From Flash to Fiction

Get ready for a semester full of surprises! Every week you’ll meet a new adult fiction writer from our very own community. They’ll be in the classroom discussing their process, what it’s like making a living as a writer, and giving us writing exercises, tips, and tricks to learn from. Come join us for these unique lessons and conversations!

In this 4-week workshop, we’ll design amazing maps that tell our own unique, personal stories. These aren’t just any old neighborhood maps – they are the key to who you are. Through painting, collage, drawing, and writing, you’ll merge your favorite places, memories, and daily routes into a layered visual story of what makes you, you.

Inspired by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and other artists who use maps to explore identity, we’ll turn maps of New York City into expressive, narrated self-portraits. At the end of the workshop, our maps will collectively show us just how many stories, cultures, and memories shape our community.

In this workshop, students will see that approaching writing playfully has very serious results. Using ideas and techniques we encounter reading master poets such as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, May Swenson, and Wislawa Szymborska, our writing will be inspired by language games, traditional forms, and imitation-of and response-to master poems.

We welcome everyone to join in the fun, from the reluctant writer to the experienced poet - you will find joy, magic, and mystery playing with words