Unless otherwise noted, all workshops are held via Zoom.
Please email jswilliams1307@gmail.com to register.
Accepted forms of payment: PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or mailed check.
Consistently submitting to and being published in literary magazines, both in print and online, is a crucial step in reaching new readers, creating a community around your work, and being taken more seriously by book publishers.
In this informative workshop, I will provide you with all the tools and strategies you’ll need to successfully target and get accepted by literary magazines. From researching to cover letter writing, bookkeeping to submission tracking, goalsetting to retaining your enthusiasm (and sanity), you will learn how to get your publishing career off the ground…and your poetry into stellar magazines.
Ever found yourself staring at a blank page for long periods of time, trying to write but being unable to find the right words? You’re not alone.
In this informative workshop, we will look at the reasons we all experience writer’s block, enjoy an active discussion on our own experiences with it and how we got out if it, and discover ways of overcoming it. We will also enjoy a large number of targeted writing activities to give you some practice on the various block-breaking techniques.
Similar to the goals of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), the aims of this self-paced class is to write 30 poems in 30 days. However, you might write one poem a day, or several poems in a day, and then give yourself a break. It’s totally up to you!
Whether you’re writing to a specific theme, assembling a group of poems for a chapbook, or you want to try writing a longer poetic sequence, this workshop is meant to support you with generative prompts and experiences to get you creating plenty of new work.
What This Workshop Provides:
· 30 Days’ Worth of Writing Prompts
· A professional critique of all 30 poems as you send them, be it one each day or all 30 at the end of the month
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time during the month
Poetry is witness, and what better location to witness than at the kitchen table? Ingredients, recipes, and rituals of honoring are a celebration and a meditation. Mealtimes hold us, as well as history. Every morsel is an activation process; stories have been buried within our pots and pans. Flavors serve as a platter of beginnings and endings of relationships, cultures, identities, memory, medicine, and bodies.
We will study food poems exploring our families, culture, what brings us comfort, and so much more! We will also study work by Li-Young Lee, Maxine Kumin, Chen Chen, Francine J. Harris, Galway Kinnell, Kevin Young, and other poets who explore the intimate relationship between eating and the soul.
Similar to the goals of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), the aims of this self-paced class is to write 30 poems in 30 days. However, you might write one poem a day, or several poems in a day, and then give yourself a break. It’s totally up to you!
Whether you’re writing to a specific theme, assembling a group of poems for a chapbook, or you want to try writing a longer poetic sequence, this workshop is meant to support you with generative prompts and experiences to get you creating plenty of new work.
What This Workshop Provides:
· 30 Days’ Worth of Writing Prompts
· A professional critique of all 30 poems as you send them, be it one each day or all 30 at the end of the month
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time during the month
From food to family, the weather to spirituality, giving thanks to taking stock of your life, the holidays mean different things to different people. We’ll read works by poets spanning different literary traditions, exploring a diverse range of perspectives and approaches, to see how they view the holidays, including traditions and rituals and family dynamics, as well as culture and a touch of politics. We will read poems from the likes of Jane Kenyon, Joy Harjo, Galway Kinnell, Rae Armantrout, Ted Kooser, Longfellow, and many others.
As always, there will also be a variety of writing activities throughout and an opportunity to share your work with our small, safe group of wonderful poets! And the workshop includes a robust workbook.
Grayed in by inky light. Deep shadow and chill. Hearth and love. Beginnings and endings. There’s just something about winter that brings out both melancholy and heartfelt joy in equal measure.
In this intensive generative workshop, we will explore the many facets of writing winter poems through poetry analysis, active discussion, and a progressively challenging set of writing activities that touch upon both our internal/personal worlds and how we interact with the larger world around us.
We will study diverse poems from contemporary poets such as Natalie Diaz, Ross Gay, Danez Smith, Tomas Transtromer, Mary Oliver, Linda Pastan, and many more to see how they successfully explore themselves and the world through winter poems.