Check out the lineup for Black Lawrence Press virtual events!
Book Launch: Talking with Boys by Tayyba Kanwal
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Talking with Boys by Tayyba Kanwal, our latest title in the Immigrant Writing Series.
Date: January 14
Time: 8 PM Eastern, Virtual
About the Book
A community of Pakistani immigrants in Houston distract ICE with unlikely bait. A housekeeper in a Dubai mansion plots to liberate her fellow indentured workers. In Lahore, an empty-nester finds herself bound by more than the jinxed bracelet her adult son has gifted her. Talking with Boys is a collection of linked stories filled with irony, humor, and magic. Spanning generations and continents—from Lahore to Dubai to Houston—these characters navigate economic upheavals, political turmoil, and personal betrayals. Amid crises both imposed and self-inflicted, the people in these stories pursue love, plot for survival and play subtle power games to triumph against patriarchal forces of all genders.
About the Author
Tayyba Kanwal is a Pakistani-American writer from Houston, TX. Her award-winning work has appeared in journals such as Witness, Gulf Coast and Meridian. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston where she was an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow, and an MS from the University of Oregon. With extensive experience in technology consulting, she now serves as Director of Workshops & Community Engagement at Inprint, Houston’s premier literary arts organization, Associate Fiction Editor at Cutleaf Journal, and Senior Editor at Conjunctions.
Generative Group Writing Session
Instructor: Isaac Pickell
Date: January 18
Time: 3-5 PM Eastern, Virtual
Join us for a generative group writing session! Come away with new material inspired by writing prompts led by Black Lawrence Press author Isaac Pickell. Participants will be given a series of prompts, each followed by time to write silently while in community with other writers. All participants will receive:
- a PDF of additional prompts for future writing
- a surprise chapbook, mailed to your address
Crafting the Course: Designing and Delivering Creative Writing Classes for Adults
Instructor: Gwendolyn Paradice
Dates: March 15, 22, 29, and April 5, 12
Time: 4-6 PM Eastern, Virtual
Crafting the Course is a pedagogical workshop for those new to teaching creative writing, and completion of the workshop prepares participants to design and deliver their own creative writing courses. From inception to course arc, options for different workshop formats/models, and grading/assessment, Crafting the Course aims to help those in higher education and those outside of it create informed and thoughtful classes. Each two-hour meeting includes open discussion, brief lectures, generative prompts related to course creation and pedagogy, as well as additional, recommended readings.
And we have much more in store for 2026! Keep an eye on this page for more details about the following scheduled workshops:
2/10/26 – Arielle Hebert
3/10/26 – Katey Schultz
4/14/26 – Tayyba Kanwal
5/12/26 – Sunni Wilkinson