Past Writing Classes & Workshops 

Thursday, January 12th 6:30p CST

Mechanics of Poetry Series

Poems use specific tools to portray and enhance their meaning. As the poet and mechanics of the form, we need to know how to use our tools well. Each month we will discuss a specific mechanism or “tool” of poetry and examine how it works, how to manipulate it, and when to leave it in the toolbox.

Pick and choose the workshops that you are most interested in or sign up for all of them. There are no prerequisites. Each workshop covers a section from The Poet’s Journal: A Beginner’s Workbook for Writing Poetry. While it will be beneficial for you to have a copy of the book, it is unnecessary.

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The Stanza

The different stanzas in a poem often signify a change in theme, subject, time, or place. However, they can also form a particular shape that enhances the poem. How do we know when we should transition to a new stanza? We will look at work from other poets and discuss how the poet used the stanza as a signal to the reader and how the transition, or lack of it, informed the poem. Then we will practice a bit with our own work.

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After you register, you will receive an "admission ticket" with the zoom link information on it.

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$35 or FREE to Members

Annual Membership $35

Saturday, February 18th 10:00a CST

The image is typically treated as one tool among many in the poet’s toolbox. You use an image, to make a point, to ornament an idea. But images are really the building blocks of poetry—not an ornament, but the structure itself. In this class, we’ll study the work of Jenny Xie, a poet who shows how powerful images can be, when they stand on their own, asking us to find connections between them; or, alternately, to pause on each image, savoring its particular pungency. And we’ll talk about practical strategies for putting the image at the center of our own writing. What kind of poem emerges when your images are allowed to assemble into unpredictable, unexpected constellations, when your images are magnetized by each other?

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TOBY ALTMAN is the author of two books, Discipline Park (Wendy’s Subway, 2022) and Arcadia, Indiana (Plays Inverse, 2017). He recently received a 2021 Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has held residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and MacDowell, where he was the 2020 Stephanie and Robert Olmstead Fellow. His poems can be found in Gulf Coast, jubilat, Lana Turner, and other journals and anthologies; his articles and essays can or will be found in Contemporary Literature, English Literary History, and Jacket2. He holds an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD in English from Northwestern University. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Beloit College.

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Tuesday, January 3rd 6:30p CST

Ryan Boyland is a writer, wanderer, medical student, and amateur astronomer currently based out of Omaha, Nebraska, where his love for both science and poetry motivates him to combine the two at every opportunity.   

     His work addresses issues of identity, love, and death. And stars. Because they’re cool. His goal through his performance is to touch minds and hearts around the world and considers it a victory every time he can do so.

     Ryan and his work have been featured on Button Poetry, Poets and Writers, Nebraska Public Media, through Larksong Writers’ Place, in Omaha Magazine, The Cookout Literary Journal, and can be found on SoundCloud, Facebook, and YouTube.

     When not writing, Ryan enjoys listening to music, stargazing, and being Black, mixed in with the occasional intense discussion regarding the validity of the Star Wars prequels.

Saturday, November 12th 10:00a CST

Join us for a virtual gathering of fellow poets of all levels that inspires and motives each other toward our personal writing goals. Think of this as your bi-monthly jolt of confidence for hitting your writing goals mixed in with a little fun. Free and open to all members.

Saturday, October 1st 10:00a CST

Once the venue of “chap men” who sold 8-12 page “penny” books on 16th century streets, chapbooks are no longer just the poor (wo)man poet’s stapled “wanna-be” book.  While chapbooks do serve as important segues for young poets into first book publishing, they also offer established poets opportunities for focused, impassioned explorations into familial and cultural landscapes. There are distinct and proven routes to creating fully realized and beautifully-wrought chapbooks. We’ll look at how three women poets, winners of 2021 chapbook contests, shaped and focused their chapbook to illuminate issues of gender, sexual identity, and culture: Elizabeth Metzger, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry and poetry editor for the LA Review of Books, in her chapbook, Bed Poems, and Maura Stanton, winner of the Yale Series for Younger Poets, in her chapbook, Interiors, and SJ Sindu, author of two novels and previous chapbooks, in Dominant Genes. Ultimately, whether you are a poet with a handful of poems to work with or you simply have a vision for a future chapbook, you will be given a chance to leave this workshop with the seeds for a new and cohesive chapbook.  

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A longtime educator and arts advocate, KATHRYN WINOGRAD is the author of seven books, including Air Into Breath, an alternative for the Yale Series for Younger Poets and a Colorado Book Award Winner, and Slow Arow: Unearthing the Frail Children, awarded a Bronze Medal in Essay for the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards.   Flying Beneath the Dog Star Poems from a Pandemic, released in 2022, is a semi-finalist for the Finishing Line Press' 2021 Open Chapbook Contest.  Her first collection of essays, Phantom Canyon: Essays of Reclamation, was a Foreword Indies Book of the Year Finalist. Her essays have been noted in Best American Essays, and published in many journals including Terrain.org (forthcoming),Fourth Genre, Hotel Amerika, River Teeth, The Florida Review, Essay Daily, and The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction, 6th edition. Her poetry has been published in places as diverse as The New Yorker and Cricket Magazine and received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and a Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXXVIII . Currently an editor for Humble Essayist Press, Winograd was a founding faculty member for the Ashland University MFA and now teaches poetry and creative nonfiction for Regis University’s Mile High MFA. She received her Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Denver and a M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Iowa. 

Saturday, September 10th 10:00a CST

In this workshop, we will examine how loss, sorrow and rituals of mourning can lead to revelations that we otherwise could not reach. We will examine work by Penelope Cray and Natasha Trethewey, and then through a series of exercises, write work that draws upon your own revelations that leads to deeper truths, as you delve deep into the disquiet. 

Born to a Mexican mother and Jewish father, ROSEBUD BEN-ONI is the winner of 2019 Alice James Award for If This Is the Age We End Discovery (March 2021), which received a Starred Review in Booklist and was a Finalist for the 2021 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. She is also the author of turn around, BRXGHT XYXS (Get Fresh Books, 2019) and the chapbook 20 Atomic Sonnets, which appears online in Black Warrior Review (2020) and is part of a larger future project called The Atomic Sonnets, which she began in 2019, in honor of the Periodic Table’s 150th Birthday. She has received fellowships and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, City Artists Corps, CantoMundo and Queens Council on the Arts. Her work appears in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Poetry Society of America (PSA), The Poetry Review (UK), Poetry Wales, Tin House, Guernica, Electric Literature, Waxwing, among others. In 2017, her poem "Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark" was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in NYC and published by The Kenyon Review Online. Recently, her poem “Dancing with Kiko on the Moon” was featured in Tracy K. Smith’s The Slowdown.

Tuesday, August 2nd, 6:30p CST

Scott Abels is the author of the chapbooks "A State of The Union Speech" (Beard of Bees Press, 2015) and "Nebraska Fantastic" (Beard of Bees Press, 2012), as well as the full-length books "Rambo Goes to Idaho" (BlazeVox, 2011) and "New City" (BlazeVox, 2015).

     He is an instructor for Foundational English and English as a Second Language. Bachelor of English Literature, Chadron State College; MFA in Creative Writing (poetry emphasis), Boise State University.

Saturday, June 18th, 10:00a CST

The turn—sometimes called the swerve, the twist, the pivot, or in a sonnet, the volta—is a significant shift in rhetorical and/or dramatic trajectory in a poem. It’s that moment of acceleration when the poem careens around a blind curve then lifts off the page, rocketing us into another dimension. It is, says poet-novelist Kim Addonizio, “the leap from one synapse to another, one thought to a further thought, one level of understanding or questioning to being in the presence of the mystery. “

In this workshop, we’ll explore the power of the turn with an emphasis on structure, rather than form or genre. We’ll study specific poetic structures—such as elegiac, emblematic, and the mid-course turn—as a means to writing poems that do indeed turn, leap, and swerve, in short, poems that move/us. A poem that moves us, is a poem that can teach and enlighten us. We’ll read example poems that utilize these structures and discuss how the structure amplifies the poet’s message. Then, we’ll write together and share our results. Each participant will receive a link to the poems studied during the workshop as well as a list of other poems to explore. Additionally, participants are invited to send poems written during the workshop to the facilitator for individual feedback within one month of the workshop.

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KIM NORIEGA is the author of "Name Me", the title poem of which was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in textbooks, journals, and anthologies including: American Life in Poetry, Paris-Atlantic, Split Lip, and The Tishman Review. She was the winner of San Miguel Literary Sala’s Flash Nonfiction Prize, a finalist for the Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize, and one of 30 poets selected to collaborate with 30 film artists as a part of the 2018 Visible Poetry Project.

Kim recently retired from a 30-year career with San Diego Public Library as the head of its family literacy program. She is a Teaching Artist and Writing Mentor with the Poetry Barn and President of the Board of Directors for the nonprofit, AIM Higher. She is a certified facilitator of the Creative Regeneration Process and an expert consultant in Family Literacy with the Pacific Library Partnership.

Kim is passionate about writing, teaching, wolf recovery, and the well being of feral cats. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Ernie, and—you guessed it—a clowder of cats. For more about Kim’s work and her offerings visit kimnoriega.com.

Tuesday, May 3rd, 6:30p CST

Adrienne Christian is the author of three poetry collections: "Worn", "A Proper Lover", and "12023 Woodmont Avenue" (2013).

     Common themes in her work are family, love, and African-American life. Adrienne's poetry, prose, and photographs have been featured in Prairie Schooner, Hayden's Ferry Review, Phoebe, CALYX, Today's Black Woman, Jolie, The Los Angeles Review, and dozens of others.

     In 2020, she earned her PhD in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska. In 2011, she earned her MFA in English with a concentration in Contemporary Poetics from Pacific University. And In 2001, she earned her BA in English with a concentration in 19th Century British Literature from the University of Michigan.

     In 2020, Adrienne was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and won the Common Ground poetry award. In 2016, she was a finalist for the Rita Dove International Poetry Award. In 2007, she won the University of Michigan's Five Under Five Ten Young Alumni Recognition Award.

Tuesday, April 5th 6:30p CTS

James Solheim will read from a wide range of his works and show how his poetry for adults is interwoven into his writing for children.

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James Solheim’s books circle the globe and travel through centuries.  They explore the most amazing foods on earth, explain Santa’s sleigh technology, and tell the stories of history through our grandmas.

     First published by Simon & Schuster, "It’s Disgusting—and We Ate It" has been a hit for Scholastic Book Clubs, Scholastic Book Fairs, Junior Library Guild, and beyond—right up to the current Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Reading Program used in schools to inspire love of learning.

     The Wall Street Journal and PBS included "It’s Disgusting—and We Ate It" in their lists of best books for getting boys to read.  The Washington Post included it on its list of best books for summer reading.  It was an American Bookseller Pick of the Lists and a Blue Ribbon Book of The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.

     James Solheim’s books have been a big part of charity.  His picture book "Born Yesterday" from Philomel/Penguin Random House was a multi-year choice of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, with 446,000 copies donated to children across the U.S. and beyond.  A Junior Library Guild selection, it received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, where it was Big Picture Book of the Month and chosen as one of the ten best picture books of the year.  "Born Yesterday" was a Children’s Choice book for the CBC and International Literacy Association—this time with children themselves choosing it as a favorite.

     His 2021 book from HarperCollins, "Grandmas Are Greater Than Great", illustrated by New York Times bestselling artist Derek Desierto, explores history through twelve generations of grandmotherly love.  And James illustrated his new book himself—"Eat Your Woolly Mammoths! (Two Million Years of the World's Most Amazing Food Facts, from the Stone Age to the Future)"—available now at your independent bookstore or at jamessolheim.com.

     His poetry for adults has been published in Poetry, The Missouri Review, Poetry Northwest, and The Pushcart Prize, and his long poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Chicago Review, and Northwest Review, among other important magazines.

Tuesday, March 1st, 6:30p CST

Tryphena Yeboah is the author of the chapbook "A Mouthful of Home", selected by the New-Generation African Poets series.

Her stories have appeared in Narrative Magazine and Commonwealth Writers, among others. She is from Ghana and currently lives in Lincoln, where she's a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Tuesday, February 1st, 6:30p CST

Hilda Raz's work is widely recognized, and her influence can be felt—as a director, award judge, and contributor—in this country’s most prestigious poetry journals and contests. Her many poetry collections include "What Happens", "All Odd and Splendid, "Trans", "Divine Honors,” and last year, “List and Story,” followed by her Collected and New Poems called “Letter from a Place I’ve Never Been,” edited by Kwame Dawes, in 2021.  

     At the same time, the University of Nebraska Press republished all of her previous poetry collections.  She was the first Glenna Luschei Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies and editor of PRAIRIE SCHOONER and the founding editor of the Raz/Shumaker PS Poetry Prizes in Poetry and Short Fiction.  

     Now retired, she is the editor of the Mary Burritt Poetry Series for the University of New Mexico Press and poetry editor for Bosque Press.

Saturday, September 18th 10:00a CST

Every human being experiences universal, yet unique issues concerning their mental and physical state of wholeness. In this workshop we will explore how using poetry to tap into feelings surrounding our health can have enormous healing qualities. Close reading is an integral part of the workshop as is short prompted writing and discussion. I hope you will join me in exploring how poetry can be used as a powerful method in the healing properties of narrative medicine.

Wendy Hind, PhD/JD, uses poetry as a form of narrative medicine to understand and heal. Her chapbook “My Tattoos” will be available in August.  She is also the founder and curator of tiny poetry project – narrative medicine for the soul. #tinypoetryproject and tinypoetryproject.com.

Saturday, May 1st 10:00a CST

Whether your practice is to write a poem every day, once a week, or to write only when the poem stirs inside of you, there is always the question of “how to begin.” In this workshop we’ll explore several perspectives on the topic of poem ‘openings’ and experiment with a few approaches that go beyond using basic prompts to see what might help the words flow onto the page.

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Shyla is the Managing Editor for The Good Life Review. She holds an MFA in Writing from the University of Nebraska where she leveled-up her poetry game and discovered that the writing life has more to offer than just a way to cope with the chaos of the Universe.

Saturday, February 20th 10:00a CST

February brings hints of spring and what better time to play with Sonnets.  Improve your sonnet skills, or write your first one. Join us as Dr. Stephanie Marcellus shares some tips and tricks on writing sonnets. 

Dr. Stephanie Marcellus teaches creative writing at Wayne State College and is a 2019 recipient of the Balsley Whitmore Award for recognition in teaching.

Saturday, March 18th 10:00a CST

Modeled after The Writing Workshop KC, founded by Poet Jen Harris, Defying the Internal Censor will involve prompt based writing and sharing of these “sh*tty first drafts.” For the novice and professional alike, this writing workshop is about making time for your creative practice, building confidence in your inherent creative talents, expanding your experience, building a supportive and authentic community and, of course, defying the internal censor. By attending you can expect:

- A vulnerability and authenticity triathlon - This is not a critique workshop

- Positive feedback only

Take a chance. All will be revealed upon attendance.

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JEN HARRIS is a sought-after performance artist and co-host of Confessing Animals Podcast, interviewing seasoned and fresh-faced artists of every genre to discuss how to make creativity work within the complexities and challenges of adult life. She is the founder and host of The Writing Workshop KC, whose mission is to nurture creative curiosity and inspire confidence within prompt-based writing workshops.

Jen is particularly passionate about reaching queer people and those struggling to thrive within the multitude of oppressive systems. From dive bars to performance halls worldwide, reaching audiences in the thousands from ages 10-80, Jen cultivates passion and emboldens the aspirational through her work.

She is inspired to eradicate the toxic mythology of the hapless creative, offering her students the opportunity to create, develop, edit and perform their work before engaged, paying audiences, all the while seeking validity in the process and not the outcome.

Jen challenges her students to defy the internal censor, revive or discover the joy of creating and offer themselves the gift of fulfillment through art.

Featured on NPR, TEDx, Button Poetry & Write About Now Poetry & Queer Eye, KC’s Best Poet 2021, Advocate Magazine’s Champions of Pride award 2021, Harris is the author of 3 books of poetry and the recipient of numerous accolades. ​

Tuesday, February 7th 6:30p CST

Amy Haddad is a poet, nurse and educator who taught in the health sciences at Creighton University where she is now a Professor Emerita. Her poetry and short stories have been published in several periodicals including the American Journal of Nursing, Janus Head, Journal of Medical Humanities, Touch, Bellevue Literary Review, Pulse, Persimmon Tree, Annals of Internal Medicine, Aji Magazine, DASH, and Oberon Poetry Magazine.

     Her first chapbook, “The Geography of Kitchens” was published by Finishing Line Press in August, 2021. Her first poetry collection, “An Otherwise Healthy Woman,” was published by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press in March,  2022.

Tuesday, December 6th 6:30p CST

Michael Catherwood's awards include a Nebraska Arts Council Grant, Pushcart Nomination, The Holt Prize for Poetry, and Finalist for the Ruth Lily Prize.

     His newest book, "Near Misses," is forthcoming from WSC Press. His previous books are "Dare," "If You Turned Around Quickly," and "Projector" from Stephen F. Austin Press. He is former editor at The Backwaters Press and has been Associate Editor at Plainsongs since 1995.

     Recent poems have appeared in The Common, Pennsylvania English, I-70 Review, and Common Ground Review.   He’s a cancer survivor is recently retired and lives in Omaha with his wife Cindy.

Bi-Monthly on the 2nd & 4th

Wednesday 6:30p-7:30p

Join us for a virtual gathering of fellow poets of all levels that inspires and motives each other toward our personal writing goals. Think of this as your bi-monthly jolt of confidence for hitting your writing goals mixed in with a little fun. Free and open to all members.

Thursday, October 13th, 6:30p CST

Writers are often plagued with doubt. We worry that we are not good enough or don’t have anything important to say. We allow our fear to keep us from doing what we love. The cure to our anxiety is as simple as putting pen to paper. But we procrastinate and let our doubt rule our art.

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In this group, we will set individual writing goals and work toward achieving them. We will motivate, encourage, and inspire one another to keep putting pen to paper and reach our goals. We will check in and meet regularly, at times that will be determined at this first meeting.

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Join us and discover how much you can accomplish by the year’s end.

Tuesday, September 6th, 6:30p CST

P. Ivan Young is the Author of "Smell of Salt", "Ghost of Rain" and "A Shape in the Waves". His poem "The Bone Farmer" was nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize by The Minnesota Review.

     His work has been featured in American Life in Poetry and published in North American Review, RHINO, Cider Press Review, Passages North, Cream City Review, and Fourteen Hills, among others.

     He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska and currently works as a communications coordinator for Nebraska Children and Families Foundation. He lives in Omaha with his wife and two children.

Saturday, July 9th, 10:00a CST

Poets are observers. One way to explore your observations and ideas is through a writing journal. In this workshop, we'll cover the basics of journaling for poets, not just as a method of processing and keeping track of your thoughts, but as a method of discovering the seeds of poems that spark a revelation in yourself and the potential reader. In this workshop, we'll cover how to examine large concepts and break them down into digestible chunks. When you find the method of journaling that works for you, you will be able to explore your ideas further.

As a bonus, journaling also improves your writing life and working towards a career as a writer because it provides a way to track submissions, create goals, revise, and more. If you feel out of sorts or disorganized in your writing life, this workshop is for you!

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HOLLY LYN WALRATH is a writer, editor, and publisher. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Analog, and Flash Fiction Online. She is the author of several books of poetry including "Glimmerglass Girl (2018), "Numinose Lapidi" (2020), and "The Smallest of Bones" (2021). She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and a Master's in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. 

Tuesday, June 7th, 6:30p CST

Heidi Hermanson is a first-generation Nebraskan who has been published in Midwest Quarterly, Hiram Poetry Review, the Omaha World Herald (“Nebraska On A Dollar a Day”) and elsewhere.

     The recipient of two Pushcart nominations, a Nebraska book award, and various grants from both Amplify Arts and The Nebraska Arts Council, Heidi has organized and directed five ekphrastic shows which she describes as a marriage between visual art and poetry.

     From 2006 to 2012 she hosted "Naked Words", a monthly open mike. In 2010 she won the Omaha Public Library's annual poetry contest and performed her winning work accompanied by Silver Roots, a New York-based violin and flute duo. In 2008, Heidi received her MFA from the University of Nebraska.

     Having found herself with an abundance of time during the pandemic, she enjoys exploring every square foot of her state and documenting cemeteries and rivers.

Saturday, April 30th 10:00a CST

Regeneration—renewal, restoration, to be returned to a state of vigor especially following damage or loss—or a global pandemic. If you feel depleted and uninspired, or simply want to infuse your creative life with more joie de vivre, the Creative Regeneration process can rekindle your creative fire—that spark of sheer joy.

Creative Regeneration is a unique, four-part process, developed by Dr. Sarah Luczaj. You are likely familiar with some of the components—meditation, Gendlin’s focusing, free-writing, and intuitive painting. Each has value in and of itself. Combined, they have a synergistic impact that is intense, potent, and cumulative.

During this two-hour workshop, Kim Noriega—a certified Creative Regeneration facilitator—will take you through all four components of the process. Additionally, every participant will receive their own Ebook version of Dr. Luczaj’s book, "Creative Regeneration" for continued reference. You will need some supplies on hand for this workshop: whatever you’d like for meditation—a candle, incense, etc; pen and paper for freewriting; and paint—whatever suits you—and paper for the painting component. No knowledge or experience in any art form required to attend.

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KIM NORIEGA is the author of "Name Me", the title poem of which was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in textbooks, journals, and anthologies including: American Life in Poetry, Paris-Atlantic, Split Lip, and The Tishman Review. She was the winner of San Miguel Literary Sala’s Flash Nonfiction Prize, a finalist for the Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize, and one of 30 poets selected to collaborate with 30 film artists as a part of the 2018 Visible Poetry Project.

Kim recently retired from a 30-year career with San Diego Public Library as the head of its family literacy program. She is a Teaching Artist and Writing Mentor with the Poetry Barn and President of the Board of Directors for the nonprofit, AIM Higher. She is a certified facilitator of the Creative Regeneration Process and an expert consultant in Family Literacy with the Pacific Library Partnership.

Kim is passionate about writing, teaching, wolf recovery, and the well being of feral cats. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Ernie, and—you guessed it—a clowder of cats. For more about Kim’s work and her offerings visit kimnoriega.com.

Thursday, March 24th 6:30p CST

By popular request we are bringing you a virtual opportunity to read your poetry, get feedback, and meet other members of the Nebraska Poetry Society.

This will be a positive environment where everyone can feel comfortable sharing.

It will be an inspirational experience where you will hear from other poets about what is working in your poem.

Bring a poem you want to share or just arrive prepared to give honest, constructive, and positive feedback to other poets.

Saturday, January 22nd, 10:00a CST

Poets over the centuries have found value and challenge in dialoguing with the work of painters, photographers, sculptors and other artists who find expression through the physical image. It is a challenge because the poet trades in words—in the abstraction of words.  Many poets in the past didn't have access to art unless it was available in museums and other centers close to them.  Today, technology has given us access to great artwork from the past and in the present moment and from all over the world.  As Nebraska poets, there may be a great deal we can learn from the art of the Midwest which has a long tradition.  French novelist, Marcel Proust, made some provocative and helpful comments on art in his insanely long opus, A La Reserche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time): “It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as any there may be on the moon.” There is something richly complex about the strange combination of empathy and self-awareness, which strikes me as important to poets—how we can be native and alien to ourselves and to others and how productive that can be for poets.  This workshop will devote itself to writing in response to art—seeking language that can live up to the brilliance of great art.  The workshop will combine some useful considerations of technique and strategy with actual writing time and the time to share. 

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KWAME DAWES is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and numerous other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His collection, Nebraska was published in 2019. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and George W. Holmes University Professor at the University of Nebraska.  He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program. He is Director of the African Poetry Book Fund and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. Dawes is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  His awards include an Emmy, the Forward Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Nora Magid Award and the prestigious Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry. In 2021, Kwame Dawes was named editor of American Life in Poetry. In 2021, Dawes was nominated for the Neustadt Prize.

Tuesday, January 4th, 6:30p CST

Trey Moody is the author of Thought That Nature (Sarabande Books, 2014), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry.

His more recent poems have appeared in The Believer, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, The Massachusetts Review, and New England Review.

He teaches at Creighton University and lives with his daughter in Omaha, Nebraska. 

Saturday, July 10th 10:00a CST

In this accessible, friendly workshop designed for writers of prose, we’ll go through the fundamentals of building a poem. You’ll learn to leap from your literary comfort zone into experiments with fragmentation, lineation, imagery, and more, and you’ll leave this workshop with a bouquet of poetic techniques you can start using right away.

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Freesia McKee (she/her) writes poetry, prose, and genres in-between. She’s the essays editor at South Florida Poetry Journal, a regular contributor to the Ploughshares blog, and teaches virtual writing classes to students all over the country from her home in Macomb, Illinois. Freesia’s work has appeared in Flyway, Bone Bouquet, So to Speak, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, CALYX, About Place Journal, and the Ms. Magazine Blog. Her poetry chapbook How Distant the City was published by Headmistress Press. Freesia welcomes you to connect with her at freesiamckee.com or through Twitter at @freesiamckee.

Saturday, April 10th 10:00a CST

In spring, we turn to life and flowers and sitcom clichés!

In this workshop, we'll try to avoid the latter, but we'll write poems about worlds waking up after winters (both calendar-wise and metaphorical). 

You'll hear some poems, write some poems and, if you like, share some of what you wrote.

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Matt Mason is the Nebraska State Poet and Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective. He runs poetry programming for the State Department, working in Nepal, Romania, Botswana and Belarus. Mason is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the author of "Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know"  and "The Baby That Ate Cincinnati."

Tuesday, March 7th 6:30p CST

Marjorie Saiser's eighth book, The Track the Whales Make: New & Selected Poems, is published by University of Nebraska Press in Ted Kooser’s series of Contemporary Poets and won the High Plains Book Award. Saiser’s Losing the Ring in the River (University of New Mexico Press) won the Willa Award in 2014.

     She has received four Nebraska Book Awards and is co-editor of Times of Sorrow/Times of Grace, a collection of writing by women of the Great Plains, and also co-editor of Road Trip, interviews with a dozen Nebraska writers. Saiser’s work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Alaska Poetry Review, Nimrod, Midwest Quarterly, and American Life in Poetry.

Saturday, January 21st 10:00a CST

How do lineation choices help poets achieve potent effects? An intuitive approach to lineation starts with the breath—with what our voices naturally do with syntax—but it doesn’t stop there. Using the work of Joy Harjo, Jericho Brown, Lorine Niedecker, W.S. Merwin, Ruth Stone, and others, as an example, we will explore how poet's use the poetic line to add layers of meaning to their work. In this workshop, we’ll attune ourselves to possibilities in lineation to build emotional resonance, enhance meaning, and delight readers.

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RADHA MARCUM's work is rooted in ecological, social, and personal landscapes of the American West. Her poetry collection, Bloodline, received the 2018 New Mexico Book Award in Poetry, and her poems appear widely in journals, including Pleiades, Gulf Coast, FIELD, West Branch, Bennington Review, and Poetry Northwest, among others. Radha lives in Colorado where she writes the "Poet to Poet" newsletter (poettopoet.substack.com) and teaches at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

Saturday, December 3rd 10:00a CST

In an essay on figurative language, D. A. Powell notes that “simile has fallen out of favor in some circles of contemporary poetic thought,” and is now used largely ironically, as in John Ashbery’s “Night falls like a wet sponge.” Maligned as the black sheep of the figurative language family and considered too “elementary” by some (likely because many of us first practiced similes in elementary school), similes nonetheless continue to dazzle readers with startling, visceral, and sometimes goofy associations. Using Powell’s essay as a jumping-off point and then looking at examples in poems and songs by Lucille Clifton, Leonard Cohen, Aracelis Girmay, Chelsey Minnis, José Olivarez, Anne Sexton, and others, we’ll discuss what makes a comparison take off or crash land, and then we’ll construct poems around some of our own similes, whose strangeness might stumble into the sublime.

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BECCA KLAVER is a writer, teacher, editor, scholar, and literary collaboration conjurer. She is the author of the poetry collections LA Liminal (Kore Press, 2010), Empire Wasted (Bloof Books, 2016), and Ready for the World (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), as well as several chapbooks. Midwinter Constellation, a book cowritten with 31 other poets in homage to Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day, was published in early 2022 by Black Lawrence. As an editor, she co-founded Switchback Books, is currently co-editing the anthology Electric Gurlesque (Saturnalia Books) and has created pop-up journals such as Women Poets Wearing Sweatpants and Across the Social Distances. 

Tuesday, November 1st 6:30p CST

Lorraine Duggin is a lifelong Nebraskan, born in Omaha, where she has been teaching English as a Second Language and other English classes at Metropolitan Community College since 1999.

     Her B.A. and M.A. in English and Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing are from UNO and UN-L, respectively. 

Her poetry, fiction, memoirs, and articles have been published in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, North Atlantic Review, Short Story International, and many other journals and anthologies.

     Her work has been awarded several prizes in both writing and teaching. She has been a Master Artist with the Nebraska Arts Council and Iowa Arts Council's Poets in Schools/Communities programs since the 1980's.

     When not reading or writing, she enjoys spending time with family, outdoor activities like gardening and hiking, folk dancing in three groups, playing the recorder in an ensemble, and traveling, especially internationally.

Tuesday October 4th, 6:30p CST

Stacey Waite is Associate Professor of English and Graduate Chair at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln and is the author of: "Choke" (winner of the Frank O’Hara Prize for Poetry), "Love Poem to Androgyny, the lake has no saint" (Winner of the Snowbound Prize), and "Butch Geography" (Tupelo Press, 2013).

     Waite’s poems have been published in Court Green, Black Warrior Review, and Indiana Review. Additionally, Waite’s book, "Teaching Queer: Radical Possibilities for Writing and Knowing", was published in 2017 by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Saturday, August 20th CST

Initial understanding of eco-poetry was often intertwined with nature poetry. Poets for centuries have written about their environment to draw attention to its beauty. At a time when we have begun to feel the effects of climate change, contemporary poets have brought to the forefront the adverse effects of modernization of the planet.

In this workshop, we will read the work of poets such as Robert Frost, W.S. Merwin, Aimee Nezkhukumatathil, R.K. Narayan, Camille T. Dungy, and Yusef Komunyakaa. The session will combine technique, craft, writing time, and the time to share work. We will reimagine our roles in the current climate crisis via poetry, deciphering the difference between an environmental poem and an environmentalist poem.

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GAURI AWASTHI is an Indian poet and sustainability activist. An MFA graduate from McNeese State University, her work has received support from Sundress Academy For The Arts, Louisiana Office of Cultural Development, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and Kundiman.

Tuesday, July 5th, 6:30p CST

Brandy Prettyman is the author of "Forbidden Fruit: Poems of Love, Loss, Hope, and Regret".

A professional jack-of-all-trades, she earned a Bachelor in Business Administration and has spent the last decade (maybe it’s longer, but let’s not make this awkward) writing poetry that explores the dark emotions we face when confronted by our own morality and mortality.

Brandy lives in Papillion, Nebraska, and like to spend her spare time traveling the world with her trusty four-legged sidekick Mary Puppins. Most days she can be found drinking a large latte at her desk, frantically writing her thoughts down in verse before they disappear.

Saturday, May 14th, 10:00a CST

We all KNOW that metaphors and similes are important for poetry, we all had to learn that in high school. But they're also great for speeches and really any description you might use in life. In this workshop we'll go a little deeper than being tested on which one uses "like" or "as" and which doesn't. We'll talk about what they bring to a description and voice in our work. How do the choices we make in our metaphors affect the development of the “character” in the poem and their motivation? We will discuss how making our metaphors more effective helps us communicate with and connect to those around us. And also, they're fun to play with and useful, too, beyond just poetry.

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MATT MASON is the Nebraska State Poet and Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective. He runs poetry programming for the State Department, working in Nepal, Romania, Botswana and Belarus. Mason is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the author of "Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know"  and "The Baby That Ate Cincinnati."

Saturday, April 9th 10:00a CST

How do we interrogate meanness, retribution, and anger in our poems? How do we turn rage into light and heat? This virtual discussion will investigate how we can project our unflinching humanity on the page while remaining likable. We’ll explore various poets who manage to get away with risky confessions, potentially volatile statements, and controversial revelations, all the while asking ourselves, what keeps us as distant readers engaged? When are we turned off? Is there a way we can ethically invoke shock, discomfort, AND compassion toward ourselves, our subjects, and our readers? The last half hour of class will then be devoted to creating our own ethical “mean-person” on the page through a series of guided writing prompts. We’ll have a wonderful time! 

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MARIA NAZOS' poetry, essays, and translations are published in The New Yorker, American Life in Poetry, Cherry Tree, Birmingham Review, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Rosebud, TriQuarterly, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. She served for several years as the editorial assistant for the former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser and his nationally syndicated newspaper column.

Her work has been widely anthologized, including appearing in What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump, edited by Martín Espada (2020 Northwestern University Press) and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, edited by  Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (2016, Lost Horse Press.)

A Pushcart nominee, Maria is the author of A Hymn That Meanders (2011 Wising Up Press) and the chapbook Still Life (2016 Dancing Girl Press). Maria has received scholarships and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation, the University of Nebraska, where she took her PhD in Creative Writing, and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives with two crazy cats and a patient husband in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Saturday, March 12th 10:00a CST

If you were like me as a child, you thought that if the wind blew just hard enough and if you held your arms out strong at just the right angle, you would be able to fly.  You knew your body for the wonders and possibilities of it!  In this workshop, we imagine the moment of first identifying our belly buttons.  We reclaim what others may have teased - a curved back, a lisp, a differently shaped nail - as beautiful.  We are beautiful and worthy of delight. We will explore how our unique qualities are natural and in tune with the miraculous mundane of the natural world. This is a cross-genre workshop in which we will use various experimental techniques to shake loose and play, drawing on readings from writers like Bettina Judd, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Laurie Ann Guerrero among others.  Movement based meditation, online magnet poetry, random word generators, collage techniques, and more will lead you into a new seeing and love of the self. 

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DR. RAINA J. LEÓN is an Afro-Latina writer and author of Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self (Alley Cat Books, 2019) as well as four other poetry books. She is a full professor of English Education at Saint Mary’s College of California and founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online journal of Latinx arts. Her fourth book of poetry, "black god mother this body," is forthcoming from Black Freighter Press in 2022. She is currently working on a hybrid manuscript that explores black feminism, mothering, and resistance in and to the academy.

Raina received her BA in Journalism from Pennsylvania State University (2003), MA in Teaching of English from Teachers College Columbia University (2004), MA in Educational Leadership from Framingham State University (2014) and PhD in Education under the Culture, Curriculum and Change strand at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (2010). She recently completed her MFA in Poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California (2016).

She has received fellowships and residencies with the Obsidian Foundation, Community of Writers, Montana Artists Refuge, Macdowell, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale, among others. She seeks out communities of care and craft and is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, and Macondo.

Saturday, January 22nd, 10:00a CST

As artists, our most foundational tools can be the ones most difficult to use. Case in point: the poetic line. Together, we will conduct experiments in poetic lineation to determine the range of powerful ways lineation changes a poem. This interactive, anti-racist craft session is designed for poets of all skill levels, experiences, and poetic goals. 

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FREESIA McKEE (she/her) writes poetry, prose, and genres in-between. She’s the essays editor at South Florida Poetry Journal, a regular contributor to the Ploughshares blog, and teaches virtual writing classes to students all over the country from her home in Macomb, Illinois. Freesia’s work has appeared in Flyway, Bone Bouquet, So to Speak, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, CALYX, About Place Journal, and the Ms. Magazine Blog. Her poetry chapbook How Distant the City was published by Headmistress Press.

Saturday, October 9th 10:00a CST

Join Sharon in learning about spoken word and the art of the slam poem as we explore what spoken word is, what we gain from it, and how we can amplify our written work through audible and visual performance. 

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Sharon Nicole Carr has experience with spoken word from both performing in, and now aiding in running the Wayne State College Spring and Fall Poetry Slams. She is also an adjunct professor of editing for publication, as well as composition at Wayne State College. She is a freelance editor and layout designer for the WSC Press at Wayne State. In her spare time, Sharon creates artwork, creative writing, and zines.

Saturday, June 26th 10:00a CST

As poet Mark Van Doren (my husband’s grandfather) once said: “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” We will spend the morning working together to discover our poetic voices and nurture their development. Using in-class prompts, we will explore how voice emerges and creates the distinctive character that makes our poems unique. This session should be fruitful for those new to writing poetry as well as seasoned poets. We’ll draw upon the wonderful resource of a constructive group setting to find out how others hear us and how we can best hear ourselves.

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Sally Van Doren is an American poet and artist.  She has published three collections of poetry, Promise (LSU Press 2017), Possessive (2012) and Sex at Noon Taxes (2008) which received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American poets. A graduate of Princeton University (BA) and University of Missouri-St. Louis (MFA), she has taught creative writing at the 92nd Street Y, Washington University in St. Louis, the St. Louis Public Schools and the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center.

Saturday, March 6th 2:00p CST

Although it's often thought of as work, revision simply means re-imagining what you've written. How playful, to separate yourself - the artist - from your art and take it somewhere new.

We'll discuss using space left in the margins for observation, reflection and experimentation. Afterward, I hope you'll want to return to some of your pieces, inspired to see them through a new lens and shape them into something even more impactful.

Holly is a graduate of the MFA Program at the University of Nebraska where she co-created its first ever fraternity consisting of a handful of emerging writers she is happy to share writing lives with. She works a predictable day job and afternoons as a slam poetry coach.