WRITERS JOINING THE FESTIVAL IN 2024
CLICK ON ANY NAME ABOVE TO ZOOM TO THAT PARTICULAR WRITER, OR SIMPLY SCROLL DOWN TO VIEW THE ENTIRE ROSTER.
WORKSHOPS
Our Registration process now incorporates the use of the well-known website Eventbrite. Please note that when you click on a button below to register for a Workshop, you will be sent to the Festival's Registration page on Eventbrite.com.
INTENSIVE SIX-HOUR WORKSHOP
The “Writing Intensive Workshop” is a SIX hour session, to be held on Friday, June 7th ONLY. Intensives are limited to 15 Participants, so please register early. The Intensive Registration deadline is Thursday, 5/30/24 at 8am. A Workshop that draws fewer than 6 Participants will be cancelled, unless the Writer agrees to conduct it.
In an Intensive Workshop you will share work and receive feedback on your writing. The Festival will provide space dedicated solely to each Intensive in order to maximize this special opportunity.
Intensive Participants will pay a Registration fee of $125 for the unique opportunity to spend a day in an advanced setting with a professional writer, one of our Festival Alumna. The $125 Registration fee includes a lunch on the day of the Intensive and covers ALL OTHER Festival activities. All we ask of you is a firm commitment to attend once you register.
While Intensive participants may register for other Festival Workshops, they may register for only one Intensive. If your Intensive is cancelled and there are available spaces in other Intensives, we will email you. If you find that you cannot attend an Intensive Workshop that you have signed up for and it has not been cancelled, a refund may be given if we find a replacement for you from the waiting list.
Please consult the specific Intensive Workshop description below for any materials or references required by the Instructor, noted in bold, red print.
TWO-HOUR WORKSHOPS
Writing Workshops are a solid tradition of the Festival of Women Writers. Writers returning to the Festival and those who have been invited for the first time will offer the Festival a diverse group of Workshops.
Each Workshop will be presented for two hours and will address a variety of topics, genres, skills, and techniques.
In order to participate in any Workshop, a registration fee is required. A $120 fee entitles you to attend as many workshops as you wish with the exception of the Intensive Workshops.
Those seeking to take part in an Intensive Workshop on Friday, June 7th and attend any Workshop on Saturday or Sunday should simply register for the Intensive Workshop of your choice then make your 2-Hour Workshop sections in the appropriate time slots on the Eventbrite Registration Page. The fee for this Intensive Workshop / Workshop combination is $130.
If you want to attend just ONE Workshop during the weekend, we have instituted a "Single Workshop Fee" which is $30.
Please consult the specific Workshop description below for any materials or references required by the Instructor, noted in bold, red print.
Photo Courtesy of hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.blog
Breena Clarke
Breena Clarke is the author of four novels, most recently published, Alive Nearby, a gently ruminative, epistolary work that explores characters in Angels Make Their Hope Here, Clarke’s 2014 novel set in an imagined mixed-race community in 19th century New Jersey.
Clarke's debut novel, River, Cross My Heart, was an October 1999 Oprah Book Club selection and was named by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the seven essential books about Washington, D.C. Her critically reviewed second novel, Stand The Storm, was named one of 100 Best for 2008 by The Washington Post. Her short fiction has appeared in Washington Post Magazine, Kweli Journal, Stonecoast Review, Nervous Breakdown, Mom/Egg review, The Drabble, Catapult, Solstice, and Now, the online magazine of The Hobart Festival of Women Writers.
She is co-founder of The Hobart Festival of Women Writers, an annual three-day celebration of the work of diverse women writers. Additionally, she has been a member of the fiction faculty of Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Southern Maine.
Breena Clarke is co-editor of NOW, an online journal of the Hobart Festival of Women Writers. Breena will be one of the moderators of the Public Conversation – "HISTORY’S FORGOTTEN WOMEN: Researching and Telling Their Stories" to be held on Friday, June 7th at 3:00 pm.
Photo Courtesy of hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.blog
Cheryl Clarke
Cheryl Clarke's new collection of poetry, ARCHIVE OF STYLE: POEMS NEW AND SELECTED will be released from Northwestern University Press in August. She is the author of six previous poetry collections, in addition to the critical study AFTER MECCA: WOMEN POETS AND THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT (2004) and THE DAYS OF GOOD LOOKS: PROSE AND POETRY, 1980-2005 (2006).
Cheryl Clarke is one of seven organizers of the annual Hobart Festival of Women Writers, now in its 11th year. Cheryl will be one the moderator of the Public Conversation – "NOTES FROM THE EDGE: Black Lesbian Publishing" to be held on Saturday, June 8th at 1:00 pm.
Photo Courtesy of alexisdeveaux.com
Alexis De Veaux
Alexis De Veaux was a freelance writer and contributing editor for Essence Magazine in the 1980’s, where she penned a number of socially relevant articles. She was chosen by the magazine to go to South Africa in 1990 to interview Nelson Mandela upon his historic release from prison, making her the first North American writer to do so.
Alexis published a second award-winning children’s book, An Enchanted Hair Tale (1987) before moving to Buffalo, where she earned a doctorate in American Studies in 1992. Her biography, Audre Lorde, Warrior Poet (2004), has been the recipient of several awards, including the Gustavus Meyers Outstanding Book Award (2004).
She has collaborated with the visual artist Valerie Maynard and poet Kathy Engel on the digital project, “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been Terrorized?” (available on YouTube). Her novel, Yabo, won the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction.
Alexis is returning to the Festival for a Eighth time and she will be one of the participants in the Public Conversation – "NOTES FROM THE EDGE: Black Lesbian Publishing" to be held on Saturday, June 8th at 1:00 pm.
Photo Courtesy of www.nancyagabian.com
Nancy Agabian
Nancy Agabian is the author of The Fear of Large and Small Nations, a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, recently published by Nauset Press. Her previous books include Princess Freak (Beyond Baroque Books), a collection of poetry and performance art texts, and Me As Her Again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter (Aunt Lute Books).
In 2021 she was awarded Lambda Literary Foundation’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. A longtime adjunct writing professor at NYU and CUNY, she has also led creative writing workshops for community organizations in New York City, Los A., and Armenia.
This is Nancy's Second year as a participating writer at the Festival and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, "SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE / POINT OF VIEW".
Visit her at:
Photo Courtesy of uconn.edu
Briona Simone Jones
Briona Simone Jones, PhD, is Assistant Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut. She is editor of the multi-award-winning Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, the most comprehensive anthology centering Black Lesbian thought to date.
Jones developed the concept of “Black Lesbian Aesthetics” to describe the heretical shift in self-definition that transpired after the ground-breaking formation of the Combahee River Collective in 1974. Jones is currently a Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, working on her manuscript, The Pleasure of Rebellion.
This is Briona's First Festival as a participating writer and she will be taking part in the Festival's Opening Reading session on Friday, June 7th at 2:00 pm. Additionally, Briona will be one of the participants in the Public Conversation – "NOTES FROM THE EDGE: Black Lesbian Publishing" to be held on Saturday, June 8th at 1:00 pm
Photo Courtesy of www.stephanienikolopoulos.com
Stephanie Nikolopoulos
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is a writer and editor based in New York City.
She is the coauthor, with Paul Maher Jr., of Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”; a contributing writer to Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Making “Me Time”; and introduction author to the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading’s A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird and Hunting the Grisly by Theodore Roosevelt.
She earned her MFA in creative writing, nonfiction, from The New School and BA in English from Scripps College.
Stephanie is returning to the Festival for a Ninth year and will offer the Writing Workshop, "CRAFTING THE RIGHT NARRATOR FOR YOUR STORY".
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Photo Courtesy of Robyn Wishna
Elisabeth Nonas
Elisabeth Nonas is the author of four novels. The earlier ones focused on how lesbians form community and create family. Given that her first book appeared in 1985 when she was in her mid-30s, she clearly has different concerns as she ages and her life continues to unfold. These were what sparked her recently-published novel, Grace Period.
Elisabeth taught screenwriting and writing for emerging media at Ithaca College for over twenty years. She condensed her pedagogy into the self published Story Workout: Exercises to Help You Connect to the Stories You Want to Tell.
This is Elisabeth’s Fourth Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, “PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: Nurturing Your Writing Habit”.
Visit her at:
Workshop for :
Nancy Agabian
SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE / POINT OF VIEW
When writing memoir, personal essay, or autobiographical fiction, writers often default to a first-person narration. But writing in an alternative point of view, such as second person (you), third person (he, she, they), or plural forms (we, us, our), may lead to specific storytelling styles more appropriate for your subject matter.
Shifting point of view may also give you distance or a different perspective in reflecting on difficult passages from your life.
Short texts by authors such as bell hooks, Jamaica Kincaid, Justin Torres, and Ruth Ozeki will help prompt writing exercises.
Workshop for :
Stephanie Nikolopoulos
CRAFTING THE RIGHT NARRATOR FOR YOUR STORY
Selecting and giving voice to your narrator is as important as plotting what happens to your characters. Through a series of in-class writing exercises workshop participants will experiment with how different narrators impact viewpoint and tone.
They’ll be given a handy list of narrator archetypes as they explore boundary-pushing inanimate object narrators, nameless narrators, multiple narrators, choruses, interviewers, and more
Photo Courtesy of Nick Kelsh
Bertha Rogers
Bertha Rogers is a poet, translator, and visual artist. Her poetry collections include the Salmon Press titles What Want Brings: New & Selected Poems, 2024), Wild, Again, 2019; Heart Turned Back, 2010; and several chapbooks and interdisciplinary collections.
Bertha's illustrated translation of Beowulf was published in 2000. Her translation, with illuminations, of the Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Poems from the Exeter Book, Uncommon Creatures, was published in 2019. Other poems and translations appear in literary journals and anthologies.
Bertha Rogers, was named the First Poet Laureate of Delaware County, New York, in March 2005. Additionally, she has been awarded fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden, Millay, and others. With her husband, Ernest M. Fishman, she founded Bright Hill Press & Literary Center in 1992.
This is Bertha’s Ninth Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, “LIMERICKS”.
Photo Courtesy of A Room Of Her Own Foundation.org
Jane Schulman
Jane Schulman is a poet and fiction writer. In 2020, she published a book of poetry, Where Blue Is Blue, with the terrific small press, Main Street Rag. In the book, she explores themes of love, death, disability, and wonder in the everyday. Jane’s poems have appeared in Mezzo Cammin, Sixfold, The Lake and many others. She is now at work on a book of short stories.
Jane was born in Brooklyn and lives in Jamaica, Queens. She's the mother of four sons and grandmother of six. A seeker and finder of voices, she works as a speech pathologist in a Brooklyn public school with children with autism and learning challenges.
This is Jane’s Second Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, “WRITING IN RESPONSE TO WAR”.
Visit her at:
Workshop for :
Elisabeth Nonas
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: Nurturing Your Writing Habit
A workshop on the art/craft/joy/special hell that is getting your ideas onto the page.
After an exploration of processes, techniques, rituals, routines, and discipline, participants will have the opportunity to define their writing practice and leave with tools to keep it going.
Workshop for :
Bertha Rogers
LIMERICKS
It is believed that limericks date back to the 14th century and originated in the Irish town of Limerick.
The limerick is a humorous five-line poem with two rhymes: one shared by the first, second and fifth lines, and the other shared by the shorter third and fourth lines.
These funny limericks use their bouncy rhyme scheme to explore concepts like math, science and philosophy. You can teach them to your children or family or students – and have limerick contests.
Workshop for :
Jane Schulman
WRITING IN RESPONSE TO WAR
Stories and poems spotlight, offer refuge, dream of reconciliation in response to conflicts and war. They offer differing perspectives, layered emotional complexity, and unimagined compassion for one side and, less often, they speak of tremendous pain and miraculous healing and shape perceptions and outcomes of war.
In this workshop, participants will read work of Wislawa Symborska, Seamus Heaney, Naomi Shahib Nye, Mahmoud Darwish, Yehudah Amichai, Dan Pagis, Ben Okri, and Carolyn Forche.
We’ll look at writing about three conflicts: northern Ireland, the Balkan wars of the 1990’s, and the Israel-Palestine conflict – sharing pieces written from both sides of these conflicts.
Photo Courtesy of hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.blog
Lisa Wujnovich
Lisa Wujnovich is a farmer, poet, activist, educator, and herbalist, writing and performing in the heart of the Marcellus Shale Region. Her anti-fracking poems were on the forefront of the movement to ban fracking in New York State.
She directs the Hancock Community Education Foundation Elementary K-4 After School Garden, where students and families grow, learn about, and cook fresh vegetables from the garden. Additionally, she teaches poetry as an enrichment tutor at the afterschool program.
Lisa received her MFA in poetry from Drew University and BA in drama from Antioch College.
Poetry Publications:
Fieldwork (Finishing Line Press) 2012
This Place Called Us (Stockport Flats Press) 2008
Co-editor for anthology, The Lake Rises, poems to and for our bodies of water (Stockport Flats Press) 2013
Published poems in anthology, Vigil for the Marcellus Shale, (FootHills Press) 2013 and Ghost Fishing, An Eco-justice poetry anthology 2016.
Lisa's poems can be read in Canary, 5 AM, Naugatuck Review, Adanna Journal, Earth’s Daughters, New York Organic News and The River Reporter.
This is Lisa’s Third Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, "HIGH CONFLICT POETRY".
Visit her at:
Workshop for :
Lisa Wujnovich
HIGH CONFLICT POETRY
Poets add nuanced language to conflict, whether that conflict is political, religious, philosophical, or personal.
As citizens of one small planet, war-torn, engulfed in climate crisis, we are increasingly divided and lonely, morally at odds, with finite lines drawn.
In this workshop, participants will examine how poetic language in narrative and lyrical form reaches into the humanness of conflict. Participants will use poetry prompts to listen beyond first impulses and write crafted poems to tell stories that explore individuality and commonality within our high conflicts.
Intensive Workshop for :
Esther Cohen
This is a SIX-HOUR Class
GOOD STORIES: How to Write Them
In a small Mexican restaurant named Angel’s in upstate New York, a waitress came to our table to take the order. She was an ageless talkative person, my favorite kind of server.
“Do you know,” she began, and we knew we didn’t, “there’s another Angel’s restaurant a few miles away. Both Angels are brothers. Their mother believed all babies should be named Angel. I married the one down the road, she said. And now I’m married to his brother. Never changed my last name.”
Good stories are everywhere. We all have a few, and some of those stories are our own. In this Intensive workshop, participants will examine, explore, and tell good stories, as a way of learning how. We will all leave class with one good story (or maybe two).
Esther Cohen teaches Good Stories to many different writers, including incarcerated women, seniors, fast food workers, and members of the Cairo Public Library.
Photo Courtesy of www.esthercohen.com
Esther Cohen
Esther Cohen is the author of Don’t Mind Me: And Other Jewish Lies with illustrations by Roz Chast, the novels No Charge for Looking and Book Doctor, and Unseen America, an ongoing project in visual history, started in 2000. Nannies, homecare workers, migrants, and scores of others tell the stories of their lives through pictures they take of what they see.
Esther has also published two volumes of poetry, God Is a Tree and prayerbook. She has been writing a daily poetry blog since 2014. She lives in Manhattan as well as Cornwallville, NY.
This is Esther's Tenth year as a participating writer at the Festival and she will be offering the INTENSIVE Writing Workshop, "GOOD STORIES: How To Write Them" on Friday as well as taking part in the Festival's Closing Reading session on Sunday .
Workshop for :
Mary Johnson
WRITING A GREAT SEX SCENE
Writing sex offers very specific challenges. We’ll examine some examples of great and not-so-great sex scenes from both fiction and nonfiction, helping us to discover together the principles of writing great sex (whether or not the sex we’re writing about is great).
I’ll offer in-class writing exercises with opportunity for feedback, as time allows. Though our examples will focus on prose, the principles offered are also applicable to drama and poetry and can be useful to both beginning and advanced writers.
Photo Courtesy of Nivea Castro
Mary Johnson
Mary Johnson is the author of An Unquenchable Thirst, named one of 2011’s best nonfiction books by Kirkus Review and awarded the New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Work of Nonfiction.
After spending twenty years as a nun with the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, she completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College and helped found A Room of Her Own Foundation.
Mary now considers herself a secular Humanist and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, O the Oprah Magazine, The Huffington Post, Bloomberg View, Religion News Services, and National Public Radio.
Mary's work has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Salon.com, Poets & Writers, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, and The Rosie Show, among others. A Humanist Celebrant, Mary creates unique ceremonies for weddings, funerals, and other rites of passage, and has twice been voted New Hampshire’s top wedding officiant.
She blogs at Medium and can be found at www.maryjohnson.co. Mary LOVES the Hobart Festival of Women Writers. She’s currently writing about the brain, the mysteries of consciousness, and the illusion of the self — so understand that while everything in this bio is true, it’s an illusion to think all this belongs to Mary.
This is Mary’s Sixth Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, “WILD NIGHTS”.
Visit her at: www.maryjohnson.co
Photo Courtesy of Matzvey Zabbi
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. She is a product of the Puerto Rican communities on the island and in the South Bronx. She attended the New York City public school system and received her academic degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo and Queens College-City University of New York.
As a child she was sent to live with her grandparents in Puerto Rico where she was introduced to the culture of rural Puerto Rico, including the storytelling that came naturally to the women in her family, especially the older women. Much of her work is based on her experiences during this time. Dahlma taught creative writing and language and literature in the New York City public school system before becoming a young-adult librarian.
The 2009 hardcover edition of Daughters of the Stone was listed as a 2010 Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.
Her short stories appear in the following anthologies:
Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980 - 2012 (Abriendo Caminos: antologia de escritoras puertorriquenas en Nueva York 1980 - 2012), Bronx Memoir Project, Latina Authors and Their Muses, Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul, and Growing Up Girl.
n 2021, she was awarded the Inaugural Letras Boricuas Fellowship from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund aimed to enrich and sustain literary tradition in Puerto Rico and across the US Diaspora. Her second novel, A Woman of Endurance (Amistad, 2022) is available in the Spanish edition, Indómita, (Harper Espanol, May 2022) and is now available in paperback edition (Amistad, 2023).
This is Dahlma’s Sixth Festival as a participating writerand she will be one of the participants in the Public Conversation – "HISTORY’S FORGOTTEN WOMEN: Researching and Telling Their Stories" to be held on Friday, June 7th at 3:15 pm.
Workshop for :
Linda Lowen
UNDERSTANDING WHAT “THEY” ARE LOOKING FOR: Publishing From the Other Side of the Equation
Like every other industry, publishing feels the squeeze of a tight economy. How ‘they’ choose what to publish might surprise you.
Learn who the decision-makers are, what they want, why ‘they’ emphasize platform and social media influence (and how you can compensate for that), and how to position yourself as a writer so that work comes your way.
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Photo Courtesy of Linda Lowen
Linda Lowen
Linda Lowen is a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly covering adult memoir and Children's including YA and middle grade novels and picture books, and she's written author Q&As for the magazine.
She's a theater reviewer for the Syracuse Post-Standard and author of the travel/tourism guidebooks "100 Things to Do in Syracuse Before You Die" (Reedy Press 2022) and "Secret Syracuse" (Reedy Press 2023).
Linda's nonfiction has been published in the Sunday New York Times and in "Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less" (Artisan Books 2020), and her writing advice has appeared in The Writer and Writer's Digest magazines.
She's taught at writing conferences across the Northeast including the Chautauqua Writers' Festival and HippoCamp. Linda is also on the review staff of BlueInk Review, which focuses on the self-publishing book industry.
This is Linda’s Fifth Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop “UNDERSTANDING WHAT “THEY” ARE LOOKING FOR: Publishing From the Other Side of the Equation”.
Photo Courtesy of Danielle Tait
Ellen Meeropol
Ellen Meeropol is the author of the novels The Lost Women of Azalea Court, Her Sister’s Tattoo, Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, and House Arrest and guest editor of the anthology Dreams for a Broken World.
Essay and short story publications include Ms. Magazine, Lilith, The Writer Magazine, Lit Hub, Guernica, and The Boston Globe. Her work has been a finalist for the Sarton Prize, longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and a Group Reads selection of the Women’s National Book Association.
Ellen is a founding mother of Straw Dog Writers’ Guild and lives in Northampton, MA.
This is Ellen’s Third Festival as a participating writer and she will be one of the participants in the Public Conversation "HISTORY’S FORGOTTEN WOMEN: Researching and Telling Their Stories" to be held on Friday, June 7th at 3:15 pm.
Photo Courtesy of hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.blog
Natalia Molebatsi
Natalia Molebatsi is a Pan-African feminist and queer poet-performer from South Africa. She is the editor of two poetry anthologies, We Are: A Poetry Anthology and Wild Imperfections: An Anthology of Womanist Poems. She is the author of two poetry collections, Sardo Dance and Elephant Woman Song.
Her collaborative music and poetry albums include Natalia Molebatsi and the Soul Making and Come as You Are: Poems for Four Strings. Her scholarly writing is included in, among other journals and books, Agenda, Muziki, National Political Science Review, Third World Thematics, and Sasinda Futhi Siselapha: Black Feminist Approaches to Cultural Studies in South Africa’s Twenty-Five Years Since 1994.
Natalia is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. She holds an M.A in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and an M.A in Communication Science from the University of South Africa where she is associated with the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her dissertation project centers Black feminist poetry and performance as strategies for survival and liberation. Natalia has workshopped and performed poetry in over 15 countries globally
This is Natalia’s First Festival as a participating writer and she will be taking part in the Festival's Opening Reading session on Friday, June 7th at 2:00 pm. Additionally, she is offering the Writing Workshop “ENLIVENING THE INNER SELF IN POETRY”.
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Photo Courtesy of Irene Young
Jewelle Gomez
Jewelle Gomez, (Cabo Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway, she/her), is a novelist, poet and playwright. Her eight books include four collections of poetry and the first Black Lesbian vampire novel, The Gilda Stories, in print for more than 30 years.
She has been playwright in residence at New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) since 2011 where she was commissioned to write three plays: “Waiting for Giovanni,” “Leaving the Blues,” and “Unpacking in P’Town” each of which was produced by NCTC. Her new collection of poetry is: Still Water. Follow her on TWITTER & Instagram: @VampyreVamp.
This is Jewelle's Fourth year as a participating writer at the Festival and she will be one of the participants in the Public Conversation – "NOTES FROM THE EDGE: Black Lesbian Publishing" to be held on Saturday, June 8th at 1:00 pm
Workshop for :
Lynne Elisabeth
WHAT PUBLISHERS NEED: How To Pitch Your Book Effectively
The why, who, when, and how to reach out to book publishers and literary agents. What does a publisher or agent offer that I can’t do myself? How to find the right publisher for my work? What is an acquisitions editor?
Do I need an agent? What goes into an initial query? What goes into a full proposal (you might be surprised)? Why can’t I just send my manuscript?
How to be clear. How to be compelling without being obnoxious. When to be patient and when to persist.
Workshop participants will have a chance to draft and critique practice pitch letters.
Photo Courtesy of ecoartspace.org
Lynne Elisabeth
Lynne Elizabeth is the founding director of New Village Press, an independent nonprofit publisher of progressive books that aim to enrich public discussion and understanding of issues vital to healthy, creative, and socially just communities. She is a past president of Architects Designers Planners for Social Responsibility and the founding director of the former Eos Institute for the Study of Sustainable Living.
Additionally, Lynne has initiated numerous public programs, conferences, and exhibitions, and published the periodicals Earthword and New Village Journal. www.newvillagepress.org
This is Lynne's First year as a participating writer at the Festival and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, "WHAT PUBLISHERS NEED: How To Pitch Your Book Effectively" on Saturday as well a taking part in the Festival's Closing Reading session on Sunday.
Workshop for :
Cheryl J. Fish
WRITING THE ABECEDARIAN: All Beings Creative Dreamers, Ever for Good!
We will explore the world of abecedarians, a form of writing where alphabetical order is followed in what we generate. When we practice the restriction of starting each new line or lines with the next letter of the alphabet, the result can be surprisingly powerful.
Participants will read examples of abecedarians in poetry and prose, and work from a series of writing starts, memories, and other inspiration. No experience is necessary.
Photo Courtesy of cheryljfish.com
Cheryl J. Fish
Cheryl J. Fish’s debut novel Off the Yoga Mat, the story of three characters coming-of-middle age, was published by Livingston Press/UWA in 2022. She is the author of The Sauna is Full of Maids, poems and photographs celebrating Finnish sauna culture, the natural world, and friendships, and Crater & Tower, poems reflecting on trauma and ecology after the Mount St. Helens Volcanic eruption, and the terrorist attack of 9/11.
Fish has been a Fulbright professor in Finland and is a co-editor with Farah Griffin of A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Literature. Cheryl’s poems have appeared in Hanging Loose, Maintenant, Terrain, Mom Egg Review, New American Writing, Reed, Postcard Poems, Santa Monica Review, About Place Journal, ISLE and Poetics for the More-than-Human-World. She is a creative writing editor at the journal Ecocene and professor of English at BMCC/City University of New York.
This is Cheryl's First year as a participating writer at the Festival and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, "WRITING THE ABECEDARIAN: All Beings Creative Dreamers, Ever For Good!". Additionally, she will be taking part in the Festival's Opening Reading session on Friday.
Workshop for :
Mary Johnson
WILD NIGHTS
Experiences that transcend the five senses, bringing you into an altered, expanded state of consciousness, are often described as “beyond words”: spirituality, the artistic process, really good sex, birth, experiences induced by psychedelic substances, love, death.
Drawing on a vast selection of texts from ancient religion to science fiction and a whole lot in between, participants will explore nine specific strategies and try them. Includes in-class writing. Suitable for writers of any genre.
Workshop for :
Natalia Molebatsi
ENLIVENING THE INNER SELF IN POETRY
This workshop centers the use of personal narratives/experiences as significant communicative practices to develop new and strengthen existing poems. The workshop draws from everyday embodied learnings to compose concise and animated poems.
We will explore a wide range of personal contexts that affect and influence our ways of survival, healing and restoration. The workshop aims to offer a familiarity with core craft and poetry performance techniques.
Workshop for :
Margaret R. Sáraco
WRITING THE POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE INTO POETRY
Poets have been writing about nature for centuries, but recently the global climate crisis has become a common theme. While scientists analyze and warn, politicians suggest legislative changes, poets write. In this presentation writers will discover how poetry can act as disruption, and/or illuminate complex climate issues, enticing writers to reflect, write, and activate.
This workshop is designed as an interactive workshop.
1) Poets will be introduced and respond to climate crisis poetry,
2) discuss how writers can contribute to activism,
3) respond to themed writing prompts,
4) learn where to submit work to organizations that embrace climate change conversation,
5) share what we know as a group to further our understanding, and
6) create a reading resource list together.
Photo Courtesy facebook
Margaret R. Sáraco
Margaret R. Sáraco, a storyteller writing at the intersection of poetry, fiction, and memoir, is the author of two poetry collections, If There Is No Wind and Even the Dog Was Quiet, (Human Error Publishing.)
She is poetry editor for the Platform Review, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice recognized in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest. Her poetry and short stories appear in Paterson Literary Review, Exit 13, The Path Literary Magazine, Book of Matches, Greening the Earth (Penguin Books), Lips, and Kerning. Since retiring from teaching middle school math in 2022, she is a full-time writer.
This is Margaret's First Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering the Writing Workshop, “WRITING THE POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE INTO POETRY”.
Visit her at: