March 2020
Laureates for the Pueblo on a River
In 2012, San Antonio became the first major city in Texas to establish a poet laureate program. This panel and reading will convene four award-winning San Antonio poets laureate to discuss the unique platform the laureateship offered them for impactful community outreach, their goals as poet laureate, the challenges and breakthroughs they experienced in engaging poetry in public spaces, and their continued literary activism in the community after their term. Each poet will also read one poem.
Find out more »Building Believable Worlds in Fiction – Online Intensive Workshop with David Samuel Levinson
As writers, we create a story’s world by playing with and distorting reality but also by staying closely within its boundaries and following its rules. If you’re writing realistic fiction, it’s a tricky but important concept to master as the basis of every successful story. In this workshop, we'll examine the importance of creating believable and immersive worlds that hook readers from the start and keep them coming back for more.
Find out more »April 2020
The Voice You Find May Be Your Own: Finding Your Voice in the Personal Essay with Cary Clack
Each of us has a literary DNA, the writing voice which is distinctly our own. The personal essay may be the best form to discover that voice. This workshop is designed for those who don’t think of themselves as writers and who know that they are. Readings and writing exercises will help them find those voices which we all need to hear.
Find out more »A Map of the World – Online Intensive Workshop with Sheila Black
In this generative online workshop, we'll use maps and lists to locate and explore significant spaces in our lives and generate poems that touch on keystone experiences, buried fears, significant memories, and create space for growth. We'll look at how other writers have used the process of mapping to locate and trace their place in the world and create memorable works of personal experience and imagination.
Find out more »The Encouraging Effects of Revision with Aaron Deutsch
The best poems give off a sense of effortlessness, but we know that great poetry takes time and revision. This workshop covers specific strategies for revising at the level of word, line, and whole poem. Work by Ocean Vuong, Anne Sexton, and others will illustrate enjambment, concrete images, and other elements that make poetry sing. Participants will generate new work but should bring drafts of three different poems to practice some of these strategies.
Find out more »May 2020
Literary Conversations with Dr Bonnie Lyons
No subject is more central to the current political and moral climate of this country, and to Texas in particular, than immigration. Why immigrants come, what they face, and how they fare here are issues explored in many recent novels. In this class, we will discuss three examples that depict immigration to the USA from China, India, and Haiti. Each discussion-based class will explore one novel, including some lecture, but mostly focus on the conversation.
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