Writers of Color

INSTRUCTOR: Julia Brown

TIME: Six Thursdays, February 23, March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 6:00–9:00 p.m. CST

PRICE: Early bird price: $210 for members, $240 for nonmembers. The deadline for early bird pricing is Friday, February 17. After Friday, February 17: $240 for members, $270 for nonmembers. Become a member here. Apply for a scholarship here.

LOCATION: LOCATION: Writespace, 1717 Michigan St, Houston, TX 77006 (map)

LEVEL: All Levels

CAP: 15

​Where does our inspiration come from?

How do we dive into our own uniqueness to write the stories and poems that are uniquely our own?

In this multi-genre, six-week course, we will consider these questions and others to help us better understand ourselves as narrative engines.

We will focus on writing, close reading, and workshopping, immersing ourselves in our craft, whether literary fiction or slam or sci-fi. We will familiarize ourselves with the fundamentals of prose and poetry in order to apply those elements to our work, reading work by published writers in order to expand our sense of narrative possibility. We will support each other in taking risks and being vulnerable, and use workshop to offer and receive feedback, gather ideas for revision, and refine our responses to works in progress.

Over the last few decades, organizations designed to support and promote the work of writers of color have emerged across the country. Cave Canem, Kundiman, Canto Mundo, VONA, Kimbilio, and others recognize the need to provide writers of color with the kind of community and workshop space that encourages taking risks, resisting stereotypes (in ourselves, others, and in our writing), and creating poems, stories, novels, and essays that speak to the range of our experience as human beings. This workshop shares these intentions and seeks to provide Houston writers of color with the freedom and support offered by these organizations.

This workshop is open to writers of all backgrounds typically underrepresented in American literature, including, but not limited to, writers who identify themselves as African American or Caribbean, Asian American, Middle Eastern, Chicanx, Hispanic, and Latinx. Expect to come away with fierce new work, as well as a renewed sense of the power found through community.

This workshop is funded in part by a grant from Poets & Writers.