Writing in the Land with Emmy Pérez

Literary Masters Lecture Series

Thursday(s), November 13 & 20, 6:30–8pm CT, online via Zoom
Nonmember $90; Member $75; Student?Educ/Mil $63

*EARN CPEs

TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Have you been seeking a more intentional connection to nature? Writing about the land is an intimate way to slow down and reconnect to earth with purpose. Join us for the last Literary Masters Lecture of the year! Each session features an engaging craft talk, actionable writing strategies, and a live Q&A with the author.

In this two-part lecture, led by 2020 Texas Poet Laureate Emmy Pérez,  we will discuss poems, songs, and prose that center the land and our connections to places and the environment. We will use these discussions and short writing activities to examine nature through a creative lens, explore attention to detail, integrate historical and cultural contexts, and encourage an eco-justice approach to the writing. We will leave the lecture with our own research plans to explore a place of personal interest.

This lecture is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.

In this lecture students will:

• Discuss poems and short prose pieces
• Start drafting a poem or short prose piece 
• Develop a research plan to include online and in-person exploration of a land or a waterway of interest

Emmy Pérez, Texas Poet Laureate 2020, is the author of Solstice, With the River on Our Face, and the forthcoming Boxes with Zero Tolerance, and Paper america: New and Selected Poems. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, United States Artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, and CantoMundo. A member of the Macondo Writers Workshop since 2008, she is a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she also serves as chair of the Department of Creative Writing.