Creative writing is a tool for knowing yourself, understanding the world, and connecting with other people. Led by author Seema Reza and accomplished guest writers—including poets, memoirists, novelists, and storytellers—these generative community workshops follow the model developed by Community Building Art Works (CBAW) over the course of a decade of bringing people together in military and hospital settings. Each workshop is designed to help participants put their personal stories on paper in a supportive environment.

Whether you’re just starting out or have been writing for years, you are welcome; no experience is required. Bring a pen, a notebook, and an open mind!

Writing to the Moment: Poems on Current Events

About This Workshop
While the necessity of writing to witness current events hasn’t changed for centuries, a writer’s exposure to constant news and overwhelm has. How do we process the world around us when it is exploding in our hands, day and night? We start here: in community, making space to discuss the audiences we hope to reach and the poems we feel need to be written and read. In this workshop, we will consider poets and poems that have blazed a trail for us to follow into our historical moment. We will generate new work to take away and refine outside the workshop, and perhaps most importantly, we will be together to share the experience.

Abby E. Murray (they/them) is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. Their first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, while their second book, Recovery Commands, recently won the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Ex Ophidia Press. Abby served as the 2019-2021 poet laureate for the city of Tacoma, Washington, and currently teaches rhetoric in military strategy to Army War College fellows at the University of Washington.

This Strathmore workshop will be recorded and a link to the recorded version is available for registered participants only, upon request. The recorded version is edited for participant privacy and focuses on the instructor’s lessons. Our partners at Strathmore want these workshops to be as accessible as possible, so they are priced as “pay what you can.” You will be prompted to enter an amount of your choice when you register. (If you are registering for free, please enter $0.) If you are able to pay for these workshops, every dollar goes to support Strathmore’s education programs.

REGISTER HERE