Poetry Goes to the Movies, The Eloquent Poem:128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making, and elsewhere.
