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- Registration closes 24 hours before start time or when workshop fills. No walk-ins, please.
- Please read our workshop policies before registering.
- Can't attend without a scholarship? Apply here.
December Workshops
Writing Short: Flash in All Genres
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INSTRUCTOR: Nick Almeida
TIME: Saturday, December 2, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. CST PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Sunday, November 26. After Sunday, November 26: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Writespace, 1907 Sabine Street, #125, Houston, TX 77007 (map) LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 The difficult task of flash, Stuart Dybek says, “is managing to draw character in psychological depth within such a restricted space.” As writers, how do we accomplish this? How do we manage the numerous aspects of good writing craft when constrained to small spaces? How—as the philosopher EM Cioran says—can we make “our organic pulsations felt”? This generative workshop will endeavor to explore answers to these questions while empowering your writing process and offering an opportunity to focus on what makes your flash unique. All genres welcome! 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. |
Photo by Clinton Naik on Unsplash
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Feeding Your Fae: A Generative Workshop for SFF Writers
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INSTRUCTOR: Tanya Aydelott
TIME: Saturday, December 2, 1:00–4:00 p.m. CDT PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Sunday, November 26. After Sunday, November 26: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Online via Zoom LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 “Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, craving and identity.” – Jonathan Safran Foer In this generative workshop, we’ll explore techniques for enriching your worldbuilding through the sensory details of taste. We’ll consider how food can unlock characters, establish settings, and be used to indicate change and conflict. Through short reading and writing exercises, we’ll learn how an imaginative landscape of flavor, taste, and cuisines can serve the speculative fiction genres. Come hungry and ready to write! This workshop is suitable for all writing levels. |
Photo by Juliette F on Unsplash
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Read Essays Like a Writer
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INSTRUCTOR: Mark Dostert
TIME: Sunday, December 3, 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, November 27. After Monday, November 27: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Writespace, 1907 Sabine Street, #125, Houston, TX 77007 (map) LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 In order to write publishable essays (that is, essays that appeal to and connect with strangers), it is important to understand why exemplars of the form are so successful and effective. What is it that keeps readers connected to the narrator and the issues an essay raises, both individual and collective? Both the concrete and the abstract? What “raw materials” has the author used to construct this text? What authorial choices allow us to “see” and “feel” the architecture of a successful essay? How can we then emulate it in our own work? How can we use these essays to evaluate our own aspiring essays? In this three-hour class, Mark Dostert will facilitate a focused close reading examination and annotation of “The Displaced” by Viet Thanh Nguyen and “The Thrill of the Hunt” by Rick Bragg. We will concentrate on how each author uses the “Big Five” literary elements as our initial point of discussion, centered on what an author is doing and why the author is writing what they are writing. In this workshop, we will also examine why it is necessary to write vertically as well as horizontally. Students will receive a PDF copy of both essays upon registration and are urged to read both closely before class meets so that we can dive right into our analysis and make the most valuable use of our time together. 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. |
Photo by Ishaq Robin on Unsplash
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Set Yourself Up for Success in 2024: Building Community as a Writer
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INSTRUCTOR: Sean Morrissey Carroll
TIME: Saturday, December 9, 9:30 – 11:30 a.m. CST PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Sunday, December 3. After Sunday, December 3: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Writespace, 1907 Sabine Street, #125, Houston, TX 77007 (map) LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 The myth of the solo genius toiling away in a darkened room has done more damage to writers’ potential than nearly any other. A book takes a village to create, and crafting a narrative and a career should be a community effort as much as possible. Join us in this collaborative workshop designed for writers looking for methods and strategies to grow their writing process as well as engage their community, online and in person. Introverts welcome! From open mic nights to slush pile volunteers, there are many methods to extend your reach, find your peer group, advance your writing career, and deepen your practice through collaboration and community-building. Create your own zine, attend an online writing conference, or volunteer with a small press! We’ll speak about the ways you can play to your strengths and stay in your comfort zone while growing your reach and opening new opportunities in your writing career. Requirements for this class are a laptop or tablet and the willingness to read a (short) passage in front of a group. Writers at any level of writing experience are welcome. 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. |
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Set Yourself Up for Success in 2024: Planning a Journaling Practice
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INSTRUCTOR: Joyce Boatright
TIME: Saturday, December 9, 1:00–4:00 p.m.. CST PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Sunday, December 3. After Sunday, December 3: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Writespace, 1907 Sabine Street, #125, Houston, TX 77007 (map) LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 In the privacy of your journal, you learn to be both bold and vulnerable. Your journal offers the opportunity to strengthen your mental prowess as well as be a powerful gateway to creativity and personal discovery. As writers, we can use journals as a playground for no-judgment creativity, exploring the road not taken, and describing Mother Nature and the nature of people. Sharing publicly (or not) is always a personal choice. Journaling has always been beneficial, but we want to help you keep on track with a good perspective in 2024. So, we designed a workshop to help you use journaling to keep your perspective and keep you on track throughout 2024. We’ll engage with various journaling methods like morning pages, reflective writing, and self-discovery to find a practice that works just for you. Whether you are a devoted journal keeper or you’ve never kept one, this workshop is for you! 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. |
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
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Writing Fight Scenes
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INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Nyri Bakkalian
TIME: Sunday, December 10, 11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.. CST PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Monday, December 4. After Monday, December 4: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Online via Zoom LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 Combat is, by nature, confusing and disjointed, whatever form it might take. From a bare-handed fistfight to movements of small or large fighting units or vehicles, it is anything but neat. How do we do justice to this complexity? How can we embrace the fact that recollections of combat are often fragmentary or even contradictory, and how best can we be sensitive to the fact that they often go hand in hand with things like PTSD? In this workshop, academic historian turned speculative fiction author Dr. Nyri A. Bakkalian will guide you on an exploration of the complexities of writing a well-crafted, believable fighting scene by especially leaning into the bodily and sensory elements of combat. Can my character deliver a soliloquy in earshot of an assault gun? What does regularly worn armor smell like? How is combat sometimes absurd and even hilarious? You will engage with this and more. Our aim is to help you write a more well-rounded depiction of whatever form of combat is your focus, one that can convey its essence responsibly and engagingly. 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. |
Photo by Piotr Makowski on Unsplash
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Writing the I: Positioning the Self in Personal Essay
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INSTRUCTOR: Rosa Boshier Gonzalez
TIME: Sunday, December 10, 3:00–6:00 p.m. CDT PRICE: Early bird price: $45 for members, $60 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Monday, December 4. After Monday, December 4: $55 for members, $70 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here. LOCATION: Writespace, 1907 Sabine Street, #125, Houston, TX 77007 (map) LEVEL: All levels CAP: 15 As nonfiction writers, we are tethered to our subjects, be it the art of estrangement, family relationships, or national history. We constantly negotiate our narrative distance between ourselves and the things that we write about. In memoir, that distance is more closed, tending towards the personal and confessional. In critical writing and journalism, the distance must be carefully calibrated to make room for our subject. Take Joan Didion, for example. Would she have been able to write so eloquently about her era if she hadn't been able to simultaneously implicate herself in the trends and assumptions of her generation? In this 3-hour course, we'll look at examples from writers such as Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Joan Didion, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, and Myriam Gurba to study and practice how we position ourselves in our own writing. We'll discuss disclosure--what needs to be divulged to the reader and why. We'll talk about perspective and the responsibilities of contextualizing the self. This dance between the self and subject will result in essays that address our subjects, and tell the story of our lives, in nuanced and authentic ways. |
Photo by Terry Tran on Unsplash
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