The Veteran’s Writing Collective 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.
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.
In this workshop, we will explore the idea of our own unique heritage as a museum of poetic artifacts, reflect on spoken word pieces, and generate writing. In the discussion portion, we will explore the concrete and intangible elements of culture, any logical or illogical fears these may evoke, and the impact of that. We will study how “Hairitage,” “Fear,” and Nina Simone’s “Four Women” depict culture and use literary devices to create memorable pieces. We will use all of our explorations of culture and fear to create new poems that use some of the literary techniques covered.
Wednesday, November 15th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST Up Next: Carmen Tafolla’s children’s book, Warrior...
Join New Jersey-based playwright Mikaela Simon in this two-session course which will cover the fundamentals of writing a play. Workshop participants will learn how playwriting differs from other genres, what “show don’t tell” means when writing for the stage, and how to use it to create dynamic storytelling on stage. This course will cover structure, format, dialogue, monologues, characters, dramatic action, and theatricality. Participants will explore these elements and use them to create their own short plays and/or scenes.
Wednesday, October 18th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST Up Next: Katie Gutierrez's novel, More...
In this generative four-week class, we’ll explore micro memoir and how adding a visual component can add depth to personal stories. Beth Ann Fennelly, Bianca Stone, Karen Brennan, and Octavio Quintanilla are just some writers whose work we will study. After discussing these works, we will delve into our own memories, learn to identify powerful moments and explore them through micro memoir and simple visual art exercises.
The Veteran’s Writing Collective 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.
Are you ready to take the leap from writing hobbyist to professional writer? If so, gain the tools every professional writer needs to make it in a competitive field. This intensive hands-on workshop will provide you with the career savvy you need to stand out from the crowd of writers who, though they may be talented, lack the marketplace acumen they need to boost their opportunities from good to great.
How do we tell the story of a traumatic event or its aftermath? What if, after the event, we were silenced by others or just by our own inability to put the experience into words? In this generative course, we will experiment with different approaches to narrating real or fictional trauma while keeping in mind that each traumatic experience suggests a variety of different stories and may be narrated in a variety of different ways.
How often could someone look up from reading your manuscript and say to the person across the table, “Listen to this!”?
Do you reward the reader with juicy details and interesting word choices to sink their mind into on every single page? In this spot revision class, we will examine our written work and find opportunities to expand, rephrase, and substitute words for attention-grabbing language. We will also discuss ways to make our work fresh and unpredictable and add texture. We are not focusing on small mistakes but on small ways to take our prose to the next level.
This four-week workshop with Diana Lizette Rodriguez will help participants identify the roots of their art practice through writing and multimedia exercises. By closely examining creative texts, film, photography, and performance material and reflecting on other artistic processes, participants will fully envision or rethink their own. The workshop will also explore how ancestry, family trees, landscape, and location can inform the root of artistic expression.
