ALL WORKSHOPS ARE SELF-PACED WITH NO LIVE MEETINGS
MOST INDEPENDENT STUDY WORKSHOPS INCLUDE TWO DIFFERENT PRICE OPTIONS
TO REGISTER FOR ANY WORKSHOP, EMAIL jswilliams1307@gmail.com
About the Workshop:
Zoomed out? Grab your favorite journal and get out into the world—of poetry. In this self-paced workshop, you’ll become a poetic field-agent, immersing yourself in the physical world in whatever way you can.
You’ll read poets who draw their inspiration from a deep sense of place (and the people they meet there), you’ll explore their use of craft elements, such as imagery and diction, and then, you’ll write in response to the places you visit during your “fieldwork,” whether that’s the Brooklyn Bridge, a beach at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, or walking down your street to 7-11.
The detailed 50-page workshop booklet explores how to write nature/eco poetry, how to keep a nature journal, nature poetry examples and discussion points, writing prompts, and much more. And the best part is…you can do this on your own schedule!
THE WORKSHOP INCLUDES:
· A robust Field Notes Booklet
· Strategies on how to create and maintain a nature journal
· Plenty of writing prompts to kick start the imagination
· A professional critique of up to 10 nature poems
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time
About the Workshop:
Zoomed out? Scheduling conflict with most workshops? Do you simply prefer to work at your own pace? In this self-paced workshop, you’ll study the ekphrastic form, immersing yourself in the world of art and poetry and how they converse.
Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, music, or other form of art in hopes of expanding on its meaning. Ekphrastic poets analyze the original artwork, explore symbolic meanings, invent stories, and even create dialog and dramatic scenes. The artwork will often lead the poet to new insights and surprising discoveries about the very nature of artistic creation and conversation.
In this intensive, self-paced workshop, we will explore the many facets of ekphrasis through poetry/art/song analysis, active discussion, and a progressively challenging set of writing activities that create and foster conversation among multiple art forms.
You will study diverse ekphrastic poems from Lisel Mueller, Lawrence Raab, Valerie Martinez, Blas Falconer, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Frank O’Hara, Terrence Hayes, Gina Williams, Ocean Vuong, and others to see how they successfully explore fresh, unexpected methods of artistic translation and conversation.
The detailed 40-page workshop booklet explores how to write ekphrastic poetry, poetry examples and discussion points, writing prompts, and much more. And the best part is…you can do this on your own schedule!
THE WORKSHOP INCLUDES:
· A robust 40-page booklet to use
· Multiple writing activities for each chapter
· A professional critique of up to 10 ekphrastic poems
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time
About the Workshop:
In the words of Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, “Forms are not locks, but keys. They don’t just open doors; they can start a journey and ultimately determine where you land.”
A poem can contain many elements to give it structure. Rhyme, meter, sound, repetition, experimentation, and so many others bring us back to poetry’s roots in traditional oral forms of storytelling. And there are so many profound reasons why traditional forms have survived the centuries, inspiring new poets and evolving to fit modern modes.
In this intensive, independent study workshop, you will explore the many facets of the haiku, haibun, sonnet, ghazal, pantoum, villanelle and golden shovel forms, focusing on our personal relationships with sound and rhythm and refining our relationships with form and content. You will learn the rules, yes, and when best to break them, fostering a new understanding of and appreciation for these unique poetic approaches.
AIMS:
· to introduce the conventions of the seven traditional forms and how these rules can support your own themes, experiences, and ideas
· to introduce a number of strategies to get into a traditional poetry writing ‘headspace’
· to equip you with creative techniques to generate initial ideas and images
· to develop your ability to shape your initial ideas into strong first drafts
THE WORKSHOP INCLUDES:
· A robust 80-page booklet detailing all seven forms
· Multiple writing activities for each chapter
· A professional critique of up to 10 traditional form poems
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time
About the Workshop:
Cento, erasure, and black out poetry are each unique forms of “found poetry” wherein a poet takes an existing text and creates something wholly new through recontextualization. From wildly weaving lines from your favorite poets into your own unique, multi-layered poem to erasing, blacking out, or otherwise obscuring a large portion of text to spark new meaning, “found poetry” may be used as a means of collaboration, creating a new text from an old one and thereby starting a dialogue between the two, or as a means of confrontation, a challenge to a pre-existing text.
Such hybrid poetics can be a powerful form of linguistic and political resistance!
In this hands-on, experimental, generative, self-paced workshop, you will study these varied forms of “found” poetry, drawing inspiration from news stories, political documents, and canonical literature, in order to recontextualize what has come before so as to understand, challenge, reshape, and better engage with the world around us.
THE WORKSHOP INCLUDES:
· A robust 42-page workbook
· Multiple writing activities for each chapter
· A professional critique of up to 10 found poems
· Ability to ask John writing questions any time
About the Workshop:
Are you working on a poetry manuscript or hoping to start one soon? Whether you only have a handful of poems or a book draft, this intensive workshop will teach poets different ways to create a poetry manuscript from the ground up, as well as how best to target publishers. Whatever stage you’re currently at, the goal is to move from composition through ordering and polishing all the way to publication! And it can start at any point….today or next month!
Further information is farther below, but here are the main highlights:
· A detailed 60-page workbook including everything from poem composition to collection formatting and publication, including 15 chapters, samples, and over a dozen exercises.
· Checklists, resources, templates, and activities to keep you moving forward.
· Six one-hour, one-on-one Zoom sessions to strategize together, discuss poems and ordering, and keep you on track.
· Ability to ask me questions over the entire summer.
· Both journal and publisher submission guidance, including cover letters and choosing the right publisher.
· (Optional): A professional critique of your complete collection (under 8,000 words)
Title: Building Your Collection: Poetry Manuscript Workshop Series
Dates: Six one-on-one hour-long workshops tailored to your schedule at regular intervals.
Tuition: Including full book critique: $700
Workbook and six meetings only (no critique): $300
Abstract:
Join award-winning poet, teacher, editor, and literary agent John Sibley Williams for this intensive self-paced workshop that will take you all the way from inspiration to publication! This workshop is for poets ready to organize their work into a collection, as well as working toward journal and book publication.
Expect to view manuscript samples and discuss techniques that can be applied to the process.
We will explore all the ins-and-outs of organization and publishing a collection, from writing toward a given theme to setting and keeping to creative deadlines to learning how to submit smarter, not harder. Poets will be guided through a series of lessons and hands-on activities that each focus on a different aspect of creating, structuring, and finally publishing a new collection.
Workbook chapters include:
· How to Create and Maintain a Writing Schedule
· How to Create and Maintain a Poetry Journal
· Possible Structures
· Building Your Collection from Previously Written Work
· Finding the Threads
· Ordering Your Manuscript
· Polishing Your Manuscript
· Choosing the Right Title
· Epigraphs
· Formatting Your Manuscript
· Breaking Writer’s Block
· Submitting to Magazines
· How to Submit and Pitch to a Traditional Publisher
· Traditional Publishing
· Self-Publishing
· Checklists and Resources
Learn how to:
· Set writing goals and make creative action plans
· Make your work stand out
· Get more acceptances…and faster
· Submit smarter, not harder, to both journals and presses
· Discover the thematic threads in your writing and how to weave them across a collection
· Reshape previous poems to fit the themes and style of your collection
· Order poems within a manuscript for cohesion and flow
· Write powerful introductory and closing poems for your collection
· Choose the right book title, poem titles, and epigraphs