After: A Synchronous Poetry & CNF Workshop with Katie Riegel

This is a 6 week synchronous Poetry and CNF Workshop with Katie Riegel, starting May 30^th, 2023, limited to 6 students.

ZOOM WORKSHOP
Tuesdays 6-8pm Central Time, May 30^th-July 11^th, 2023 (6 sessions, skipping the week of July 4^th)

AFTER
In this class, we’ll explore what happens after: after death, after life, after breakup, after a fall, after The Fall, after the wedding, after blooming, after school, after the election… It’s one thing to analyze what led up to a significant event; it’s another to write about what comes next. Poetry & short creative nonfiction.

LOGISTICS: I’ll email you a sample piece or two and optional prompt one week before each
session. Each of your pieces will be workshopped for approximately 20 minutes, which includes
time spent reading the poem/flash essay aloud, so please understand that long pieces will cut into
discussion time. Everyone will send their files (Word, pdf, whatever) to the group through Zoom
chat when the session begins, so we can all have the relevant piece open on our computers during
discussion.

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.