Everything but the Kitchen Sink: A Workshop on Writing Hybrid Essays with ire’ne lara silva
April 1, 2025 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm CST
Tuesday(s), April 1, 8 & 15, 2025, 6:30-8:30pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
(Rescheduled from May 1, 8 & 15)
Nonmember $150 Member $ 125 Student $90
*EARN CPE’S
TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE
Are you a fan of essay writing who is bored to tears with the standard five-paragraph essays taught in school? Want to learn a new approach to essay writing that is fresh and fun? A hybrid essay crosses the boundaries of genre and can include elements of visual art, photography, found items and is pulled together by your voice.
In this three-week workshop, we will liberate our minds and recover from the trauma of the “school-essay” mentality by creating hybrid essays that engage the reader, reflect our realities, and push the limits of what an essay can be. Bring any projects or ideas you’re working on–memoirs, family histories, love letters, journals, or thoughts you want to share about life, art, history, spirit, geography, the world!
This course is open to writers of all genres, backgrounds, and skill levels, 18+.
Students will leave this workshop with:
- A fresh approach to gathering source material for essays
- A first draft of one or more hybrid essays
ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers; two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos; a comic book, VENDAVAL; 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 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. Her second short story collection, the light of your body, will be published by Arte Publico Press in Spring 2025. http://www.irenelarasilva.wordpress.com
Social media links: Facebook: www.facebook.com/irenelarasilva, Instagram: @silvairenelara
