Our Next Workshop
Quilting Together Your Scraps and Pieces of Writing
INSTRUCTOR: Jessica Cole and Jamie Portwood
TIME: Sunday, May 19, 3:00–6:00 p.m. CST PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Monday, May 13. After Monday, May 13: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Hybrid. Writespace, 1907 Sabine Street, #125, Houston, TX 77007 (map). This workshop is also available via Zoom. LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 Anyone else have scraps of writing just sitting in the Google drive or an overstuffed notebook? Short pieces consisting of a single, sharply drawn memory or some lovely lines from a poem that was never finished. Do you have paragraphs from memoir pieces or stories that you just couldn’t delete because they are so true and truly beautiful? What do you do with them all? They seem so random and disjointed? These pieces do all have something in common; you wrote them and you like them, so we are going to have an old fashioned quilting bee. Through collective wisdom, mentor texts, generative exercises, and group sharing, we will seek out the colors, themes, patterns, and images and patch together these seemingly disparate scraps into a quilt of surpassing beauty. Will it be a poem? An essay? A hybrid piece that defies genre but hits the heart just right? Who knows? Let’s find out together. Bring printed copies of your favorite scraps, blank 8X10 paper, tape, and a pair of scissors. This workshop can be taken in person at the studio or online via Zoom. This event is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. This project is generously funded by the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and Mid-America Arts Alliance. This project is generously funded by Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. |
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
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View all our upcoming workshops.
Our Next Event
The Submission Room
TOPIC: Subbing outside your genre
TIME: Sunday, May 12, 4:00–6:00 p.m. CDT PRICE: Free for members. Pay what you can for nonmembers. Become a member here. LOCATION: Melange Creperie, 711 Heights Blvd #B Houston TX 77007 (map) You had a story published? Great job! But is that the end of the line for those few thousand words? Perhaps not! First publication rights last for a certain period of time with the magazine or journal who printed them, but then the rights (usually) revert to the author. So can you do anything with that great story? Of course! Today on the Submission Room we will look at opportunities for second publication, whether that is in magazines that specifically do so, contests and calls for entry, or building an anthology of your short works. This event is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. This project is generously funded by the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and Mid-America Arts Alliance. This project is generously funded by Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. |
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What people are saying about our workshops:
"I hadn’t written poetry in more than 6 months. Not because I didn’t have anything to say—but rather, the opposite: I have too much to say, and not enough time to say it. That’s the beauty of short-form poetry—and I can think of no one better than Dr. Kendra Leonard to be your guide into this world.
If you’re like me—an unpracticed, imperfect poet who doesn’t know anything about the mechanics of sonnets or limericks—it can feel super intimidating to step into a poetry workshop. But Dr. Leonard made me feel anything but intimidated. She is kind, encouraging, and takes a gentle, question-led (rather than feedback-led) approach to workshopping poetry.
What’s truly amazing is that she’s helped me turn short-form poetry into a habit. I’ve written a poem every day since taking her workshop. Often, I don’t have a big block of time to sit down and journal out all my thoughts and feelings. Dr. Leonard’s workshop showed me that I can be just as expressive through short-form poetry, and in a fraction of the time.
I’m really excited to take her workshop on ekphrastic writing."
—Ynes Freeman, on Kendra Preston Leonard's Writing Short: Poetry in the Palm of Your Hand
If you’re like me—an unpracticed, imperfect poet who doesn’t know anything about the mechanics of sonnets or limericks—it can feel super intimidating to step into a poetry workshop. But Dr. Leonard made me feel anything but intimidated. She is kind, encouraging, and takes a gentle, question-led (rather than feedback-led) approach to workshopping poetry.
What’s truly amazing is that she’s helped me turn short-form poetry into a habit. I’ve written a poem every day since taking her workshop. Often, I don’t have a big block of time to sit down and journal out all my thoughts and feelings. Dr. Leonard’s workshop showed me that I can be just as expressive through short-form poetry, and in a fraction of the time.
I’m really excited to take her workshop on ekphrastic writing."
—Ynes Freeman, on Kendra Preston Leonard's Writing Short: Poetry in the Palm of Your Hand
All donations made to Writespace are tax-deductible.
Writespace is a Houston grassroots literary arts nonprofit whose mission is to embrace and celebrate our city’s diversity by providing the type of high-quality training available through Master of Fine Arts creative writing programs at a fraction of the cost to writers of all genres, with a focus on providing programming for underserved communities and scholarships for low-income writers. |