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Cancellation/Credit/Refund Policy: If you are unable to attend in person or online events for any reason, please contact us as soon as you know. You will be given full credit, minus a 15 percent administrative fee, that can be applied toward any IWWG event for one year. If IWWG cancels or postpones a workshop for any reason, you will receive a refund or credit towards a future workshop. 


Once you are registered you will receive a confirmation with  Zoom links or venue details. You will also receive a reminder 24 hours before the event. If you do not receive a confirmation or reminder, check your spam mail. If you cannot find your Zoom link, please write to writers@iwwg.org with at least 24 hours notice. We cannot send links the day of the event.  Links for free events will be posted at least 48 hours in advance on the "Free Events" page. 

    • Tuesday, March 05, 2024
    • Tuesday, March 26, 2024
    • 4 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register
    Story Scaffolding ($159)


    Deep revision, like storytelling itself, is a technique that can be learned. Join Book Coach Julie Artz for a four week series of hands-on workshops that will teach you how to plan and execute a deep revision aimed at strengthening your story's scaffolding. We'll look at three techniques for reverse outlining, how character motivation brings your plot and character arcs together, how understanding scene structure is fundamental to both revision and storytelling, and how to project management a deep revision. If you're ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work, this class is for you.



    Julie Artz spent her young life sneaking into wardrobes searching for Narnia. When people started to think that was too weird, she went in search of other ways to go on magical adventures. Now she finds those long-sought doors to mystical story worlds in her work as an author, editor, and book coach. She helps social and environmental justice minded writers send their work out into the world with confidence. Her clients have published with the Big Five, with small and university presses, and indie/hybrid as well. An active member of the writing community, she has volunteered for SCBWI, TeenPit, and Pitch Wars and is a member of the EFA, the Authors Guild, and AWP. A consummate story geek and wyrdo, Julie lives in an enchanted forest outside of Redmond, Washington.


    • Wednesday, March 06, 2024
    • Wednesday, April 10, 2024
    • 6 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register


    Intro to Playwriting ($199):

    Do you have a  great idea for the theatrical stage? Curious to try your hand at playwriting? Maybe you need refresher in the company of a supportive community. Over the course of five weeks, you will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the art of playwriting. With craft-based lessons, writing exercises, generative writing, group discussions, and breakout rooms to get to know your fellow cohort better. There will be weekly out-of-class reading assignments of plays by a collection of diverse (both in identity and style) contemporary playwrights such as Charly Evon Simpson, Kristoffer Díaz, and Qui Nguyen. In this class, you are sure to develop a stronger hand at world building, character development, plot, dialogue, and all the magic that is theatre. By week three, you will have the opportunity to hear your work read aloud by your peers, receive both on-the-spot feedback as well as extensive feedback from your instructor. You should also expect to have a one-on-one meeting with the instructor to talk about your work as well as answer any questions on an individual level. By the end of the course, you will come away with a collection of monologues, scenes with stage directions, and a final draft of a ten-minute play. In parting, you will receive a list of curated resources for dramatists to keep you moving forward, as well as a non-exhaustive list of submission and development opportunities for your work.

    WEEK ONE: Fundamentals of Playwriting: Review the necessary elements of the page for the stage. You will learn script format and craft vocabulary such as monologue, dialogue, stage directions, structure, arcs, etc.

    WEEK TWO: Character and Dialogue: We'll talk about how to create dimensional characters. Ensembles. And even characters outside of traditional realism.

    WEEK THREE: Structure/Plot: Structure is simply how a story is organized. Plot is what happens. This week will focus on those two distinctions. It will equip with techniques for both plot driven, and character driven writers, and even push you to write in the middle of that binary.

    WEEK F
    OUR: Arcs, Beats, and Action: Most contemporary plays these days are limited to 10 minutes, 90 minutes, and 120 minute structures. You will learn which arcs and structures are best for the stories you want to tell, and how to pace each effectively.

    WEEK FIVE: Theatricality: Lean intro writing for the stage, actors, designers, and what it means to write for a living, breathing audience.

    Between Week 5 and Week 6: Individual one-on-one meetings with the instructor.

    WEEK SIX: Revision Techniques: Best revision practices. Collaborating with actors, directors, designers, and theaters. Submission process. The road to production.

    KIRA ROCKWELL is a neurodivergent playwright and educator. She is an Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing with the Mass Cultural Council, a Recipient of Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award, Second place recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and more. Selected plays include OH TO BE PURE AGAIN (world premiere Actor's Express); THE TRAGIC ECSTASY OF GIRLHOOD (workshop premiere Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); and WITH MY EYES SHUT (published with Original Works). Her work has been developed with The Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Great Plains Theatre Commons, among others. Commissions with Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actor's Express, and Moonbox Productions. She holds a BFA in Theatre Performance, and an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. As an educator, Rockwell has taught at Brandeis University, Wheaton College, and centers across New England. Before graduate school, Rockwell worked at the intersection of mental health and arts education. Through a trauma-informed, healing-centered lens, she aims to nurture communal spaces that disrupt passivity and empower agency. www.kirarockwell.com

    • Saturday, March 23, 2024
    • 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    The Mindful Creative ($49)


    Our writing practice, with the right tools and techniques, can be a safe haven and fertile ground for developing a mindfulness practice that supports us in our daily life. This writing workshop offers mindfulness techniques that can be used anywhere, at any time, to support your creative and wellness rituals. Participants will understand and experience the benefits of mindfulness through various therapeutic exercises intended to align focus, while bringing clarity to creative voice and vision.


    Black (they/them) is a renaissance, embodying the legacies of artists like Josephine Baker and Ntozake Shange, who were unapologetic and unbound in their creative expression. They are an Afro-Indigenous, genderqueer healing and teaching artist based in Bulbancha (so-called New Orleans, LA). Through transdisciplinary creative practice, Black transcends the boundaries between art and form to create space for healing, discovery and transformation. They are an Afrofuturist, conjuring and worldbuilding through the imagination to facilitate a sense of collectivity, wholeness and embodied wisdom. It is through this work that Black strives towards liberation. For more information, follow @thecreatorblack on social media or check out thecreatorblack.com!

    • Monday, March 25, 2024
    • Monday, May 06, 2024
    • 6 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Brevity, Density, Power: Reading Short Stories by Women ($169)

    In this workshop, we'll read and explore six wildly different stories by women writers including Kate Chopin, Alice Walker and Gish Jen. You will receive both text and an audio file of the story, read by the instructor, before each class. Our conversations will welcome participants’ thoughts, questions, wild ideas and thoughtful challenges as we learn from and with each other, diving into each text and finding connections to our own lives and times.

    Anndee Hochman is a journalist, essayist, storyteller and teaching artist. For more than 20 years, she has facilitated community-based literature discussions through People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos. She also guides writers of all ages and experience levels in crafting poetry, memoir and creative nonfiction. Her books include Everyday Acts & Small Subversions: Women Reinventing Family, Community and Home (The Eighth Mountain Press) and Anatomies: A Novella and Stories (Picador USA). She’s at work on a young adult novel titled My Plural Is People.

    • Tuesday, April 02, 2024
    • 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
    Register

    Love and Family Poems ($39)

    Lovepoems are often the hardest to make original. Family poems are often the hardest to begin writing truthfully. How do we write an authentic poem about our most important relationships? Through example poems and exercises, we will connect to the particularities of our own experiences to reinvigorate these classic themes. All levels of experience are welcome. While this workshop is intended to be generative, those with drafts on these topics are welcome to bring them as inspiration or for revision.  

    Angela Siew is a multilingual poet with a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Emerson College. She was most recently a Peter Taylor Fellow for the 2023 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and has received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the City of Boston and the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop. Her work has been published in SalamanderCrab Orchard Review and Art New England, among others. A chapbook, Coming Home, will be published by Cut Bank (University of Montana) in 2024. A former private tutor and English language teacher, she has also taught overseas in Chile and Italy. She currently teaches online poetry workshops for Grub Street and the International Women’s Writing Guild.

    • Sunday, April 07, 2024
    • 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    She’s got the look… An ekphrastic workshop  ($39)

    Kate CopelandIn this 90 minute workshop, we will look at communication strategies re face and facework, while fusing theories with art and fashion … and ekphrastic writing! We will use all sorts of looks and colours to write to, the artists and authors we will include are Anne Sexton, Sokari Douglas Camp, Joy Gregory, Grace Weaver and Björk, a.o. You will receive a document with all the information we touch upon, with some extra face, art and fashion ideas to explore, in your own time!


    Kate Copeland is a linguist and poet, teaching@the worldwide web, while housesitting@the world. She is curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review and has done workshops for IWWG, as well as with Lisa Freedman. She volunteers at art festivals, and housing-insecurity projects.
Please find Kate’s poetry@TER, Wildfire Words, Erbacce, AltPoetry a.o.

    • Saturday, April 13, 2024
    • 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Untangling the Difficult Narrative ($49)


    Trauma writing – whether personal, cultural, or collective – can be more than catharsis. It can offer an opening, create awareness, and begin necessary conversation. Often, the difficult narrative is sought to help make sense of our experiences, to assign meaning to what is not easily expressed.

    Through compassionate and gentle exploration–using empowerment and artistic tools–writers at all levels can access narrative that sometimes seems overwhelming or shameful. Through this process, we’ll learn to re-frame experiences into craft that feels true and meaningful.



    Rebecca Evans is a memoirist, poet, and essayist. Her poems and essays are published in lit journals, like The Rumpus and Narratively. She co-hosts a radio show, Writer to Writer, on Radio Boise and lives in Idaho with sons and Newfoundlands and a squawky Calico cat. Her recent book, TANGLED BY BLOOD, a memoir in verse (Moon Tide Press, 2023), is available wherever fine books are sold.

    • Wednesday, April 17, 2024
    • 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM
    • Online
    Register

    WRITING INCLUSIVELY WORKSHOP

    What is Inclusive Writing & Why Do It?

    Definitions

    Journaling Prompt for participants

    Writing Inclusively Tips: What to Consider; What to Avoid

    Should I Write Outside My Own Identity?

    Resources that can help


    Renee Harleston is the founder of Writing Diversely. Renee believes deeply in the power of multi-dimensional representation to change lives. A published fiction writer with a Graduate Degree in Cultural Anthropology, when not providing sensitivity reads and consulting on inclusive language practices Renee can be found canning fruits and vegetables, and queueing up "cat tv" for her cat Jerome in Jersey City.

    • Tuesday, April 23, 2024
    • Thursday, April 25, 2024
    • 3 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Screenplay: So You Think Your Life's A Movie? ($149)


    We learn how to write a screenplay and see the teachings we learned played out in an Oscar winning screenplay. 3 acts covered in 3 days.


    Linda Bergman wrote 24 films and produced 5 of them. She’s been nominated for an Emmy and the Writer’s Guild Award. Her musical, "Wanna Play?”, was produced on PBS and won The Alpha Award in Children’s Programming. Her Lifetime Movie "Almost Golden"ranked #2 of all Time! She’s written two books on screenplay and teaches worldwide.


    • Saturday, April 27, 2024
    • 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    WRITING EARLY BLACK AMERICANS IN HISTORICAL FICTION ($39)



    This workshop includes an overview of:

    1. Writing Race: The role race place in the setting; and Physical Descriptions and Stereotypes
    2. What can you say? - Getting the Language right
    3. Resources that can help
    4. Q&A





    Renee Harleston is the founder of Writing Diversely. Renee believes deeply in the power of multi-dimensional representation to change lives. A published fiction writer with a Graduate Degree in Cultural Anthropology...(see writing inclusively for full bio)

    • Wednesday, May 01, 2024
    • Wednesday, June 05, 2024
    • 6 sessions
    • via Zoom
    • 12
    Register

    Intermediate Playwriting ($199)

    Every script, every new play is a theory. I don’t know if it’s going to work, which means a 

    writer has to go in like a tailor, and listen to the actors and say, trim this more, or give her more. If it is perfectly tailored for the first cast it will be universal.” In this six-week course, you will get to sharpen your craft, learn revision techniques, and hear your work read aloud by professional actors. Each week, the instructor will share a short craft lesson, lead group discussions, facilitate breakout rooms, and guide you through writing exercises with skill focused prompts. There will be some outside assignments, including reading plays and short craft essays. The reading list will focus on work that push outside of traditional play structure, with notable works by Sharifa Yasmin, Hansol Jung, and Dave Harris. By week three, we will transition in

    to workshop where you will have the opportunity to hear your work read aloud by professional actors and receive on-the-spot feedback. Using the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process, workshops will aim to nurture the growth of a play in early development. Your instructor will organize one-on-one meetings for extensive feedback, as well as individual time to dig into you as an artist. The course will culminate with a session focused on the business of playwriting. The instructor will share professional knowledge about the development of a new play, the submission process, artistic statements, and equip you with resources to take your theatre work to the next level. This class is intended for intermediate and advanced level playwrights who are familiar with the theatrical form

    KIRA ROCKWELL is a neurodivergent playwright and educator. She is an Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing with the Mass Cultural Council, a Recipient of Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award, Second place recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and more. Selected plays include OH TO BE PURE AGAIN (world premiere Actor's Express); THE TRAGIC ECSTASY OF GIRLHOOD (workshop premiere Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); and WITH MY EYES SHUT (published with Original Works). Her work has been developed with The Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Great Plains Theatre Commons, among others. Commissions with Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actor's Express, and Moonbox Productions. She holds a BFA in Theatre Performance, and an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. As an educator, Rockwell has taught at Brandeis University, Wheaton College, and centers across New England. Before graduate school, Rockwell worked at the intersection of mental health and arts education. Through a trauma-informed, healing-centered lens, she aims to nurture communal spaces that disrupt passivity and empower agency. www.kirarockwell.com

    • Saturday, May 04, 2024
    • Saturday, May 25, 2024
    • 4 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Reading and Writing Fairy Tales ($149)

    In this 4-part workshop spanning four weeks, you are going to deep dive in the history, reading and writing of the fairy tale and come to know its exciting possibilities as a reader and writer. You will also be engaging in readings and activities in-between the scheduled sessions.

    4 sessions
    05/04/2024: re-membering fairy tales: history, genre and structure
    05/11/2024: reading fairy tales: the classics, the modern and the contemporary
    05/18/2024: writing fairy tales: guided prompts and activities
    05/25/2024: twisting fairy tales: rewriting, queering, evolving

    Francesca Aniballi is an author, a teacher, and a creative practitioner from Italy. She holds a PhD in comparative literature, a master's degree in anthropology and professional qualifications in creativity, expressive arts therapies, and writing.

    https://www.blueplanetvision.com 

    • Tuesday, May 07, 2024
    • Tuesday, June 11, 2024
    • 6 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Writing Life: Exploring Memoir and Personal Essay (starting at $129)

    Now more than ever, memoir and personal essay allows us to speak of our own experiences on our terms. Unlike autobiography or biography, which are often preoccupied with the facts of an event, or when things take place on a timeline, memoir can instead focus on the feelings and senses of a memory’s architecture, and the unique ways our memories connect to one another. In this generative six-week workshop, we will study and discuss techniques used by a variety of memoirists and poets who have written their own stories and experiences in interesting ways. Each student will also draft one piece in a form of their choice (prose or poetry) each week that experiments with sharing a memory or experience and receive weekly feedback from me and their classmates. At the close of the course, each student will have up to six new drafts that share or explore memory. Each student will also be encouraged to choose one draft they are most proud of to share with the class during our final Zoom session as part of a celebratory reading.

    Lauren Brazeal Garza is a disabled author and Ph.D. candidate in literature at the University of Texas at Dallas with an MFA in writing from Bennington College. Her published poetry collections include Gutter (YesYes Books, 2018), a memoir-in-verse which chronicles her homelessness as a teenager. She has also published three chapbooks of poetry and flash fiction, most recently Santa Muerte Santa Muerte: I was Here Release Me (Tram Editions, 2023), which features fictional interviews with ghosts. Her work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Waxwing, and Verse Daily among many other journals.

    • Saturday, May 18, 2024
    • Saturday, June 01, 2024
    • 2 sessions
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Research and Resonance (starting at $89)

    Research ca n deepen our writing across genres, delivering facts, words, metaphors, inspiration, and details to build characters, stories, arguments, and images. It can also help us to understand ourselves as part of a connected world. In this workshop, we will explore the generative power of looking something up, how to keep track of what we’ve learned, and how to use facts to enliven our writing.

    Catharina Coenen teaches biology and writing at Allegheny College. She co-hosts IWWG’s virtual open mic series throughout the year. Her essays and poems have appeared in literary magazines, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, noted in Best American Essays, and featured in Best of the Net. More on her creative work can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/allegheny.edu/botany-for-storytellers/about-this-site/author.

    • Monday, May 20, 2024
    • 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    A Quest for Innocence in a Troubled World ($79)


    This workshop brings to the poetic table three things: the inspiration to go on a quest; rediscovering a sense of innocence in language; and the overwhelming realities of today's troubled world. So, what does the poet have to say to the child, the adolescent, the newlyweds, the new parents, the people who just bought their first house and had their first baby? How do we re-discover language? Is childhood an innocent place? Is linguistic innocence desirable for a poet in the context of so much societal conflict?



    Carmen Bugan's most recent books are the collection of poems Time Being (Shearsman, 2022), and the book of essays Poetry and the Language of Oppression: Essays on Politics and Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2021). Her prize-winning memoir, Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police (Picador, 2012), was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and her new and selected poems, Lilies from America (Shearsman, 2019), was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. She teaches literature and creative writing at New York University Abu Dhabi.

    • Thursday, May 23, 2024
    • 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Meditation Journaling for Neurotrauma Survivors & Caregivers ($39)

    Explore trauma-sensitive meditation journaling as a contemplative practice for self-healing, wonder, and joy. By viewing mindfulness through the lens of neurotrauma, we evolve our understanding of the beauty, power, and practice of narrative presence with heartfelt awareness, by way of the intuitive mind. Learn three different trauma-sensitive meditation journaling methods that reflect a strengths-based approach. Nurture a new perspective of neurodivergent creativity, and connect with writing as an accessible practice for spiritual self-care in difficult times. Caregivers welcome.

    Worthy Stokes is a bestselling mindfulness author who survived life-altering neurotrauma and a lucid, Near Death Experience. Her trauma-sensitive meditation journals and programs have since touched thousands worldwide. She currently studies Narrative Medicine at Columbia University.


    • Sunday, June 09, 2024
    • 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Writing for Children ($25)


    Talk about children's writing, editing and adapting animated content for children


    Hi, I'm Swarnima, a writer based in Mumbai.
    Over the past few years, I've focused on writing animated children's storybooks. I've written, edited, and translated over 100 such books. My skills extend to various writing disciplines, as evidenced by the different projects I've undertaken.

    • Sunday, June 23, 2024
    • 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    Two Lands, Two Languages, Two Minds (starting at $39)


    As a Korean-American poet, I often describe my writing process as two minds trying to communicate on the same page, across the gaps between identities; I naturally write in both languages because I think in both languages. So I will use my poem, “The Gap,” to demonstrate the effect of different languages represented as different minds. Then, participants will use the “gap method” to create their own short poem.





    Tanya (Hyonhye) Ko Hong is an internationally published poet, translator, and cultural curator championing bilingual poetry and poets. Born and raised in South Korea, she immigrated to the USA at the age of eighteen. She holds an MFA degree from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Tanya is the author of five books, including The War Still Within (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). Her work appears in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, Allium, Entropy, Cultural Weekly, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (The Feminist Press), great weather for MEDIA, the Choson Ilbo, and The Korea Times, among others. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.


    • Thursday, August 01, 2024
    • Monday, August 05, 2024
    • ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY
    Register

    Conference Schedule Site

    This year IWWG’s  2024 Summer Conference, will take place August 1-5 on the beautiful, seaside campus of Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Join us for this once-a-year immersive weekend; experience Community, Connection, and Creativity in the company of women Writing Together. You’ll thank yourself.

    Every day, choose from among 20 different workshops, in all genres, taught by teachers both familiar and those bringing exciting new voices and perspectives. Experience the joy of being “heard” during in-class readings, nightly open mics, and intensive workshops and critiques focused on your own writing. Unwind, rejuvenate, and build lasting connections with like-minded women writers joined by our words and our stories. The beauty of this location will inspire both you and  your creativity. We hope you'll join us for this transformative journey into Writing Together by the sea.  

    This year will feature the option of a single room or choosing to room with another, cutting your cost significantly. All rooms are in 'quad' suites, set up for four (2 bedrooms, 2 in each room). Single rooms (single occupancy per bedroom) share bath, common area and kitchen with another single room in the suite. Double rooms (double occupancy in twin beds) share bath, kitchen, and common area with another 2-person double in the suite. 

    Slides of our Open House/Information Session from 2/4/2024

    • Friday, August 02, 2024
    • Sunday, August 04, 2024
    Register


    • Saturday, August 03, 2024
    • 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
    • RWU
    Register

    IWWG BOOK FAIR

    • Each author will share a 6 foot table
    • Authors responsible for shipping books to/from venue
    • Authors responsible for set up and breakdown of their area
    • Please bring enough books for half a 6 foot table

    If shipping, send to: (please do not have boxes arrive before July 25, 2024)

    Roger Williams Mail Center

    1 Old Ferry Rd.
    Bristol RI 02809-2971
    Tel. 401-254-3147





Contact Us!

Email (quickest response):
writers@iwwg.org

Mailing Address:

IWWG

att: Michelle Miller

22 Parsonage St #293

Providence, RI 02903

telephone: (518) 290-1636 


NYC Address:

888 8th Avenue, #537
New York, NY 10019


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