Check out the lineup for Black Lawrence Press virtual events! On the second Tuesday of of each month, we’re pleased to offer free single-session workshops. Then, join us on the last Tuesday of each month for readings and Q&A’s with our fabulous authors. Registration on Zoom is required for attendance. Can’t make it? Catch up on past events with captioned readings on our YouTube Channel.
SEPTEMBER WORKSHOP
Sarah Giragosian – Assembling the Poetry Manuscript: Strategies for Envisioning and Organizing Your Poems
Tuesday, 9/17 @ 8PM ET
For those of you who have tried arranging a poetry manuscript, you know that it is a Herculean task, but for all of its challenges, there is a relative paucity of texts on the subject. This workshop will consider how to arrange your poetry manuscript with an attention to both variation and coherence. As a co-editor of Marbles on the Floor: How to Arrange a Poetry Manuscript, I will discuss how the contributors to the volume help to shed light on the art and science behind the material constriction of a poetry collection. Some of the questions we will explore include: how do we begin to conceptualize the sequencing of the poetry manuscript, with its aesthetic challenges, and how do we interpret the complex ecosystem of the poetry collection? What are the initiating impulses that shape a poet’s thoughts about order and how do we make a relatively intuitive process legible for others? How might we nurture the stamina and flexibility of thought that manuscript assembly demands? What are some tips and strategies that poets have used to arrange their own manuscripts?
If time allows, please read the essay “Restless Herd” before attending the workshop.
Sarah Giragosian is the author of the poetry collections Queer Fish, a winner of the American Poetry Journal Book Prize (Dream Horse Press, 2017), and The Death Spiral (Black Lawrence Press, 2020). In 2023, the University of Akron Press published the craft anthology Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems, which she co-edited. In 2024, Middle Creek Press released Mother Octopus, a co-winner of the Halcyon Prize. Sarah’s writing has appeared in such journals as Orion, Ecotone, Tin House, Pleiades, and Prairie Schooner, among others. She teaches at the University at Albany-SUNY.
FALL WORKSHOP SERIES
Christopher Locke – Truth Is Braver Than Fiction: A Flash Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Dates: September 15, September 22, September 29, October 6
Time: 2-4pm Eastern, Virtual
OCTOBER WORKSHOP
Paula Carter – From the Personal to the Universal: How to Make Meaning from Our Experiences
Tuesday, 10/8 @ 8PM ET
NOVEMBER WORKSHOP
Alyse Bensel – Imagined Futures, Remembered Pasts: Poems that Face Climate Crises
Tuesday, 11/12 @ 8PM ET
FALL/WINTER WORKSHOP SERIES
Cynthia Marie Hoffman – Writing the Poetic Series: Six Weeks from Brainstorm to Manuscript Blueprint
Dates: November 3, 10, 17, 24 & December 8, 15
Time: 5-7 pm Eastern, Virtual
DECEMBER WORKSHOP
Allison Joseph – One Inspiration, Three Forms, Three Poems
Tuesday, 12/10 @ 8PM ET