This Inprint Book Club meeting will take place via Zoom. The Zoom link will be the same for every meeting and will be provided in your Eventbrite email receipt (scroll down to the Additional Information section).
On July 14, 2024 the Inprint Book Club will discuss Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo, who will appear as part of the 2023/2024 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series on April 15, 2024. Visit brazosbookstore.com to order your copy of Acevedo’s newest book.
Inprint Book Club meetings are free and open to the public and are facilitated by experienced book club leader Torie Ludwin. The full schedule of Inprint Book Club meetings for 2023/2024 season appears on the main Inprint Book Club webpage, which you can access by, clicking here.
If you have any further questions, please email info@inprint.org.
This Inprint Book Club meeting will take place via Zoom. The Zoom link will be the same for every meeting and will be provided in your Eventbrite email receipt (scroll down to the Additional Information section).
On June 23, 2024 the Inprint Book Club will discuss Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, who will appear as part of the 2023/2024 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series on Monday, March 25, 2024. Visit brazosbookstore.com to order your copy of Orange’s newest novel.
Inprint Book Club meetings are free and open to the public and are facilitated by experienced book club leader Torie Ludwin. The full schedule of Inprint Book Club meetings for 2023/2024 season appears on the main Inprint Book Club webpage, which you can access by, clicking here.
If you have any further questions, please email info@inprint.org.
This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House.
Crafting Character Across Genres
As the great Henry James once opined, a story should never be just a story, meaning it should rarely be just an anecdote. Rather, it should show some true essence of the story’s character to explore some fundamental shift in that character’s psyche from the beginning of the narrative to the end of it. In this weekend intensive, we’ll be rooting ourselves in this exact concept to tackle narrative projects in prose, poetry, and non-fiction works (including the essay) as well as discuss ways in which two or more genres might be blended to create singular forms that best fit the story or stories you are trying to tell. We’ll discuss the ways in which character and persona driven fiction, poetry, and non-fiction can bring about not only shifts in character but also surprising epiphanies and conclusions that land like lightning bolts on the page for yourself and for the reader. A great crash course for those just getting their sea legs in concepts story-telling and the fundamentals of poetry alike. Beginners welcome!
This is an online workshop that takes place via Zoom.
This is an advanced workshop designed for those that have taken a previous writing workshop, have a novel idea in mind, or a novel in progress.
Navigating the Novel
Jose Saramago has said of the contemporary novel, “[it] is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.” Its facets are many. Its possibilities are endless. So, how exactly does one go about knowing where to start in writing a novel? And how does one know exactly when they are finished? In this course we’ll look at several modes of the novel in its contemporary form, breaking down what works (and why) while considering some possible shapes and structures that lend themselves to the kinds of stories that we want to tell. To this end, we’ll workshop each other’s works-in-progress in the hopes of gaining some direction as well as reinforcing concepts discussed and learned throughout the course. We’ll consider the novel as a journey as opposed to a task or a mountain to be surmounted. This workshop should be fun, meditative, and ultimately energizing for both us and our work.
To register for this workshop, we encourage you to have taken a previous Inprint creative nonfiction or flash creative nonfiction workshop.
Sometimes big impact comes in a small container. Dinty Moore once described flash writing as a sudden storm. Author Michael Todd Cohen maintains that if flash is a sudden storm, an author’s job is to nurture the conditions to conjure it. In this advanced creative nonfiction class, we’ll conjure our flash nonfiction storms by mining our own memories, family histories, and experiences for the truths we live by. We’ll play with known forms—letters, lists, journal entries, legal documents—to figure out which ones might best illuminate the bright spots and shadowlands of our lives. We’ll cultivate emotional resonance, character development, perspective, and tone within the flash constraint of 750-words or less. We’ll also talk about revising and publishing your pieces.
Workshop will include sharing student work, in-class readings, and lots of generative prompts to get your short-form memoir and essays off the ground, using student feedback and craft essays to cinch them back into the flash form.
This is an online workshop that takes place via Zoom.
Crafting Fiction
Over eight weeks, this online workshop will introduce you to the art of writing fiction. We will focus
on craft elements such as character, point of view, plot, setting, and more. We will also discuss the
writing process and consider how our own processes might call for pliability depending on the form
of a given project (flash prose, short story, novel). We’ll read published stories each week, and you’ll
receive weekly writing prompts, which will help you generate new material. Everyone will have the
opportunity to workshop a story or an excerpt of a longer piece. Workshop submissions will receive
detailed feedback from the instructor. You’ll be expected to write outside of class and complete
assigned readings prior to each meeting. At the end of the course, you will have a deeper sense of
your voice and style, drafts on which you can continue to work, and the tools for approaching future
projects. This workshop is open to writers of all levels and backgrounds.
This is an online workshop that takes place via Zoom.
The Hybrid Lyric
Embark on a transformative journey of literary exploration in this immersive workshop focused on creative nonfiction writing with a lyric flair. Blending the genres of prose and poetry, participants will discover the power of storytelling to illuminate truths, evoke emotions, and captivate readers. Through a series of engaging exercises, discussions, and peer feedback sessions, students will hone their craft, experiment with hybrid forms, and cultivate their unique voices as writers.
This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House.
The Confessional Persona
To write poetry is to explore an emotion. It is through our lived experiences—both painful and pleasant—that we have the ability to make art. In this generative intensive, we will look at confessional poetry and the power of the “I” persona in poems. We will look at the mid-20th century confessional poets as well as more contemporary writers who write in a confessional style, analyzing how reality and art commingle. Our mentors will include: Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Kaveh Akbar, Sharon Old, Louise Gluck, Rachel Wetzsteon, James Merrill, Richard Siken, and more.
This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House.
The (Short) Road Trip: A Generative Workshop
The Road Trip is one of the oldest tropes in literature – there is something that is probably fundamental to our nature that is drawn to stories about heroes setting out on quests, returning in triumph, or escaping to a new life. Think of Odysseus, Huck Finn, Peewee Herman. The Road Trip can provide stories with structure, conflict, and desire.
Using the short stories “Work” by Denis Johnson and “Pretty Ice” by Mary Robison as our roadmaps, we will discuss certain elements of fiction craft. Each week, I will provide generative exercises, based on class discussions. The exercises together are meant to combine to form a rough draft of a story. In other words, if all goes well, by the end of the course, you will have a first draft of something new.
All styles and genres are welcome. We will read from our exercises each week and provide each other oral feedback. I will provide PDFs of craft essays and short stories for optional further reading.
This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House.
Creative Nonfiction of the Family and Self: The Memoir Workshop
Are you working on a memoir? Are you the family chronicler? Then SIGN ON UP for this creative nonfiction workshop on crafting the project of the lived life. You will read and discuss personal essays of memoir and family alongside generating, revising, and refining your own work. Discussion will cover such topics as narrative craft, creative liberties, and structuring, among others.
Whether you are just beginning an autobiographical project or have a manuscript you have been working on for some time, this workshop will support its production and revision. It is a workshop for all levels of writers, though participants should have a relevant project ready to work with. As Carmen Giménez says in her exquisite poetry collection Be Recorder, “does it seem impossible // the desire for such validation // or could you // break free and record // be recorder.” Get ready to document!