Refine your writing, connect with other writers, and find great spaces to write. Lopez Writes is a project to support local authors and includes workshops on the craft of writing, drop-in writing groups, opportunities to read your work, and more. All Lopez Writes programs are free and open to everyone. No registration is required. Space may be limited and is first come, first seated, so plan to arrive early to the library community room. Lopez Writes is generously sponsored by the Friends of the Lopez Island Library.
Spring 2018 Schedule
Thursday, April 26th, 2 – 4pm
Poetry Workshop with Claudia Castro Luna, Washington State Poet Laureate
Claudia Castro Luna assumed the role of Washington State Poet Laureate in 2018. She is the first woman of color and immigrant to assume the role. Washington poets laureate are sponsored by Humanities Washington and ArtsWA to build awareness and appreciation of poetry through public readings, workshops, lectures, and presentations in communities throughout the state. There may be an opportunity for workshop attendees to read their work at Castro Luna’s 7pm poetry reading and lecture that same day.
Castro Luna fled war-torn El Salvador for the United States at the age of 14 with her family, and went on to earn an MFA in poetry and an MA in urban planning. After working as a K-12 teacher, she became Seattle’s first Civic Poet, a position appointed by the mayor. In that position, Castro Luna won acclaim for her Seattle Poetic Grid, an online interactive map of showcasing poems about different locations around the city. The grid landed her an interview on PBS NewsHour. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook This City and the collection Killing Marías.
Saturday, May 12th, 10am – 12pm
Writing Home with Margot Kahn
Home can be a place whose memory remains trapped in our bones, a notion that may be passed down in our very DNA. Home can be where we learn to first understand our place in the world, and a place we return to, again and again, for answers about how to be. This workshop will look at several essays in the collection This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home from a writer’s perspective: what choices the essayists made in form, voice, and content, from the sprawling multi-generational family story to the concise vignette. A series of prompts will inspire a pageful of ideas, and we’ll begin to develop at least one story we want to tell. All genders welcome.
Biographer and essayist Margot Kahn is the co-editor of This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and the author of Horses That Buck, winner of the High Plains Book Award. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The Rumpus, River Teeth, Tablet, the Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Margot holds an MFA from Columbia University and has taught for Seattle Arts & Lectures and Richard Hugo House in Seattle.
Wednesday, June 13th, 7 – 9pm
Writing Memoir-You as the Main Character with Iris Graville
Writing memoir is your opportunity to capture your life—or more likely a part of your life—on the page. In this two-hour class, we’ll explore craft techniques such as characterization, setting, scene, dialogue, and reflection to show readers the main character—YOU. The class will include readings, in-class exercises and prompts, and a toolbox of resources to help you on this writing journey.
Iris Graville is the author of three nonfiction books: Hands at Work; BOUNTY: Lopez Island Farmers, Food, and Community; and a memoir, Hiking Naked. She serves as publisher of SHARK REEF Literary Magazine and contributes regularly to The Wayfarer Magazine. Sometimes you’ll find her on the interisland ferry, working on a new essay collection.