Asynchronous Poetry & CNF Workshop with Katie Riegel

This is a 6 week asynchronous Poetry and CNF Workshop with Katie Riegel, starting April 12, 2023.

April 12-May 17, 2023 (5 prompts & responses)
Class may be of any size, but you’ll only be asked to write responses for two of your classmates
for each assignment. Readings and prompts will go up on Wednesdays and your pieces will be
due on Wednesdays. I’ll write a response to every piece you submit.

SEASONS
We have come to live so much by and with our technology that in some ways, the seasons matter
little anymore. But when we remember to look up and out, the seasons crowd our senses: it’s
cool or cold or hot, dry or wet, golden or white or green. Seasons suggest moods and memories,
serve as setting and link us to other centuries. It’ll only be 2023 once, but it’s been spring over
and over again. In this class we’ll read poems and essays that make use of the seasons in
interesting ways: as image, metaphor, and structure. Prompts will ask you to play with the
imagery and ideas of seasons in your own poems and short creative nonfiction works.

Katie’s teaching philosophy/style: I believe that our real job as human beings is to try to
understand ourselves and the world. For writers, we do that job with words. And the elements of
craft are tools that we can use as we reach towards understanding, as are the thoughtful responses
of other writers. Do we take workshops in order to improve individual pieces and our writing in
general so we might publish? Sure. But more importantly, we take them to ride the momentum of
community towards writing more, revealing our vulnerabilities more, and trying more new
approaches. To that end, I focus on discussion of what’s working well in a piece of writing and
why, letting the writer know how their writerly choices affected us as readers. We also discuss
interpretation and make suggestions, and the writer has an opportunity to ask their own
questions. Allowing others to read and respond to your writing is an act of courage and faith; I
try my best, therefore, to treat you and your work with respect.