Writing Workshops

Join us for one of our upcoming virtual classes.

We’re excited to host more writing workshops this year as we continue to grow our community. Here are our next two offerings, starting this Saturday 2/25:

• Generative Writing Workshop: On Memory (Bianca Alyssa Pérez)

  • Saturday, February 25: 2:00-3:15pm Central via Zoom

  • Registration: $30 (last day to sign up is tomorrow!)

  • This workshop draws inspiration from participants' memories, using memories as a personal archive for creative work. The workshop opens conversation about the relationship between personal narrative, transcendence, and community to explore healing. Using Gloria Anzaldua's imagistic ideas of “nepantla” and “cenote” as a baseline, participants will use these same theories to confront their personal archives/memories to inspire writing (I will provide pull quotes from relevant Anzalduan texts). They will be asked to write about a family memory in as much detail as possible. Participants will then exchange memories with each other and write a piece that remembers that memory from another perspective.

  • About the instructor: Bianca Alyssa Pérez was born and raised in Mission, Texas–a small southern town bordering Mexico. She holds her MFA in Poetry from Texas State University, where she also teaches. She is the 2022-2023 Clark House Writer-In-Residence. Her chapbook, Gemini Gospel, is forthcoming from Host Publications. You can find her writing in Magma Poetry UK, ReclamationATX, Psst! Press’ The Sappho Diaries, East French Press, The New York Quarterly, Re-side Magazine, The Ice Colony Anthology and The Porter House Review. She is also the co-host of the horror podcast, Basement Girls with writer Steph Grossman.

• Fiction Workshop: The Art of Blurring the Real and The Fantastic (Diamond Braxton)

  • Thursday, March 23: 6:30 - 7:45pm Central via Zoom

  • Registration: $35

  • Taught by Diamond Braxton, “The Art of Blurring the Real and the Fantastic” is a generative workshop designed to cover speculative realism and to teach writers how to blur the lines between reality and fantasy. We will read Carmen Machado’s “Eight Bites” and discuss how she blends the paranormal in her storytelling. In addition, we will look at an interview with Mariana Enriquez and analyze how she mixes horror into reality, from spirits to hauntings. Most importantly, we will cover why these writers strategically make these artistic choices and how they make an impact. At the end, I will share three generative writing prompts based on the readings and there will be time for a Q+A. Registration fee includes a copy of Prose Series #9 by Diamond Braxton (our March release in the ongoing print Prose Series).

  • About the instructor: Diamond Braxton is a queer, mixed-race Black-Mexican writer and editor pursuing an MFA at Texas State. She is a Best of the Net and Best Microfiction nominee and has work published in The Forge, Stanchion, Alebrijes Review, Rejection Letters, The Acentos Review, Hellebore Press, The Bitchin' Kitsch, and Mixed Mag and is also a Tin House ‘21 Workshop Alum. She resides in Houston, Texas where she started as the prose editor and was promoted to the Editor in Chief for Defunkt magazine, and she is also a Copy Editor for the Porter House Review. Learn more about her work at www.diamondgizellebraxton.com.

We’re looking forward to learning from these two talented writers! Be on the lookout for more opportunities this year as well.