Friday Freewrite:
Delving into Memory to Explore Transitions in our Lives

In this freewriting workshop, participants will be given short writing prompts to explore points of time in their lives that bring up memories of transitions, some natural and some forced. We will explore moments in childhood or adolescence when we had experiences that shifted our lives in some way. Such shifts perhaps point us to details we have not noticed before, either in our natural environment, the family, or the developing body and self. Or in our adult years, as women, we go through so many transitions, that we often don’t catch our breath to pause and look back and examine each of them. This workshop offers an opportunity, inspired by sample poems, to write about moments in our lives that we examine, discover details that have lain in the shadows, and find meaning through writing.

Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of many poetry volumes, the most recent being We Are Not a Museum (Finishing Line Press, 2022), winner of New York Book Festival award.

Celebrating Latine Women Writers

A panel of Latine women writers of various backgrounds and writing genres delve into What it means to be a Latine woman's voice, addressing biases and how these experiences have shaped your writing. RescuePoetix facilitates this event with questions, invites the audience to bring their questions as the participants share their work and perspectives in this forum.

RescuePoetix | Susan Justiniano is a globally published, performing poet and twice-honored Poet Laureate. RescuePoetix™ professional artist brand was established in 2006 As a teaching artist and advocate she is deeply involved in the Arts globally, including active integration of the Arts through Social Justice and Education. More info: https://linktr.ee/rescuepoetix

Elaine Nadal is Poet Laureate of Milford, Connecticut and author of two poetry books: When and Sweat, Dance, Sing, Cut, published by Finishing Line Press. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net-nominee and has delivered a TEDx talk on hope, poetry, and music. 

Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta (she/they) is a professor at CUNY-BCC. Their poetry book, Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere, is available from Get Fresh Books. She is the editor of Latina Outsiders (Routledge, 2019), Creative Writing Editor at Chicana/Latina Studies Journal, and a Poetry Editor at WSQ Journal.

Isa Anastasia Rivas, a poet and playwright from Los Sures, Brooklyn, explores hardship, trauma, and political struggle within the Boricua Diaspora, especially Boricuir and Trans communities. Her work appears in The Acentos Review, Belladonna* and The Poetry Project, and anthologies like la piel del arrecife.

Lisa “Rubi G.” Ventura (she/her) is a poet, essayist, performer, and author of ¿Con qué papel me envuelves la luna? Her work has been published and showcased by numerous literary platforms and arts organizations. Lisa’s a VONA 2022 alumni and a 2024 mentee for the Latinx-in-Publishing program. Find her at www.lapoetarubi.com. 

Featured Author/ Open Mic with Leslie Neustadt

Leslie’s writing and art is illuminated by her Jewish background, commitment to social justice and gender equality, and her experiences as a woman, daughter, wife, mother and cancer patient. Her poems and essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and publications.

Her poems and essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and publications including the anthologies Veils, Halos & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women; The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary American Jewish Poetry; 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millenium; Rumors Secrets & Lies: Stories & Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion & Choice; Musematrix; Mentor’s Bouquet, and Heels into the Soil: Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence.

Leslie's books, Bearing Fruit: A Poetic Journey, and The Sustenance of Stars are available on her website at https://www.leslieneustadt.com/

Some of the areas we'll cover include:

• Seeing the whole picture of your project from inspiration to publication

• Five elements of a winning book proposal

• Understanding and growing your audience

• Finding your voice and trusting its authority no matter what you’re writing 

• Wrestling with the publish/self-publish/do I need an agent conundrums

• Using every avenue for creating your platform and expanding your creative reach

Jan Phillips is a queer feminist writer who connects the dots between spiritual intelligence, evolutionary creativity, and social transformation. She is the author of eleven award-winning books, has taught in over 25 countries, and has published work in the New York Times, Ms., Newsday, People, Parade Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, New Age Journal, National Catholic Reporter, and Sun Magazine. Her memoir, Still On Fire—Field Notes from a Queer Mystic, was released by Unity Books in October 2021. Her books have been endorsed by Gloria Steinem, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Joanna Macy. Jan has produced three CDs of original music, several videos, and a seven-hour audio program called Creating Every Day. Her chapbook Born Gay is available for free on her website, www.janphillips.com

Crafting Unforgettable Characters (starting at $55)

Great characters remain essential to any work of fiction. They are a combination of a writer's knowledge, skill, and imagination. This workshop will examine the process of creating strong, multi-dimensional characters, as well as the principles and techniques that can effectively improve and/or define characters, avoiding cultural clichés and hackneyed stereotypes.

Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry won Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Prize for her collection, What Isn’t Remembered, long-listed for PEN/Bingham Prize and shortlisted for W. Saroyan International Prize. THE ORCHARD was a finalist for 2023 Chautauqua Prize and picked by NY Post as one of the best novels.

Find me in the Fiction District (starting at $39)

In this 90 minute workshop, we will look at how our brain hemispheres handle fiction, while touching upon theories re syntax, semantics and the folk model of the mind. We will merge this all with various characters, settings and contrasts; in other words: facts and fiction-freewriting galore.
Authors included are Kiki Petrosino, Shira Erlichmann and George Sand [a.o.]; lyrics by Kate Bush and Björk will relate to our narratives. Included is a document with some miscellaneous reads to muse on, next to the workshop information. Find me in the fiction district, and let’s meet up in freewrite territory!

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/ 

True Stories/Well Told: 

Making Your Memoir More Memorable with Judith Huge

Amy Hempel writes, “I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.” This is true for readers as well. Once you capture your readers’ attention, your job is to hold it so your story becomes one that matters to them. In this workshop we will be working together to draft and craft your personal stories, so they take root in your readers’ imaginations.

Topics include using your opening paragraphs to show them “the spark” and becoming a narrative voice that, in Kelly Corrigan’s words, your readers “will want to spend three (or three hundred) pages with.” In addition, we will be working on revealing your characters’ complications (including yours) through actions and how to end a piece with a satisfying “ahhhh.” There’s a lot more.

Annie Dillard tells the would-be memoir writer, “You have to take pains not to hang on the readers’ arms, like a drunk, and say ‘And then I did this, and it was so interesting’.” Memoir can become more memorable; this workshop, designed for both beginning and seasoned writers, helps you discover how.

Judith Huge has spent over 30 years developing innovative approaches to both learning and writing. As president of her own national consulting firm, teacher of both undergraduate and graduate-level college courses, and director of writing workshops across the country, she has made a difference in the way thousands of people find, craft, and promote their writing voices. She is a co-author of 101 Ways You Can Help: How to Offer Comfort and Support to Those Who Are Grieving (Sourcebook, 2009), as well as A Middle Aged Woman and the Sea, a tale of loss and transition. 

Featured Author/Open Mic Joy Ladin

Joy Ladin is the author of eleven books of poetry, including the brand-new Family (Persea, September 2024), National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna and Lambda Literary Award finalists Transmigration and Impersonation, and three books on trans issues, including Once Out of Nature: Selected Essays on the Transformation of Gender, also new from Persea. Her writing is available at www.joyladin.com.

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.

WEATHERWORLD (starting at $39)

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

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)
When East Was North (Facebook)

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.

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.