Inquiring at the Heart of a Subject: How to Ask Great Questions to Prompt Great Writing (starting at $45)

Inquiry drives engagement, but how do we ask questions that will access powerful emotions, yield compelling insights, and inspire rich stories? Amy Wright will offer seven tips for asking great questions she has gleaned from interviewing over 60 artists, activists, scientists, etc., then open a conversation and workshop to discuss and practice these skills.

Amy Wright was the 2022 Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence at East Tennessee State University, where she now teaches. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Denver, has received two Kenyon Review fellowships and published four books, including a Nautilus Gold Award winner for Lyric Prose.

Featured Author/ Open Mic with Lisa St. John

Lisa St. John lives in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, where she calls the Catskill Mountains home. Her chapbook, Ponderings, was published by Finishing Line Press, and her book of poetry, Swallowing Stones, by Kelsay Books. Lisa has published her poetry in many journals and anthologies.

Her writing has been published in numerous journals including Light, The Poetry Distillery, New Verse News, Glassworks, Poets Reading the News, and Sleet. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, and is currently working on a memoir. Lisa believes that art is hope and that there is beauty in possibility. She can be found online at lisachristinastjohn.com

Imagination and Justice: Meditation and Free-Writing Circles

with Lisa Freedman

An activist’s faith can never be unquestioning … can never oversimplify, as believers and activists are often tempted or pressured to do. Adrienne Rich

A question is a pursuit, an invitation to envision and explore a series of possibilities, to struggle and empathize and doubt and believe. The question moves, whereas our sense of what an answer is can often be static, a stopping point. Tracy K. Smith

We women writing in the fall of 2024 are blessed and cursed to live in interesting times. For just one example, we have the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” which the Center for American Progress calls “the playbook of a dictator.” But extremists don’t have a monopoly on ideas for the future. What does your vision for 2025 and beyond consist of? How do your identity and life experiences shape your priorities? How might we come together and contribute to the process of imagining a more just United States, a more perfect union, a process that started to unfold and has gotten derailed repeatedly over the past 400 years?

This round of the Imagination and Justice meditation and freewriting circles will pursue and move with the questions above. The I and J circles are both intimate and expansive. We hold space for the complexities of our own and each other’s stories and dreams. Each time we meet, we start with a few minutes of silence followed by a brief guided free-write and share to check in. Then Lisa guides us in two more rounds of meditation, free-writing, and sharing. The sharing is always optional.

Holding silence together is a bonding activity, and as the weeks progress, we connect more deeply through our writings. This is how we help each other take writerly risks to reveal ourselves and our imaginings. And this is how we support each other as we dare to share our voices and visions.

Meditators, writers, activists, skeptics, and idealists at every level of experience are welcome. All genres are welcome. These circles are a place to write or re-write material that dwells (or wants to dwell) in the realm where the personal is political. You may already be working on a relevant project, or you may be starting a new one. Either way, you and your stories, your writings are welcome here.

Participants receive the prompts and background materials each week. These come from Tracy K. Smith’s writings and a wide community of other voices that complement hers.

While this is a generative, free-writing circle, participants are often surprised by the power of the words that land on the page. Those of us in the first Imagination & Justice Circle, which took place in the fall of 2021, are delighted to have our writings collected by the IWWG in this anthology, which you can read here: Roots/Trunk/Sky.
https://issuu.com/guild2021/docs/imagination_and_justice_an_iwwg_writing_circle

Lisa Freedman is an author, activist, and professor of creative writing. She holds an MFA from the New School and is certified as a mindfulness meditation teacher by Dhama Moon. She founded and directs Breathe/Read/Write, an online community where mindfulness and writing come together.

6-Week Intensive: Transitions, Translations, Transformations

with Carmen Bugan

This minicourse explores literary language through the Protean lens of transitions (life transitions, travel and exposure to other cultures, languages, and ways of thinking); translations (work on producing several versions of a poem from another language); and transformations (reflecting on how the language of our writing changes over time). What does creative language know but keeps to itself—like wise Proteus who changes shape and is able to see into the future?  We will devote two sessions to each of these lenses, and participants will be asked to bring to class a favorite poem, an excerpt from a story, or a memoir. Each two-hour session will involve reading and discussion of example poems and guided writing exercises.  Work we will discuss: “When Giving is All We Have” by Alberto Rios, “Transformation” by Adam Zagajeswski; excerpts from The Snow Geese by William Fiennes (review here); and excerpts from “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils” by Selma Lagerloff. This course will help ease writers’ block and help writers meditate on the vast possibilities of creativity.

Dr. Carmen Bugan, a George Orwell Prize Fellow, is a prize-winning poet and writer who has published ten books including poetry, memoir, and literary criticism.  Her new and selected poems, Lilies from America was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her memoir, Burying the Typewriter won the Bakeless Nonfiction Prize, was shortlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, and was serialized for radio as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Her book of essays, Poetry and the Language of Oppression (Oxford University Press) was named an “essential book for writers” by Poets and Writers.  Bugan appears at book fairs and festivals such as the London Book Fair, the Cork Literary Festival, The Goteborg Book Fair, and Le Livre sur les Quais (Morges, Switzerland) and lectures widely at universities in Europe, Middle East, and the United States. She is a member of the Geneva Writers Group and of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. She teaches memoir, creative writing, and provides book doctoring and private tutorials. Her forthcoming book of poems, Tristia, will be out this winter.

Intergenerational Writing - Rhode Island Regional In Person Event

Join us for an exciting intergenerational day of writing, creativity, and connection! This event is open to IWWG members, educators from Rhode Island and New England, students, and all women writers who wish to attend. The day will feature two sessions of creativive writing workshops tailored for educators, students, and intergenerational participants, with offerings in poetry, memoir, presentation and free writing.

Event Schedule:

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM:
Welcome & Introduction

• Registration and coffee. 

• Opening remarks from IWWG, Diana Champa, and sponsor acknowledgments.

10:45 AM – 12:00 PM:
1. Poem Renovation for Schools (Led by Kelly de La Rocha)

• Focus: Reworking literature snippets on a digital canvas in a fun, rule-free format that promotes literacy, creativity and social emotional learning.  

• Participants will learn a fresh strategy for teaching poetry and creative writing that sparks self-expression and a sense of accomplishment. All writers are welcome to come play with this online tool that prompts creative word pairings and provides daily inspiration. 

2. Memoir with Eve Kerrigan and Diana Champa

3. Writing Sprint: Opt for some quiet time and respond to writing prompts. 

12:00 PM – 12:45 PM:
Lunch & Networking

• Lunch provided by Plant City; informal discussions and networking among participants and facilitators.

• Tables for discussion topics (e.g., intergenerational writing, local community writing projects).

12:45-2:00 PM 

1. Flash Fiction Workshop (Led by Kathryn Kulpa) 

• Focus: Exploring flash fiction and developing concise, powerful stories.

• Participants will craft flash fiction pieces and share in small groups.

1. Reading & Reciting (Kate Lohman & Patricia Hawridge)

Writing Sprint: Opt for some quiet time and respond to writing prompts.  

2:15 PM – 3:00 PM:
Town Hall Discussion & Feedback Session

• Participants will share feedback on the workshops and overall event experience.

• Open discussion on how to improve future regional and intergenerational events.

Writing Toward Wholeness with Susan Tiberghien

Wholeness has been the goal of spiritual seekers from earliest times. But what is wholeness? I wrote in my book, Writing Toward Wholeness, that it is the revelation of the oneness of everything. The oneness of humankind, the oneness of nature, the oneness of all the creation. “It is the mustard seed that grows into one global community living in peace on our planet.” The workshop will have three parts.

1. How has wholeness been understood throughout the centuries, from Hestia and Lao Tsu to C.G. Jung and Thomas Merton?

2. How can we approach our longing for wholeness through writing in all its forms—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and especially journaling?

3. How can we contribute to wholeness in our broken world today, with excerpts from Rainer Maria Rilke, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Terry Tempest Williams, Ilia Delio and C.G. Jung?

When enough of humankind—enough of us—become whole, the world itself will become whole. All are welcome. There will be handouts and writing exercises. Come join us as we uncover our oneness.

WEATHERWORLD (starting at $45)

In this 90 minute workshop, we will look at how weather and weather words are part of cultures, lands and lifes; the human focus on weather being a code to connect, a way to write, and a possibility to paint or photograph.
We will touch upon theories re cultural climates as well as art representing all sorts of weather. Facts lead to fiction: we will draw up ekphrastic freewrites as well as stormy-cloudy-sunny pieces.

Look forward to exploring Weatherland by Alexandra Harris, poems by Vasalis and Cecilia Knapp [a.o.]; artworks by Josefina Holmlund and Frida Kahlo. Included is a document with 'weather art' to muse on, next to the workshop information. To quote anthropologist Kate Fox: “Depending on their response to your weather greeting, you can tell if someone is in the mood for a chat, or is feeling grumpy and negative”. Let’s forecast and freewrite to explore!

Kate Copeland’s love for languages led her to teaching, her love for art & water to poetry. She is curator-editor for TER & runs linguistic-poetry workshops for IWWG [a.o.].
Find her poems @ TER, WildfireWords, Gleam, Spirit Fire Review [a.o.] & at https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/ 

Featured Author/ Open Mic with Andi Penner

From her Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on traditional Tiwa lands, Andrea (Andi) Penner serves up poetry and creative non-fiction on In Our Own Ink. Her third and most recent book, Upcycled: Poetry Repurposed comprises new work and poems recently published in Neologism, Sky Island Journal, and Does It Have Pockets? Her second book, Rabbit Sun, Lotus Moon was a poetry finalist for the 2017 Arizona/New Mexico book award. She has spent a lifetime upcycling her credentials in diverse fields, from college English professor to industry consultant, trade school administrator to sci/tech editor at a national laboratory. And she brings all that writerly experience together with her mindfulness practice to teach the Mindful Editing workshop for IWWG. And last century? Well, that’s the stuff of her memoir-in-progress, which she aspires to write with clarity and grace.

In Our Own Ink indy publication (Substack) https://andipenner.substack.com/

When East Was North Facebook

How to Become An Entrepreneur of Your Own Enterprise ($25)

The presenter will go into detail regarding 1, How to Present Your Company in a Written Proposal
2. How to Present Your Product/Service in a Verbal Presentation
3. How to Market Yourself as an Authorpreneur
4. How to Promote Your Current Books vis a vis your Authorpreneur platform
Joan will be using a bit of her Entrepreneurial Training Handbook, The Write Rules, which is in the London Consortium of Libraries.

Joan Ramirez’s company trains entrepreneurs-all levels. For years she wrote for the staff of a large engineering firm and trained them in nuances of business writing and verbal presentations. Her latest publication The Write Rules, a handbook with guidelines for becoming an entrepreneur.

Flashes of Fiction (starting at $45)

In this 90-minute workshop, we will discuss the palpable and rich textures these tiny, but mighty, stories can evoke through how other authors weave their fiction elements with so few words. Examples will include works from today’s literary journals and past notable iterations, and we will use such examples to help us define how character, point of view, description, and setting play key roles in this form not being pegged a prose poem. Throughout the workshop, we will engage in several writing exercises to practice the form and try new craft techniques. This workshop is for any level and will inspire all, even those previously nervous to try to write in under 1000 words.

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.

Three Tools for Creating Believable Characters (starting at $50)

Three Tools for Creating Believable Characters: How do writers make characters "come to life" on the page for readers--including agents and editors? This course will delve into three tools (character timeline, setting timeline, identifying characters' wants and needs) that authors can use to create vivid, believable characters. Further, this course will show how all three tools work together and intersect with plotting and theme.

Sharon Short is the author of more than fifteen published books. Her newest, Trouble Island, is historical suspense (Minotaur Books), set in 1933 and inspired by true family history. Short is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life).”

Gateway to Memoir (starting at $199)

Interested in writing memoir but not sure where to begin? Got a memoir in the works but could use some guidance? “Gateway to Memoir” is a foundational workshop that will show you the basics of the genre. We will spend four weeks discussing time in memoir, the ethics of writing memoir, establishing place and how to turn the people who populate your past into characters. The final two sessions will be reserved for workshopping writing submissions.

Minda Honey’s essays have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.

Her debut memoir, THE HEARTBREAK YEARS is a hilarious and intimate portrait of a Black woman finding who she is and who she wants to be, one bad date at a time.

Putting Our Grandmothers on the Page: Poetry, Prose, Memoir & Monologue (starting at $150)

“Grandma, come back, I forgot
how much lard for these rolls.”

Carolyn Forche’s poem, "The Morning Baking," is an address to her dead grandmother that evokes powerful longing and confronts the limits of memory. Grandmothers are a universal archetype––those from whom we are descended, the grandmothers we are, as well as those who influence us from fairy tale and myth. Grandmothers are rich thematic territory for poetry and prose, but we face challenges of writing past cultural stereotypes or into historical silences. How do we leap beyond sentimentality to grapple with shifting cultural norms? Grandmothers both illuminate and shadow our personal, family and cultural identities. In this writing generative workshop, participants will use prompts of personal photos, objects, and memory to excavate and expand our ideas and feelings about “grandmother.” New and experienced writers are welcome.

Kelly is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator and author of four poetry collections. Her award-winning plays are produced around the US and Canada, and published by dramatic publishers. A past IWWG Board Member, Kelly teaches creative writing, including Monologue Play Labs & Showcases.

Elevate Your Fiction in Any Genre (starting at $50)

Elevate Your Fiction in Any Genre: Readers love stories that fit genre expectations. That's why stories and memoirs are classified into genres--so readers can narrow down the numerous options to a subset of books they think will interest them. But how can you make your story really stand out to readers--even while fulfilling genre expectations? This course focuses on how to overcome this seeming conundrum to create stand-out stories that readers will remember--and tell other readers about.

Sharon Short is the author of more than fifteen published books. Her newest, Trouble Island, is historical suspense (Minotaur Books), set in 1933 and inspired by true family history. Short is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life).”

Paths to Publishing (starting at $50)

Paths to Publishing: You've written a memoir, novel, or book! Or a story or essay! Now... how do you get your prose into the hands of readers? There are many paths--traditional, self-publishing, or a hybrid approach. And all can seem daunting. This course defines these paths, explores each path's pros and cons, helps participants discern which might be the right one(s) for them, and gives practical how-tos and next steps.

Sharon Short is the author of more than fifteen published books. Her newest, Trouble Island, is historical suspense (Minotaur Books), set in 1933 and inspired by true family history. Short is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life).”

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.

Gateway to Memoir II (starting at $199)

In this 6-week workshop we will build on the foundation and skills developed during Gateway to Memoir I with more of a focus on:
Developing and strengthening your voice as a writer
Identifying narrative arcs at the chapter and book level
How to do self-research to aid your memory

The final two sessions will be reserved for workshopping writing submissions.

Minda Honey’s essays have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads.

Her debut memoir, THE HEARTBREAK YEARS is a hilarious and intimate portrait of a Black woman finding who she is and who she wants to be, one bad date at a time.