What a Poem Wants: New Poetry Critique Group at MWC, facilitated by Ryan Collins  

The Midwest Writing Center is hosting a pay-what-you-can poetry critique group for “serious poets” starting on Wednesday, October 15 at 5:30 p.m. at their office in the Rock Island Public Library – Downtown branch. The group will be facilitated by poet and MWC Executive Director Ryan Collins.  

The group is open to poets who are actively working toward publishing their work and/or developing a new book or chapbook project, who have “a broad conception and appreciation of what a poem can be.” Collins said he hopes the group will be “an opportunity for poets writing adventurous work to engage and help each other find their poems’ most successful shapes.”

Writing Fear: How to Craft a Horror Protagonist and Get Under Their Skin with Tatiana Schlote-Bonne – 4/26, Online Workshop

This workshop will guide you through creating a compelling protagonist and antagonist for a horror novel or short story. Questions we’ll consider: What scares your protagonist and why? What does the antagonist reflect about your protagonist’s fears? Why is your protagonist the right main character for this story? Generative writing prompts will help us figure out these elements of our stories and more. Using sensory details, we’ll place our protagonists in scenes where they must face their greatest fears–it’s good for them! 

Transmissions from the Ancestors: A Generative Writing Workshop with Anahit Cass

Transmissions from the Ancestors is designed to get participants writing about their own ancestral connections and how they impact the future. Using readings, visual images, and written prompts in this 2 hour writing workshop, participants will write a short work that may be the outline for a longer essay, memoir, or story or useful in journaling about ancestral connections and their impact.

Anahit’s new book Reparations of the Heart presents a vibrant tapestry of essays; stories; poems; quotes; and detailed, often surreal images. It crosses time and borders and launches us into a future world informed by our connection to our ancestors.

This is what she wants for the people who attend her workshop.