Choose from one of the workshops listed below or contact me to create a new writing workshop for your group.  Individual editing and critiquing services are also available.

Eco-Poetry: Intersection of Wild and Written
“Green” poetry borrows from the great nature poets of previous generations, but the emerging trends in literary ecocriticism and environmental stewardship lend a new validity to this reawakening poetic genre. This workshop examines language, metaphor, organic truth, and the dissonance between anthropocentric ideology and evoking the wild. We also discuss the importance of accurate research when writing eco-poetry, markets for eco-poetry, and incoporating the Christian message in the environmentalist (secular) poem. 

Writer's Nature Walk
In taking a nature walk, pen noting each detail as it occurs, writers can record nature as it appears before our very eyes. We can see creation with open eyes, minds alert to the possibilities in a branch, or blade of grass. For writers attuned to the word of the Lord, using organic metaphor and authentic encounters with nature can become a way to transcend the direct context, establishing and expanding truths about creation, the Creator, and the human relationship with both Creator and created.  Followed by classroom time selecting, editing and shaping the raw material from the walk into poetic formats.

Out of Context: Finding your Random Creativity Generator
Where do you get your ideas? Do you ever run out? You don’t have to. Find your “random creativity generator” and learn to see everyday details in new ways. This creative writing workshop provides multiple exercises [we will do several in class] to help any writer break through dry spells and writer’s block. Leave your Freudian slip showing, tell me what color water really is, and discover reading upside down.  We will pull poems from spider webs, find character sketches hiding behind the wallpaper, and discover stories one inch at a time.

Vertical Landscapes of the Page
Take a closer look at traditional forms of poetry in this writing workshop and learn how to use the rules of traditional forms to craft “modern” poems. Stanzas breaks, parallel structure, assonance, and alliteration make good non-rhyming poems too. Add complexity to your poems while simplifying your process by discovering hidden acrostic techniques.  Explore blank space, embrace diverse cultural heritages, and dance to the feet of a different meter.