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DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240604T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240604T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20240422T190205Z
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SUMMARY:No More Excuses: Submission Bootcamp with Lyzette Wanzer
DESCRIPTION:Tuesdays\, June 4\, 11\, 18\, 25  & July 2\, 9\, 2024 from 6:30-8:30pm cst via Zoom\nInstructor: Lyzette Wanzer\nNonmember: $155; Member: $135; Student/Educator/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \nClass Full\nAre you on the verge of submitting your writing for publication\, but are you too nervous or afraid to follow through? Have you submitted your work\, just for it to end up in the rejection pile? Or does submitting your work keep falling to the bottom of your to-do list? \nIn this workshop\, you’ll learn how to plan a submission strategy\, research publishing markets\, and identify the publications most aligned with your work. We will also review proper submission etiquette and protocols plus suggestions for avoiding pitfalls that mark you as an amateur before editors even read your submission. \nStudents will be strongly encouraged to actively submit short stories\, articles\, poems\, essays\, novel excerpts\, and/or creative nonfiction pieces for publication while enrolled in the workshop. \nThis course is for writers of all levels—from those who are ready to learn about the submission process to those who are in the submission trenches. \nStudents will leave this class with:  \n\nAn understanding of how the submission and publication process works\nBest practices for organizing and tracking submissions\nStrategies for getting your work accepted\n\nRead Lyzette’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!\n\nLyzette Wanzer is a San Francisco writer\, editor\, and writing workshop instructor. She received her MFA in Fiction from Mills College. A flash fiction connoisseur and essay aficionado\, her work has appeared in Natural Bridge\, The Los Angeles Review\, Callaloo\, Tampa Review\, The MacGuffin\, Ampersand Review\, Journal of Advanced Development\, Fourteen Hills\, Journal of Experimental Fiction\, Pleiades\, Flashquake\, Glossalia Flash Fiction\, Potomac Review\, International Journal on Literature and Theory\, Fringe Magazine\, and many others. She is a contributor to Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth From the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2022)\, The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012)\, Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019)\, and 642 Tiny Things to Write About (Chronicle Books 2015). Her articles have appeared in Essay Daily\, The Naked Truth\, and the San Francisco University High School Journal. Lyzette is the current judge of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition’s Intercultural Essay category and of the Women’s National Book Association’s Effie Lee Morris Writing Contest’s nonfiction category. \nLyzette has been invited to present her work and/or panels at conferences across the country\, including the American and Popular Culture Association\, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP)\, College English Association (CEA)\, Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900\, Litquake Festival\, San Francisco Writers Conference\, and others.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/submission-bootcamp/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1-1.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240515T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240515T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231204T204344Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240513T132702Z
UID:9476-1715799600-1715805000@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Glenn Blake
DESCRIPTION:A Free Monthly Online Lecture Series from WritingWorkshops.com & Gemini Ink\nWednesday\, May 15th\, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Glenn Blake\, with moderator Cliff Hudder\, discussing The Old and the Lost: Collected Stories\nRSVP\nAbout The Old and the Lost: Collected Stories\n\n\nThe most complete collection of Glenn Blake’s luminous short fiction published to date.  “I was born in a land of bayous\, raised between rivers\,” Glenn Blake writes. “There is a place in Southeast Texas where two rivers meet and become one. There is a long bridge over these waters\, and as you drive across\, you can look to the south and see where the Old River and the Lost River become the Old and the Lost. You can look out as far as you can see and watch this wide water become the bay.”  These fourteen stories are set in the swamps\, bayous\, and sloughs of Southeast Texas\, a region that is subsiding—sinking inches every year. The characters who inhabit Blake’s haunting landscape—awash in their own worlds\, adrift in their own lives—struggle to salvage what they can of their hopes and dreams from the encroaching tides. \nABOUT GLENN BLAKE \nGlenn Blake has taught in the English Department at Rice University\, the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston\, and the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins. He is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Tyler.  He is the author of Drowned Moon\, Return Fire\, and The Old and the Lost. His novel\, Degüello\, is due in December. He has edited Gulf Coast\, The Hopkins Review\, and Boulevard. He is now serving as the Director of the University of Texas Press at Tyler. In 2000\, he was elected Chair of PEN Houston. In 2020\, he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. \nABOUT CLIFF HUDDER \nCliff Hudder received an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Houston in 1995\, and a PhD in American Literature from Texas A&M University in 2018. He has been an archaeological laborer\, a film and video editor\, a photographer\, an air compressor mechanic\, an electrical lineman\, and an educator. In addition to articles on regional and American literature\, his short stories have appeared in several journals\, including Alaska Quarterly Review\, The Kenyon Review\, and The Missouri Review. His work has received the Barthelme and Michener Awards\, the Peden Prize\, the Short Story Award from the Texas Institute of Letters\, and the Ruth Vande Kieft Prize from the Eudora Welty Society. His novella\, Splinterville\, won the 2007 Texas Review Fiction Award\, and his novel\, Pretty Enough for You\, was named a top-10 Texas favorite for 2015 by the Lone Star Literary Life website. His third book\, Sallowsfield\, will be released in November by Texas Review Press. He serves as the chair of Psychology and Sociology at Lone Star College-Montgomery in Conroe\, Texas. In 2017\, Cliff was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-glenn-blake/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/TBTAT-Glenn-Blake.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Alexandra van de Kamp":MAILTO:avandekamp@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240511T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240511T120000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231207T193649Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240508T184628Z
UID:9541-1715421600-1715428800@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Wellness for Writers with Jen Knox
DESCRIPTION:Saturday\, May 11 & 18\, 10am-12pm; via Zoom\nInstructor: Jen Knox\nNonmember: $145; Member: $125; Student/Educator/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.\nClass cancelled (will be rescheduled)\nBetween writer’s block\, rejection letters\, and tough critiques\, the writing process can be an emotionally taxing experience. It’s easy for a writer to get discouraged. Many even abandon their practice completely. How do we support ourselves so we keep our creative engines burning\, tell the truth without injuring ourselves\, and manage the ups and downs of the writing life? \nIn this two-session workshop\, we will combine writing and wellness practices to help writers develop a more mindful approach to their work. We’ll use meditation to tap creativity\, explore the connection between self-compassion and craft\, and look at how to mine raw personal material in a safe but effective way. By the end of this workshop\, we’ll put these techniques into practice in order to write with momentum and heart\, then revise with craft and focus. \nThis course is open to writers of all genres\, backgrounds\, and skill level\, 18+ who write on a regular basis.  \nWhat you can expect in this workshop:  \n\nA nurturing and fun space to explore your deepest stories.\nWellness techniques for managing the ups and downs of the writing life and writing through and about difficult times.\nPractice using these tools to generate authentic raw material to create a piece of work after the workshop.\nPiece of authentic work.\n\n\nJen Knox teaches at Ohio State University and is the founder of Unleash Creatives. She combines her love of creativity with personal development and leadership in workshops she hosts around the world. Jen’s debut novel\, We Arrive Uninvited\, won the Steel Toe Books Award\, and her collection\, The Glass City\, won the Press Americana Prize. Jen’s short writing appears in over a hundred journals and magazines\, including McSweeney’s Internet Quarterly and The Saturday Evening Post. 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/wellness-for-writers-with-jen-knox/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240424T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240424T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231204T204127Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240422T213114Z
UID:9472-1713985200-1713990600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Cyrus Cassells
DESCRIPTION:A Free Monthly Online Lecture Series from WritingWorkshops.com & Gemini Ink \nWednesday\, April 24th\, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Poet Cyrus Cassells and his collection\, Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch?\nABOUT IS THERE ROOM FOR ANOTHER HORSE ON YOUR HORSE RANCH?\n \n\nRSVP\nCyrus Cassells has perfected a poetics of merciful vitality and tenderness\, celebrating eros — in his daring and prolific representation of lust\, yes\, but more broadly in his understanding of the erotic as an affirmation and preservation of life — through time and space. Beginning his latest collection with the piece “You Be the Dancer\,” he bids us return to sacred sites of nostalgia\, insisting on it “whether we’re feeling frisky\, / Empty-handed\, / Or still beguiled by inchoate dreams–.” Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch? is the apotheosis of Cassells’s work to elevate the mundane and the bodily to the exalted\, his vigorous lyrics a routine ecstasy. Though our senses lay us bare to suffering\, they also create the possibilities for pleasure and connection\, the basis of — and rewards for — humanity. “My Only Bible\,” Cassells pledges\, “is this blood-red joy / Of breathing beside you\,” “The gospel of bougainvillea / At your boyhood gate” which perfumes “the soul’s endless\, luxuriant / Coming and becoming…” Gorgeous and wry in its portrayal of transformational romance and queer selfhood\, Cassells’s ninth book of poetry reads as an anthology of love letters to people and places across the world. Cassells revises an old premise: is it better to have loved than lost\, or is that love\, once bestowed\, is never lost? A champion of the flight real intimacy requires of us\, Cassells addresses a beloved\, “You’ve just died in my arms / But suddenly it seems we’re eternal\,” the joie de vivre and bravery of his perseverance made immortal through the poem’s titular declaration — “I Believe Icarus Was not Failing as He Fell.” If in these pages you see the crash\, the poet seems to say\, remember the flying\, too\, “the giddy Argonauts we were.” \nABOUT CYRUS CASSELLS \nCyrus Cassells was the 2021 Poet Laureate of Texas. Among his honors: a 2023 Civitella-Ranieri Foundation fellowship; a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship to administer his statewide Juneteenth poetry project; a 2019 Guggenheim fellowship; the National Poetry Series; a Lambda Literary Award; two NEA grants; a Pushcart Prize; and the William Carlos Williams Award. His 2018 volume\, The Gospel according to Wild Indigo\, was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award\, the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award\, and the Balcones Poetry Prize. Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas\, translated from the Catalan\, was awarded the Texas Institute of Letters’ Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translated Book of 2018 and 2019. To The Cypress Again and Again: Tribute to Salvador Espriu\, combining translations\, poetry\, and memoir in homage to Catalan Spain’s most revered 20th century writer\, was published in 2023. Cassells was nominated for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for his film and television reviews in The Washington Spectator. He teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University\, where he received a 2021 Presidential Award for Scholarly/Creative Activities and was named a 2023 University Distinguished Professor. \nABOUT THE MODERATOR \n\n\nD E Zuccone is the author of a volume of poetry\, Vanishes\, with 3ATaos Press. He is currently completing No Provenance//Art-o-mata\, a manuscript of semi-ekphrastic poems surrounding works of art that don’t precisely exist. He has been a poetry reader in Houston\, Taos\, Los Angeles\, and a frequent\, grateful guest of Archway Gallery. He has published poetry in Ekphrastic Review\, Borderlands\, Water Stone\, International Review of Poetry\, Southern Indiana Review\, Schuylkill Review\, Hurricane Review\, Big River\, Apalachee Review\, Deep Water Literary Review\, & Garden Box. His poetry and fiction have been in anthologies from Round Top\, Taos Artists\, Words & Art\, Equinox\, Mutabilis Press\, and Big Poetry Review. He is an MFA graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts and currently has an interview podcast\, Amicus Briefs for Public Poetry. Visit dezuccone.com.\n\n\nVisit the Big Texas Author Talk page.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-cyrus-cassells/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Cassells-TBTAT-.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Alexandra van de Kamp":MAILTO:avandekamp@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240420T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240420T143000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231207T174510Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240417T174852Z
UID:9528-1713607200-1713623400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:From Description to Discovery: Personal Essays on Art with Jehanne Dubrow
DESCRIPTION:Saturday\, April 20\, 10am-2:30pm CST (with 30 min lunch)\, via Zoom\nInstructor: Jehanne Dubrow\nNonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Educator/Mil $75 \nClass Cancelled.\nEkphrasis teaches us that in standing back to study a work of fine art\, we can find a way to step back and examine ourselves as if we are the art. For many writers\, ekphrasis is a literary device that provides a visual springboard for unlocking stories you didn’t even know were inside of you. \nIn this one-day course\, participants will read examples of ekphrastic writing from across genres and go through the process of creating an ekphrastic essay. They’ll learn how to write about art using the five senses and concrete\, specific details and how to research the history of an art piece. Participants will then weave their description\, research\, and a personal experience together to generate an ekphrastic personal essay. \nStudents should come to class with an image of a piece of art that has personal meaning to them. This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level\, 18+.  \nStudents will leave this class with: \n\nA first draft of an essay that engages with a work of art\nAn understanding of how ekphrasis can be used to break through writer’s block\nConcrete strategies for blending research with personal stories\n\n\nJehanne Dubrow is the author of nine poetry collections and three books of creative nonfiction\, including most recently Exhibitions: Essays on Art & Atrocity (University of New Mexico Press\, 2023)\, and Taste: A Book of Small Bites (Columbia University Press\, 2022). Her next book of poems\, Civilians\, will be published by Louisiana State University Press in 2025. Her writing has appeared in New England Review\, POETRY\,  and The Southern Review\, among others. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Texas.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/from-description-to-discovery/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240320T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240320T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231204T203428Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T150231Z
UID:9468-1710961200-1710966600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Jason Stone
DESCRIPTION:Visit the Big Texas Author Talk page. RSVP for the link.\nWednesday\, March 20th\, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Jason Stone and his novel\, THE BEAUTY OF THE DAYS GONE BY. Moderated by Matt Walter.\nABOUT THE BEAUTY OF THE DAYS GONE BY\n\n\n\n\nBased on historical events that occurred in Comancheria\, the region of West Texas and New Mexico controlled by the Comanche in the 18th and 19th centuries\, THE BEAUTY OF THE DAYS GONE BY is a historical survival story\, interweaving the reminisces of aging plainsman Charles Goodnight in the late 1920s against the backdrop of Reconstruction Texas and the events set in motion when a Kiowa raiding party kills the wife and abducts the sons of his friend R.L. Terry. \nABOUT JASON STONE\n\nJason Stone grew up in West Texas and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Austin. He is currently working on a non-fiction book about the real story behind Friday Night Lights. \nABOUT MATT WALTER\n\n\n\nMatt Walter recently retired after 20 years as Curator of Collections at the Museum of the Big Bend\, located on the Sul Ross State University campus in Alpine\, Texas. He earned an MA in History from Sul Ross and taught there for 17 years. Before that\, Matt spent 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard. Much of his time in the Service was spent in Galveston\, Texas\, but he did get to visit 19 countries\, courtesy of Uncle Sam\, during his career.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-jason-stone/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/24-TBTAT-Jason-Stone.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Alexandra van de Kamp":MAILTO:avandekamp@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240221T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240221T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231204T202628Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240122T234400Z
UID:9466-1708542000-1708547400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Mag Gabbert
DESCRIPTION:A Free Monthly Online Lecture Series from WritingWorkshops.com & Gemini Ink\nWednesday\, February 21st\, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\n\nRSVP\nUp Next: Poet & Essayist Mag Gabbert and her poetry collection\, SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS. This discussion will be moderated by poet Séamus Fey.\nABOUT SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS\n\n“This bewitching debut delivers everything the title promises and more.” –Electric Literature \nIn SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS\, which was selected by Kathy Fagan as the winner of the 2021 Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry\, Mag Gabbert redefines the bestiary in fiery\, insistent\, and resistant terms. These poems recast the traumas of her adolescence while charting new paths toward linguistic and bodily autonomy as an adult. Using dreamlike\, shimmering imagery\, she pieces together a fractured portrait of femininity—one that electrifies the confessional mode with its formal play and rich curiosity. Gabbert examines the origin of shame\, the role of inheritance\, and what counts as a myth\, asking\, “What’s the opposite of a man? / A woman? A wound? The devil’s image?”\n\n  \nABOUT MAG GABBERT\nMag Gabbert is the author of SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS (Mad Creek Books\, 2023)\, which was selected by Kathy Fagan as the winner of the 2021 Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry; the chapbook The Breakup\, which was selected by Kaveh Akbar as the winner of the 2022 Baltic Writing Residencies Chapbook Award; and the chapbook Minml Poems (Cooper Dillon Books\, 2020). Her awards include a Discovery Award from 92NY’s Unterberg Poetry Center\, a Pushcart Prize\, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop\, Idyllwild Arts\, and Poetry at Round Top. Mag’s work can also be found in The American Poetry Review\, The Paris Review Daily\, Copper Nickel\, Guernica\, Poetry Daily\, and elsewhere. Mag has an MFA from UC Riverside and a PhD from Texas Tech. She lives in Dallas\, Texas and teaches at Southern Methodist University. \nABOUT S.FEY\nS. Fey (they/he) is a Trans writer living in LA. Currently\, they are the poetry editor at Hooligan Magazine\, and co creative director at Rock Pocket Productions. Their debut poetry collection\, decompose\, is out with Not a Cult Media. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review\, Poet Lore\, The Sonora Review\, and others. They love to beat their friends at Mario Party. Find them online @sfeycreates.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-mag-gabbert/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Mag-Gabbert.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Alexandra van de Kamp":MAILTO:avandekamp@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240117T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20240117T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20231204T201913Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240108T225739Z
UID:9459-1705518000-1705523400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Rudy Ruiz
DESCRIPTION:RSVP\n\n\nWednesday\, January 17th\, 2024 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Rudy Ruiz and his novel\, VALLEY OF SHADOWS. Moderated by Guadalupe Garcia McCall.\n\nABOUT VALLEY OF SHADOWS\nWinner of the Texas Institute of Letters’ Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction \nNew York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection \n\n\n\n\nSolitario Cisneros thought his life was over long ago. He lost his wife\, his family\, even his country in the late 1870s when the Rio Grande shifted course\, stranding the Mexican town of Olvido on the Texas side of the border. He’d made his brooding peace with retiring his gun and badge\, hiding out on his ranch\, and communing with horses and ghosts. But when a gruesome string of murders and kidnappings ravages the town\, pushing its volatile mix of Anglo\, Mexican\, and Apache settlers to the brink of self-destruction\, he feels reluctantly compelled to confront both life\, and the much more likely possibility of death\, yet again. \nThrough luminous prose and soul-searching reflections\, Rudy Ruiz transports readers to a distant time and a remote place where the immortal forces of good and evil dance amidst the shadows of magic and mountains. \nABOUT RUDY RUIZ\nRudy Ruiz is an American author\, advocate and social entrepreneur. The son and grandson of Mexican immigrants\, Rudy Ruiz was born in Brownsville\, Texas and raised along the US-Mexico border\, living in Matamoros\, Mexico for extensive periods of time. He did not speak English until he entered school at the age of five. Once in school\, he dreamt of becoming a writer\, an entrepreneur\, and a contributor to the wellbeing of immigrants and minorities\, as well as to positive relations between diverse cultures and nations. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Harvard. Ruiz now resides in San Antonio with his wife\, Heather\, and their two children\, Paloma and Lorenzo.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT THE MODERATOR\n\n\n\n \nBorn in Piedras Negras\, Coahuila\, Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass\, Texas\, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels\, some short stories for adults\, and many children’s poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award\, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award\, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award\, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy\, among many other accolades. Visit Guadalupe at her website: https://ggmccall.com/.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-rudy-ruiz/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Rudy-Ruiz-TBTAT-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231220T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231220T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20191105T075945Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260605T183623Z
UID:7879-1703097000-1703104200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Veterans' Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
DESCRIPTION:The Veterans’ 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. \nThe VWC meets monthly online via Zoom.\nIf you would like an invitation to this class\, send an email to veteranscollective@geminiink.org\n\nSarah 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.\n \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/veterans-writing-collective-2020-07-15-2021-11-17-2023-08-16-2023-12-20/2023-12-20/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event,Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/homepage-footer-1250-x-600-1.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Sarah Colby":MAILTO:veteranscollective@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231218T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231218T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20191105T141203Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250212T145410Z
UID:8042-1702924200-1702931400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Open Writer's Labs
DESCRIPTION: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.\n \n  \n\n\nOnline Via Zoom\nFor the online workshop\, sign up the day before the class to ensure you receive the Zoom link. \nThis 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. \n\nIn-Person at Gemini Ink\n \nJoin our in-person Open Writer’s Lab with Robert Allen at Gemini Ink’s office\, 1111 Navarro St.\, San Antonio\, TX 78205. \nRobert 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. \nParking at Gemini Ink\nGemini 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.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/open-writers-lab-2-2020-08-31-2020-09-28-2021-06-28-2022-05-30-2022-06-27-2022-07-25-2023-03-27-2023-12-25/2023-12-18/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Open-Writers-Labs-1250-x-600-px-1.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231216T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231216T130000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230816T211102Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231208T203220Z
UID:9042-1702720800-1702731600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Exploring Your Cultural Inheritance through Poetry with Ebony Stewart
DESCRIPTION:Saturday\, December 16\, 10am-1pm CST\, via Zoom\nInstructor: Ebony Stewart\nNonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n \n  \nWhen we think of cultural inheritance\, we often think of language\, music\, food\, holidays\, and maybe even sports. But what about the way a culture approaches central concepts like race\, religion\, patriotism\, literacy\, and integrity?  \nIn 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.  \nParticipants can expect a safe workshop space where they can take risks\, be vulnerable\, and give and receive feedback for future revisions. \nThis course is open to writers of all skill levels\, 18+.  \nStudents will leave this workshop with: \n\nA deeper understanding of your own culture\nKnowledge of literary devices\nOne complete poem that captures your cultural inheritance\n\n\n \nEbony Stewart is a poet\, writer\, and performance artist. Her work speaks to the Black experience\, with emphasis on gender\, sexuality\, womanhood\, queer-positivity\, and race\, with the hopes to remove shame\, heal minds\, encourage dialogue\, and inspire folks in marginalized communities. Ebony is a respected coach & mentor\, one of the top touring poets in the country\, and the 2017 Woman of the World Poetry Slam Champion. She has performed in 48 states\, at over 200 colleges and universities across the country\, as well as featured internationally in Canada\, Australia\, and Ghana. She is the author of BloodFresh\, Home.Girl.Hood.\, and Love Letters to Balled Fists. Her work has been featured in Button Poetry\, AfroPunk\, For Harriet\,  Teen Vogue\, The Texas Observer\, plus countless others. \nLearn more about Ebony at her Writer’s Desk Q&A.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/exploring-your-cultural-inheritance-through-poetry/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ebony-stewart.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231115T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231115T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230907T210539Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231115T232153Z
UID:9173-1700074800-1700080200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Carmen Tafolla
DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, November 15th\, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Carmen Tafolla’s children’s book\, Warrior Girl. Moderated by Dr. Rita Urquijo-Ruiz.\n\n RSVP\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT WARRIOR GIRL\nAn insightful novel in verse about the joys and struggles of a Chicana girl who is a warrior for her name\, her history\, and her right to choose what she celebrates in life. \nCelina and her family are bilingual and follow both Mexican and American traditions. Celina revels in her Mexican heritage\, but once she starts school\, it feels like the world wants her to erase that part of her identity. Fortunately\, she’s got an army of family and three fabulous new friends behind her to fight the ignorance. But it’s her Gramma who’s her biggest inspiration\, encouraging Celina to build a shield of joy around herself. Because when you’re celebrating\, when you find a reason to sing or dance or paint or play or laugh or write\, they haven’t taken everything away from you. Of course\, it’s not possible to stay in celebration mode when things get dire–like when her dad’s deported and a pandemic hits–but if there is anything Celina’s sure of\, it’s that she’ll always live up to her last name: Guerrera–woman warrior–and that she will use her voice and writing talents to make the world a more beautiful place where all cultures are celebrated. \nABOUT CARMEN TAFOLLA\nCarmen Tafolla is an internationally acclaimed Chicana writer from San Antonio\, Texas\, and a professor emerita of bicultural bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Tafolla served as the poet laureate of San Antonio from 2012 to 2014\, and was named the Poet Laureate of Texas for 2015–16. Tafolla has written more than 40 books and won multiple literary awards. She is one of the most highly anthologized Chicana authors in the United States\, with her work appearing in more than 300 anthologies. https://www.carmentafolla.net/\n\n\n\nABOUT DR. RITA URQUIJO-RUIZ\n\nDr. Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz is a Mexicana/Chicana queer educator\, author\, and translator who teaches Spanish as well as Queer\, Chicana/o\, and Latinx Studies at Trinity University in San Antonio\, Texas. She is the translator of Xelena González and Adriana Garcia’s award-winning books: Where Wonders Grow (Donde las maravillas crecen) and Remembering (Te recuerdo). She was absolutely thrilled when Dr. Carmen Tafolla invited her to translate her novel in verse Warrior Girl (Guerrera). Rita’s story about being previously undocumented\, entitled “First Visit\,” was published in the award-winning anthology Somewhere We are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration\, Survival\, and New Beginnings\, coedited by Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca. \n\nThe Big Texas Author Talk is a *free* lecture series devoted to showcasing Texas authors from across our big state. Each month we feature one Texas author in conversation with another—from New York Times bestsellers living in Dallas\, Houston\, and Austin to our rich Texas Latinx border authors living in Laredo and McAllen\, not to mention from other deep pockets and corners of our culturally diverse state.  Our lecture series is as entertaining as it is informative—and like Texas itself\, we offer a vast array of storytellers who represent the spirit of our extremely distinct Lone Star State and continue to keep us on the literary map. In the past\, we’ve featured novelists such as Kathleen Kent\, Marisol Cortez\, Joe Lansdale\, and Antonio Ruiz-Camacho and Texas poet laureates such as Carmen Tafolla\, Laurie Ann Guerrero\, Jenny Brown\, and Emmy Pérez.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-2/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event,Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/carmen-tafolla.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231109T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231109T210000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230816T204018Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231024T183925Z
UID:9031-1699552800-1699563600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Introduction to Playwriting with Mikaela Simon
DESCRIPTION:Thursdays\, Nov 9 & 16\, 6-9pm CST\, via Zoom\nInstructor: Mikaela Simon\nNonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n \n  \nExcellent theatre has a way of getting a great story up on its feet. But how do you tell a story on the page so that it comes to life on the stage?  \nJoin New Jersey-based playwright Mikaela Simon in this two-session course which will cover the fundamentals of writing a play.  \nWorkshop 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.   \nThis course is open to writers of all genres and skill level\, 18+.  \nStudents will leave this course with: \n\nKnowledge of how to structure and format a play\nAn understanding of playwriting elements and how to use them\nThe ability to apply the concepts to long-form works\, such as one acts\, full-lengths\, etc.\nThe first draft of a 10-minute play or the first few scenes of a larger work\n\nRead Mikaela’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!\n\nMikaela Simon (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Jersey City\, NJ. She graduated in 2019 from Drew University with a BA in Theatre Arts. While in college\, Mikaela’s work was performed a number of times in the Plays in Process series\, and she was also a recipient of the Robert Fisher Oxnam Award for Playwriting in 2018\, resulting in a staged reading produced by the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Since graduating\, she has taken on the role of teaching artist for the theatre program at Yavneh Academy in Paramus\, NJ. Mikaela is also a multimedia visual artist\, and is very involved in the Jersey City arts community with her small business (@doodlealldayy). Writing has always held a special place for her\, and she looks forward to getting the chance to share the beautiful craft of playwriting with people who have a story to tell.  \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/introduction-to-playwriting-with-mikaela-simon/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Mikaela-Simon.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231018T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231018T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230907T210457Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231012T152841Z
UID:9171-1697655600-1697661000@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Katie Gutierrez
DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, October 18th\, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: Katie Gutierrez’s novel\, More Than You’ll Ever Know\, moderated by May Cobb.\nKatie Gutierrez is the author of the national bestselling\, Edgar Award-nominated debut novel More Than You’ll Ever Know\, which was also a Good Morning America Book Club selection. She is a National Magazine Award finalist whose essays and features have appeared in TIME\, Texas Highways\, Harper’s Bazaar\, and more\, and acknowledged in Best American Magazine Writing and Best American Essays. She has an MFA from Texas State University and lives with her husband and two kids in San Antonio\, Texas. \nRSVP\nAbout More Than You’ll Ever Know: \n“Masterful . . . Elegance\, darkness\, even fear are deftly intertwined . . . A wonderful read.” — LUIS ALBERTO URREA\, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels \nRecommended by New York Times Book Review • Los Angeles Times• Washington Post• Parade • Good Housekeeping • NBC News • Today.com • Goodreads • Audible • The Millions • Popsugar • Tribeza • CrimeReads • Library Reads • She Reads • and more! \nThe dance becomes an affair\, which becomes a marriage\, which becomes a murder… \nIn 1985\, Lore Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City\, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo\, Texas\, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international banker\, Lore splits her time between two countries and two families—until the truth is revealed and one husband is arrested for murdering the other. \nIn 2017\, while trawling the internet for the latest\, most sensational news reports\, struggling true-crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article detailing that tragic final act. Cassie is immediately enticed by what is not explored: Why would a woman—a mother—risk everything for a secret double marriage? Cassie sees an opportunity—she’ll track Lore down and capture the full picture\, the choices\, the deceptions that led to disaster. But the more time she spends with Lore\, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself. Soon\, her determination to uncover the truth could threaten to derail Lore’s now quiet life—and expose the many secrets both women are hiding. \nTold through alternating timelines\, More Than You’ll Ever Know is both a gripping mystery and a wrenching family drama. Presenting a window into the hearts of two very different women\, it explores the many conflicting demands of marriage and motherhood\, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone—especially those we love.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-with-katie-gutierrez/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/katie-gutierrez.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231002T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20231002T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230816T201818Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230816T201818Z
UID:9020-1696271400-1696278600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Memory & Image: A Micro Memoir Workshop with Poet Joni Wallace
DESCRIPTION:Mondays Oct 2\, 9\, 16 & 23\, 6:30-8:30pm CST\, via Zoom\nInstructor: Joni Wallace\nNonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n \n  \nSmall\, disconnected\, and incomplete–this is how personal memories often come to us. But how do we take these moments and turn them into something meaningful? In micro memoir\, a nonfiction piece is told in 200 words or less and is a perfect way to capture these tiny stories.  \nIn 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. \nThe final class project will be a short\, linked series of personal stories with visual elements. Students are encouraged to bring and use any art supplies they have around the house. \nThis course is open to writers of all genres and skill level\, 18+.  \nStudents will leave this class with: \n\nA short series of micro-memoir accompanied by visual elements\nNew critical reading techniques\nResources for submitting written work\n\n\nJoni Wallace is the author of three books of poetry and a chapbook: LANDSCAPE WITH MISSING RIVER\, Barrow Street Press\, 2023; Kingdom Come Radio Show\, Barrow Street Press\, 2016; To the Lighthouse Award; Blinking Ephemeral Valentine\, Four Way Books\, 2011\, winner of the Levis Prize (selected by Mary Jo Bang); Redshift (chapbook)(Kore Press\, 2001). Her work has been featured by the Poetry Society of America and appears in journals such as Boston Review\, Conduit\, Connotations Press\, Gulf Coast\, and more. She explores micro memoir through her poetry\, and her sound and video work appears on textsound.org and in The Drunken Boat.  \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/memory-image-a-micro-memoir-workshop/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230816T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230816T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20191105T075945Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230818T160401Z
UID:7875-1692210600-1692217800@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Veteran’s Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
DESCRIPTION: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. \nThe VWC meets monthly online via Zoom.\nIf you would like an invitation to this class\, send an email to veteranscollective@geminiink.org\n\nSarah 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.\n \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/veterans-writing-collective-2020-07-15-2021-11-17-2023-08-16/2023-08-16/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event,Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/homepage-footer-1250-x-600-1.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Sarah Colby":MAILTO:veteranscollective@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230606T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230606T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230414T154758Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230515T210827Z
UID:8529-1686076200-1686083400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Creative Writer’s Professional Toolkit with Lyzette Wanzer
DESCRIPTION:Tuesdays\, June 6\, 13\, 20\, 27 & July 11\, 18\, 6:30-8:30pm CST via Zoom\nInstructor: Lyzette Wanzer\nNonmember: $150; Member: $130; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n \n  \nAre 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.\nThis 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. Learn a comprehensive set of professional practices that translate your talent into actionable\, real-world skills for elevating your literary career. Learn how to increase your chances of earning grants\, landing residencies\, and getting published.  \nOver the course of this workshop\, you will acquire the practices and strategies you need to take advantage of scores of opportunities for your work–skills you can put into immediate effect! After completing this course\, many students have garnered their first literary grant\, writing conference invitation\, or publication credit. \nStudents will leave this class with: \n\nA short & long bio\nA current writer’s curriculum vitae/resume that will get you noticed\nIdeas for keeping track of professional achievements and updating your CV\n\n\nLyzette Wanzer is a San Francisco writer\, editor\, and writing workshop instructor. She received her MFA in Fiction from Mills College. A flash fiction connoisseur and essay aficionado\, her work has appeared in Natural Bridge\, The Los Angeles Review\, Callaloo\, Tampa Review\, The MacGuffin\, Ampersand Review\, Journal of Advanced Development\, Fourteen Hills\, Journal of Experimental Fiction\, Pleiades\, Flashquake\, Glossalia Flash Fiction\, Potomac Review\, International Journal on Literature and Theory\, Fringe Magazine\, and many others. She is a contributor to Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth From the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2022)\, The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012)\, Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019)\, and 642 Tiny Things to Write About (Chronicle Books 2015). Her articles have appeared in Essay Daily\, The Naked Truth\, and the San Francisco University High School Journal. Lyzette is the current judge of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition’s Intercultural Essay category and the Women’s National Book Association’s Effie Lee Morris Writing Contest’s nonfiction category. \nLyzette has been invited to present her work and/or panels at conferences across the country\, including the American and Popular Culture Association\, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP)\, College English Association (CEA)\, Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900\, Litquake Festival\, San Francisco Writers Conference\, and others.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/writers-professional-toolkit/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Lyzette-Wanzer2.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230603T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230603T120000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230412T201239Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230414T161006Z
UID:8523-1685786400-1685793600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:'Tell All the Truth\, but Tell It Slant:' Writing About Trauma with Thomas McNeely
DESCRIPTION:Saturdays\, June 3\, 10\, 17 & 24\, 10am-12pm CST via Zoom\nInstructor: Thomas McNeely\nNonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n \n  \nHow 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? \n  \nIn 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. We will explore writing different versions of the same story and decide which form–poem\, short story\, novel\, memoir\, or a hybrid of any of these narrative approaches–will best capture the traumatic experience and its after effects.  \nOur approaches will be based on short excerpts from work by Sylvia Plath\, Brian Teare\, Ocean Vuong\, Mary Karr\, Eimear McBride\, and other creative writers\, and will incorporate ideas from trauma narrative theorists and researchers\, including Cathy Caruth and Bessel van der Kolk. \nThis class is open to writers of all skill levels. \nWorkshop participants will leave with the following: \n\nAn understanding of how to write about trauma and its impact\nIdeas on which narrative form can best capture the traumatic experience \nA starting place for their own piece of writing \n\n\n\nAn East Side Houston native\, THOMAS H. McNEELY has received National Endowment for the Arts\, Wallace Stegner\, MacDowell Colony\, and Dobie Paisano fellowships for his fiction. Pictures of the Shark: Stories (Texas Review Press) is his second book.  His first book\, Ghost Horse\, won the Gival Press Novel Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize in Writing. He has published short stories and non-fiction in The Atlantic\, Texas Monthly\, Ploughshares\, and many other magazines and anthologies\, including The Best American Mystery Stories and Algonquin Books’ Best of the South. His stories have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize\, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award anthologies. He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College\, Boston\, and has led writing workshops at the Grub Street Writers Workshops\, the Lighthouse Writers Workshops\, the Writers’ League of Texas\, Writespace Houston\, and Inprint Houston.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/tell-all-the-truth-but-tell-it-slant/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Thomas-McNeely-Header.jpeg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230520T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230520T130000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230130T200014Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230508T201124Z
UID:8141-1684576800-1684587600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Spot Revision with Mary Helen Stefaniak
DESCRIPTION:Saturday\, May 20\, 10am-1pm CST\, via Zoom\nInstructor: Mary Helen Stefaniak\nNonmember: $100; Member: $85; Student/Vet/Mil $50 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \n\n \n\nHow often could someone look up from reading your manuscript and say to the person across the table\, “Listen to this!”?\n\n\nDo 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. \nTo prepare for this class\, we will read mentor texts and prepare a page (250 to 300 words) pulled from our own fiction or creative nonfiction to use in practice. In class\, we’ll exchange pages and provide suggestions for making our writing more riveting and our word choice more compelling. Then\, we’ll assess the comments and apply the techniques learned in class to create a stronger draft.  \nThis workshop is open to writers of all skill levels with work ready to edit. \nIn this class\, you will:  \n\nGain new editing strategies to pack powerful prose onto each page\nGive and receive on-the-spot editing suggestions\nLearn to sift through feedback to keep what’s useful \n\n\nMary Helen Stefaniak’s new novel\, The World of Pondside\, was released by Blackstone Publishing in April 2022. Booklist has said of the novel—a mystery set in a nursing home—that “Stefaniak infuses an often forbidding environment with joy and dignity in this Agatha Christie-esque cyber caper.” Mary Helen’s first book of nonfiction\, The Six-Minute Memoir: Fifty-Five Short Essays on Life\, was published by The University of Iowa Press in Fall 2022. The essays are selected from more than 20 years’ worth of monthly columns she wrote for The Iowa Source. Mary Helen Stefaniak is a writer of fiction and essays whose work has appeared in many publications\, including The Iowa Review\, EPOCH\, The Yale Review\, AGNI\,  The Antioch Review\, and in several anthologies. You can read more about Mary Helen and her work at https://maryhelenstefaniak.com.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/spot-revision-with-mary-helen-stefaniak/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Stefaniak2.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230502T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230502T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230130T185951Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230421T190425Z
UID:8126-1683050400-1683059400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Exploring the Etymology of Our Artistic Practice with Diana Lizette Rodriguez
DESCRIPTION:Tuesdays\, May 2\, 9\, 16 & 23\, 6-8:30pm\, CST\, offered via Zoom\nInstructor: Diana Lizette Rodriguez\nNonmember: $125; Member: $105; Student/Vet/Mil $75 \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \nClass Cancelled\nWhere does your artistic practice come from? How do artists in other disciplines approach their own artistic expression? And how does understanding the origin of our art and that of others open us to new creative possibilities?\nThis 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.  \nThe overall goal of these reflections\, writing prompts\, and multimedia assignments is to help writers deepen their own creativity and to open up the way they approach making art.  \nThis workshop is open to writers 16 and older of all skill levels. Spanish speakers and writers are also welcome! \nParticipants will leave this course with the following: \n\n An expanded viewpoint on how other mediums boost creative practice\n Acknowledgment of where your creative energy comes from\n New artistic foundations to create deeper work in your life\n\n\nDiana Lizette Rodriguez is an experimental artist who works with installation\, painting\, performance\, photography\, and the illuminating world of poetry. A Mexican-American artist from San Antonio\, Texas\, Rodriguez explores the fragmented decay the world portrays. Her work holds reminders of impermanence\, and she creates these reminders with disruption\, disorientation\, and unknown predictabilities. Rodriguez pushes to work with a conceptualized intention\, questions the reason for Art\, and finds concepts like the 4th Dimension to be an idea her path wants to follow. To dive into. Questions such as “If I go to the 4th Dimension\, would I be able to come back to the 1st?” arise\, and Rodriguez\, as an artist\, does not find the answer to such a question. She just creates.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/exploring-the-etymology-of-our-artistic-practice/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Diana-Lizette-Facebook-Cover2-copy.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230327T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230327T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20191105T141203Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230327T124403Z
UID:8033-1679941800-1679949000@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Open Writer's Labs
DESCRIPTION: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. \nRegister\n\nOnline Via Zoom\nFor the online workshop\, sign up the day before the class to ensure you receive the Zoom link. \nThis 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. \n\nIn-Person at Gemini Ink\n \nJoin our in-person Open Writer’s Lab with Robert Allen at Gemini Ink’s office\, 1111 Navarro St.\, San Antonio\, TX 78205. \nRobert 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. \nParking at Gemini Ink \nGemini 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.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/open-writers-lab-2-2020-08-31-2020-09-28-2021-06-28-2022-05-30-2022-06-27-2022-07-25-2023-03-27/2023-03-27/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/open-writers-lab.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230315T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230315T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20230302T191157Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230302T191157Z
UID:8274-1678906800-1678912200@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Leticia Urieta
DESCRIPTION:RSVP\nJoin us for a free author talk & discussion with Leticia Urieta\, author of Las Criaturas. This session will be moderated by jo reyes-boitel\, a poet\, essayist\, and playwright.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn Las Criaturas\, Leticia Urieta hones the conventions of folklore and mythology to center girls & women in a present context. Otherworldly and musical\, Las Criaturas positions the monstrous as a form of power and place of refuge\, firmly asking readers the pertinent questions: “Who creates the monsters? How do las criaturas that pervade our past\, present\, and future find justice?” Urieta has gifted us a daring and playful new work that points us in the right direction.\n–Reyes Ramirez\, author of The Book of Wanderers\n\n\n\nLeticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin\, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and a freelance writer. She graduated from Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cleaver\, Chicon Street Poets\, Lumina\, The Offing\, Kweli Journal\, Medium\, Electric Lit and others. Her chapbook\, The Monster was published by LibroMobile Press\, and her hybrid collection\, Las Criaturas\, is out now from FlowerSong Press.\n\n\njo reyes-boitel is a poet\, essayist\, and playwright. jo is also a queer\, mixed-Latinx parent working in community. Somehow born in Minnesota\, their family calls Texas\, Florida\, Mexico\, and Cuba home. Recent and forthcoming publications include Huizache\, OyeDrum\, Scalawag Journal\, The Ice Colony\, Windward Review\, La Voz de Esperanza\, Chachalaca Review\, Borderlands\, The Americas Review\, and Your Impossible Voice. jo’s chapbook mouth (Neon Hemlock\, 2021) addressed the struggle of working through others’ views and dominant culture’s impact on the body and the self – toward liberation. Their first book\, Michael + Josephine\, a novel in verse (FlowerSong Press\, 2019)\, reimagined St. Michael the Archangel as a queer woman who begins a love relationship with Josephine\, a disaster relief worker.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-author-talk-featuring-leticia-urieta/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Alexandra van de Kamp":MAILTO:avandekamp@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230121T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230121T120000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20221212T195935Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230119T013906Z
UID:7914-1674295200-1674302400@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:Musicality and the Long Poem with Allison Hedge Coke
DESCRIPTION:Saturdays\, January 21\, 28 &  February 4\, 10am-12pm\, CST\, offered via Zoom\nInstructor: Allison Hedge Coke\nNonmember: $140; Member: $120; Student/Vet/Mil $75\nThis course is open to writers of all skill levels. \n*EARN CPE’S\nSCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. \nClass Full. Email joshua@geminiink.org to add your name to the Wait List.\nMusic is a powerful force that moves us. It is also a treasure chest of tools that can breathe life and potency into poetry.     \nIn this workshop led by American Book Award winner Allison Hedge Coke\, we will study musical genres\, influences\, and elements that will develop our knowledge of structure and momentum and our musical ear so that we can infuse our lines with lyricism\, sound\, and rhythm from beginning to end.  We will explore how playing with cadence\, tone\, and sonic delivery creates memorable lines and infuses a long poem with dynamic movement. \nIn this class you will :  \n\nGain an understanding of how musical structures can be used in long poetry\nLearn to apply elements of sound to make lines pop\nPrepare for publication/production/performance with musicality as lead line and base structure.\n\nAllison Hedge Coke will be featured on The Big Texas Read on Wed\, Jan 18th. We’re talking with Hedge Coke about her book-length poem\, Look At This Blue\, Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award. RSVP https://bit.ly/3A0XejH\n\nAllison Adelle Hedge Coke was born in Texas and raised in North Carolina\, Canada\, and on the Great Plains. Of mixed heritage\, she is a poet\, writer\, and educator. Though she left school to work in the fields as a child\, she later took advantage of tuition-free community ed classes at North Carolina State University while a field worker. She left North Carolina\, escaping domestic violence as a young mother\, and enrolled in former field worker retraining on the West coast when leaving manual labor due to disability. She then studied script\, performance and sound/light/film tech at Estelle Harmon’s Actor’s Workshop\, earned an AFAW in creative writing on the old Institute for American Indian Arts campus in Santa Fe\, attended two Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Programs\, and earned an MFA from Vermont College (1995)\, where she stayed for post-grad work. \nShe is the author of the poetry chapbook Year of the Rat (1996); the full-length poetry collections Dog Road Woman (1997)\, Off-Season City Pipe (2005)\, Blood Run (2006 UK\, 2007 US)\, Streaming (2014)\, an illustrated (by Dustin Illetewahke Mater) special edition Burn (2017); and the memoir Rock\, Ghost\, Willow\, Deer (2004\, 2014). Streaming includes a full album recorded in the Rd Klā project period with Kelvyn Bell and Laura Ortman. One inclusion was selected by Motion Poems and Pixel Farms to be made into an animated film and several of the poems in Streaming also influenced the documentary project she directed\, Red Dust. \n 
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/musicality-and-the-long-poem/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Online Workshop,Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Allison-Hedge-Coke-Teaches-Musicality-and-the-Long-Poem-Facebook-Post-Landscape.jpeg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mandy Lynn Lara":MAILTO:mllara@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230118T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20230118T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20220107T140826Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230109T222621Z
UID:6330-1674068400-1674073800@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Read featuring Allison Hedge Coke
DESCRIPTION:RSVP\n \nUp Next: 2022 National Book Award Finalist Allison Adelle Hedge Coke\, author of the book-length poem\, Look at This Blue. Acclaimed poet and memoirist Jan Beatty will moderate this session.\n\n\nAbout Look at This Blue\, Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award \nInterweaving elegy\, indictment\, and hope into a love letter to California\, Look at This Blue examines America’s genocidal past and present to warn of a future threatened by mass extinction and climate peril. \n\nTruths about what we have lost and have yet to lose permeate this book-length poem by American Book Award winner and Fulbright scholar Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. An assemblage of historical record and lyric fragments\, these poems form a taxonomy of threatened lives—human\, plant\, and animal—in a century marked by climate emergency.\n\nLook at This Blue insists upon a reckoning with and redress of America’s continuing violence toward Earth and its peoples\, as Hedge Coke’s cataloguing of loss crescendos into resistance. \nTake a workshop with Allison Hedge Coke: Musicality and the Long Poem\nSaturdays\, January 21\, 28 & February 4\, 10am-12pm\, CST\, offered via Zoom\nThis course is open to writers of all skill levels.\nInfo at: https://geminiink.org/events/musicality-and-the-long-poem/ \n\n\nAllison Adelle Hedge Coke was born in Texas and came of age and worked in fields\, factories\, and waters in North Carolina until disabilities precluded further manual labors. After field-worker retraining programs in California at nearly thirty she began earning college credits. \nShe is currently a 2022-2023 UCR Mellon Dean’s Professor in the UCR Center for Ideas and Society\, a Legacy Artist Fellow (California Arts Council) and a recent George Garrett Award recipient (AWP\, 2021). Other awards include a King-Chavez-Parks Award\, Fulbright to Montenegro\, First Jade Nurtured Sihui (China) Female International Foreign Poetry Award\, U.S. Library of Congress Witter Bynner fellowship\, and an American Book Award. \n\nHedge Coke’s authored books include The Year of the Rat\, Dog Road Woman\, Off-Season City Pipe\, Blood Run\, Burn\, Streaming\, Look at This Blue: an assemblage poem (book length\, 2022 National Book Award Finalist)\, as well as a memoir\, Rock Ghost\, Willow\, Deer (2014\, paperback)\, a play Icicles\, and 28 documentary film shorts. She has edited ten anthologies\, including Effigies III.\n\nShe is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and affiliated faculty for the UCR School of Medicine (narrative medicine)\, the newly proposed Department of Environment\, Sustainability\, and Health Equity (ESHE).\n\n\nJan Beatty’s sixth book\, The Body Wars\, was published in 2020 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. In the New York Times\, Naomi Shihab Nye said: Jan Beatty’s new poems in “The Body Wars” shimmer with luminous connection\, travel a big life and grand map of encounters. Beatty won the Red Hen Nonfiction Award for her memoir\, American Bastard\, 2021. Other books include Jackknife: New and Collected Poems (Paterson Prize)\, The Switching/Yard\, Red Sugar\, Boneshaker\, Mad River (Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize). Beatty worked as a waitress\, an abortion counselor\, and in maximum security prisons. For many years\, she directed creative writing\, the Madwomen in the Attic workshops\, and the MFA program at Carlow University.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/tbtr-allison-hedge-coke/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/allison-hedge-coke-and-beatty.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Alexandra van de Kamp":MAILTO:avandekamp@geminiink.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20221214T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20221214T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20221118T184535Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221213T143926Z
UID:7824-1671044400-1671049800@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Read featuring Tomas Q. Morín
DESCRIPTION:RSVP\nDecember 14th\, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: We’re talking with Tomás Q. Morín about his memoir\, Let Me Count The Ways. We’ll also discuss the craft and business of writing. This session will be moderated by memoirist Suzanne Ohlmann\, author of Shadow Migration: Mapping a Life.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Let Me Count the Ways\n \nGrowing up in a small town in South Texas in the eighties and nineties\, poverty\, machismo\, and drug addiction were everywhere for Tomás Q. Morín. He was around four or five years old when he first remembers his father cooking heroin\, and he recalls many times he and his mother accompanied his father while he was on the hunt for more\, Morín in the back seat keeping an eye out for unmarked cop cars\, just as his father taught him. It was on one of these drives that\, for the first time\, he blinked in a way that evolution hadn’t intended. \nLet Me Count the Ways is the memoir of a journey into obsessive-compulsive disorder\, a mechanism to survive a childhood filled with pain\, violence\, and unpredictability. Morín’s compulsions were a way to hold onto his love for his family in uncertain times until OCD became a prison he struggled for decades to escape. Tender\, unflinching\, and even funny\, this vivid portrait of South Texas life challenges our ideas about fatherhood\, drug abuse\, and mental illness. \n“Evocative\, lyrical\, and brave.”—Kirkus Reviews \n“Let Me Count the Waysis a strange and beautiful remembrance of loss\, pain\, betrayal\, and regeneration\, one that describes familial love in all its complexity and argues that even the most troubled among us are worthy of dignity.”—River Teeth \n“In this fearsome\, beautiful memoir\, Tomás Q. Morín takes us on ‘a journey exploring the limits of suffering and love.’ Those are the words he uses to praise a fellow poet\, but the story of his upbringing is just such a wild trip. The young Tomás constantly searches for the right words to say to his beloveds\, his abusers. And in Let Me Count the Ways\, every episode is a prose poem.”—Maxine Hong Kingston\, author of China Men and The Woman Warrior \n“Let Me Count the Ways is an origin poem wrapped in a travel essay\, rocking the full wings of fiction. This means it is a memoir\, a stunning memoir about the worn glory of counting up\, counting down\, and counting in. It is simply the layered work of a soulful magician welcoming us behind our own curtains. Genius.”—Kiese Laymon\, author of Heavy: An American Memoir \n\n\n\nTomás Q. Morín is on the faculty at Rice University and Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author of the poetry collections Machete\, Patient Zero\, and A Larger Country. He is the coeditor with Mari L’Esperance of the anthology Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine. His work has appeared in the New York Times\, the Nation\, Slate\, Poetry\, Threepenny Review\, and Narrative. He is a National Endowment of the Arts fellow.\n\n\nSuzanne Ohlmann is a writer\, nurse\, and musician. Her first book\, Shadow Migration\, came out in March 2022. Her essays have been published by The Cleveland Review of Books\, Texas Monthly\, Intima: The Journal of Narrative Medicine\, and Longreads. She lives in San Antonio with her husband\, son\, and a throng of dogs and cats.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-read-featuring-tomas-q-morin/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/TBTR-Morin.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20221116T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Mexico_City:20221116T203000
DTSTAMP:20260626T142228
CREATED:20221114T164446Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221114T191032Z
UID:7813-1668625200-1668630600@geminiink.org
SUMMARY:The Big Texas Read featuring Daniel Peña
DESCRIPTION:RSVP\nNovember 16th\, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST\nUp Next: We’re in conversation with Daniel Peña about his novel\, Bang. We’ll also have a discussion on the craft and business of writing.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Bang\n \nAn undocumented Mexican family living in South Texas is torn apart when a son inadvertently becomes involved with narcotraficantes in Daniel Peña’s debut novel that explores contemporary issues of immigration\, border life and international drug smuggling. \n\n\nWinner\, 2019 NACCS Tejas Foco Fiction Award\n\nIn the Margins’ 2019 Advocacy/Social Justice Award Finalist — Judges “NACCS & In the Margins” \n“Peña examines the symbiosis of the United States and Mexico and makes painfully clear the negative effects of international trade\, legal and illegal. This is a notable and compassionate novel.” — Reviewer “Publishers Weekly” \n“Peña provides a window into the struggles of immigrants on the border as well as the violent drug war fueling the migration. A piercing tale of lives broken by border violence.” — Reviewer “Kirkus Reviews” \n“Bang is such a timely novel that offers devastating insights into how communities adapt to severe shifts in culture and society.” — Reviewer “NBC Latino” \n“Daniel Peña’s debut novel reminds me of a bantamweight boxer. Lean and compact\, it is packed with energy\, ready to land blow after punch after jab on any reader who dares to underestimate it.” — Texas Observer \n“Peña uses his prodigious gift for detail to take us inside the horrors that befall this family as a result of the fateful flight that started as a dare between brothers. Bang is a grim yet gripping debut that hinges on the desperate hope of its characters.” — Austin American-Statesman \nAbout Daniel Peña \n\nDaniel Peña is a Pushcart Prize-winning writer and Assistant Professor. Formerly\, he was based out of the UNAM in Mexico City\, where he worked as Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar. A graduate of Cornell University and a former Picador Guest Professor in Leipzig\, Germany\, his writing has appeared in Ploughshares\, The Rumpus\, the Kenyon Review\, Texas Monthly\, NBC News\, andThe New York Times Magazine. He’s currently a regular contributor to The Guardian and the Ploughshares blog. His novel\, Bang\, is out now from Arte Publico Press. He lives in the beautiful Dallas-Fort Worth area.
URL:https://geminiink.org/events/the-big-texas-read-featuring-daniel-pena/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://geminiink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TBTR-Daniel-Pena.png
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