Your Memoir Writing Journey: From Inception to Publication (Starting at $59)

Many writers jump into memoir writing without a concrete plan. After all they’re writing about their own life. How hard could it be? Well, depending on the publishing intent of the memoir it can be more difficult than it may first appear. Some writers can lose time and motivation because of false starts and dead-ends. If you’re hoping to write a memoir with the best shot at being traditionally published, this workshop is for you.

This workshop will take would-be memoir writers through the life-cycle of writing a book-length memoir of publishable quality. It will help those looking to write a memoir that they hope to get traditionally published. From positioning and planning to proposal writing; to spending time in the querying trenches and navigating agency and/or publishing relationships, this workshop can help writers complete and publish their memoirs with minimal loss of time heading down unsustainable paths.

Jawahara Saidullah's memoir, We Are Warrior Queens, was published in 2024 by Scarsdale Publishing. She has two published novels, Where the Rivers Meet (2023) and The Burden of Foreknowledge (2007). Several of her fiction and non-fiction pieces have appeared in journals, anthologies, magazines and newspapers. A flash fiction piece, Counting and Recounting was published in IWWG's 2025 anthology, Write Forward. She has also been an acquisitions editor, literary agent, and a college instructor.

MONOLOGUE PLAY LAB (starting at $159)

Kelly is delighted to facilitate her popular Monologue Play Lab with showcase this fall for new and previous Play Lab participants. There’s beauty and meaning to mine from your life story, and this workshop will help you artistically express what you’ve overcome and achieved, and share your experience through the medium of theatre. During four two hour workshops on Zoom, you’ll present your monologue drafts, have them read by guest actors, and discuss revisions. Elements of dramatic structure will be discussed, including conflict, plot, subtext, voice, narrative, the importance of set-up, and collaboration. Each writer will present her monologue, performed by an actor, in the final showcase online in December which is free and open to the public. No prior playwriting experience is required.

Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of four poetry collections & her poems, plays and images are published widely. For decades Kelly has taught a variety of creative writing workshops, including play labs with showcases for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. Kelly produces the Featured Open Mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing. Reach her at kellydumar.com

IWWG Regional Gathering:
Let Me Tell You About the Skin I'm In
Co-sponsored by the Bailey Learning and Arts Collective and
Terri Bailey CHATS

CLICK TO REGISTER HERE

This powerful weekend will center the stories, wisdom, and brilliance of women writers across generations and skill levels. IWWG board members Terri Bailey and Betty Pierre will host and serve as MCs for the event. The gathering will include workshops, keynotes, open mic, food, writing, and connection. 

Tentative Agenda

Saturday, Nov 8

• 9:30a Check-in + Light Breakfast

• 10:00a Welcome & Ice Breaker (Terri Bailey)

• 10:15a “The Value of Your Story” – Terri Bailey

• 11:00a Workshop – Prof. Amira Sims

• 12:00p Keynote Lunch – Dr. Jillian Hernandez

• 1:00p Poetry Workshop – Neysa Rose

• 2:10p Workshop – Dr. Riche Barnes

• 3:15p “The Power of Joyful Journaling” – Ariel C. Williams

• 4:15p Closing Reflections

• Dinner on your own (We may have a sponsor)

• 6:00p–8:00p Open Mic (Betty Pierre, MC)
  Hosted at Flaco’s Tacos & Vecinos with drinks + finger foods

Sunday, Nov 9

• 10:15a Grounding + Free Write – Terri Bailey

• 10:45a Publishing Workshop – E. Claudette Freeman

• 12:00p Q&A Roundtable

• 12:45p Closing + Creation Station (lunch served)

Featured Speakers:

• Terri L. Bailey, MA – Host, Instructor

• Betty Pierre – Co-Host, Open Mic MC

• Dr. Jillian Hernandez – Keynote

• Dr. Riche Barnes – Instructor

• Amira Sims – Instructor

• E. Claudette Freeman – Instructor

• Ariel C, Williams – Instructor

• Neysa Rose – Poetry Instructor

Doubt or Devotion…is it...about Love?
(Starting at $45)

Doubt or Devotion…is it…about Love?
— a fiction / non-fiction freewrite event with Kate Copeland —

Join me on a linguistic-poetic quest for love, longing and other perfect imperfections.
Linguistically speaking, we will be diving into cultural variations of love languages, while analysing love concepts and letters. Body language and mind models galore!
Fictionally reading, our writing will be prompted by Chris Kraus’ I love Dick, Joanna Walsh’s Break.up, Sister Corita Kent’s pop art...and a jukebox of desire (Laura Marling, Celeste, Alicia Keys a.m.m.).

At the end of the workshop, you will receive a ‘muse document’ with all sorts of extra information. To quote poet Carmien Michels: Pain Pleasure Personality Perversion Poetry. If you desire a diverse tête-à-tête, please, join!

Kate Copeland’s love for languages led her to teaching; her love for art & water to poetry. She is curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review & runs linguistic-poetry workshops for the International Women's Writing Guild. Find her poems @ TER, WildfireWords, Gleam, Metphrastics, Hedgehog Press [a.o.], or
@ https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/.
Kate was born in harbour-city, and adores housesitting in the world.

Monologue Showcase: Voices for Healing & Transformation

A showcase of recent work created by Kelly DuMar's IWWG Fall Play Lab 

In writing monologues for the stage, a story begins as words on the page. The next stage of development is to have the monologue performed by an actor in front of an audience. In this monologue showcase, class participants who have been developing monologues over four weeks will have the chance to see their writing performed by an actor for an audience––you.

Stella Adler called theater the “seeing place”––the place we come to see the truth about our lives and social situation. Oscar Wilde called theater “the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” And August Wilson was, “fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.” We invite you, our audience, to share in making dynamic theater with us, by being present for this showcase of brand new stage monologues. This intimate and powerful experience will present writing by class participants––read by actors––is part of the critical page-to-stage development process that all new plays need. Please join us, and share the vitality of your presence and your witness as our much-appreciated audience.

The show is free and open to the public - although donations are always welcome! - and will take place via the online video conferencing platform Zoom. 

Featuring monologues by members of the Fall 2025 Monologue Play Lab

World Building for Any Novel (starting at $129)

A character’s world greatly impacts how that character responds to the obstacles they face and ultimately shapes who that character becomes. This mini-course will discuss the techniques necessary to create and/or strengthen works with complicated and layered worlds and timelines. This course is for any project with large worlds, whether that be science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, intergenerational novels, or a mystery novel, or if you simply want to understand how to incorporate diverse characters and perspectives. We will explore how to keep your readers engaged in such layered storylines. Considering writers such as Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, and Margaret Atwood, we will be inspired to write stories that immerse readers in worlds that illuminate today’s conversations. We will spend four weeks learning world-building techniques, developing the character of multiple protagonists, incorporating diverse characters and world settings, and keeping track of your world’s details/rules. The final two weeks will be spent generating materials or making plans for revisions using your new tools. Start a novel, strengthen one already begun, or even finish a short story during our exploration of world-building techniques.

Melissa Michal is of Seneca, Welsh, and English descent and is a fiction writer and essayist. Melissa has work appearing in the SFRA and other spaces. Her story collection, Living Along the Borderlines, was a finalist for the Louise Meriwether first book prize and she writes Indigenous futurism novels.