Writing the Book-Length Poetry Collection 4-Week Online Workshop, Starts Thursday, April 4th, 2024
Class Starts Thursday, April 4th, 2024
Now Enrolling
**This Class is Open to All Writers**
Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.
Led by Holly Lyn Walrath, a writer, editor, and publisher. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Analog, and Flash Fiction Online. She is the author of several books of poetry including Glimmerglass Girl (2018), Numinose Lapidi (2020), and The Smallest of Bones (2021). She holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. In 2019, she launched Interstellar Flight Press, an indie SFF publisher dedicated to publishing underrepresented genres and voices.
Learn techniques for putting together a book-length collection of poetry (chapbook and full-length). Explore how to choose poems, sequencing, and submitting your work.
For new poets, the task of writing enough poems to fill a book can be overwhelming. In this workshop, we will distinguish between chapbooks and full-length poetry books, discuss the importance of theming your poetry, and teach you how to write poems that interact with each other.
Additionally, we will cover methods for selecting poems for a full-length collection, including ordering and sequencing, as well as adding epigraphs and author's notes.
This workshop aims to equip you with the skills necessary to successfully publish your own book of poetry. For all genres of poetry.
COURSE OUTLINE:
Week 1: Theme Is Queen: Choosing and Writing Poems in Conversation
Week 2: Structure, structure, structure: Sequencing a Book of Poetry
Week 3: Creating a Narrative Arc: The Reader’s Emotional Journey
Week 4: Submitting Poetry Books and Marketing Your Book
- End the class with a first draft of your poetry book
- Explore different methods of sequencing or ordering poems
- Learn from poets who have published themed collections
- Organize and focus your body of poetry
- Learn about submitting poetry books to publishers
ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:
This class is asynchronous, meaning you complete the weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times in order to allow for greater participation; your cohort will consist of writers from across different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices.
Along with your weekly deadlines, there is plenty of interaction with Holly and your peers within Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts are all available through the online classroom. Students also post work and provide and receive feedback within the online classroom environment.
You can finish the work as you see fit week-to-week, which is perfect for any schedule. There are discussion questions each week inspired by the assigned readings and topics in the lecture notes. Students are encouraged to take these wherever is most compelling and/or useful for them. Holly engages with these discussions throughout the week, and you will receive feedback from all assigned writing activities.
HOW DOES WET INK WORK?
Wet Ink was built and designed specifically for online writing classes. Wet Ink is private, easy to use, and very interactive. You can learn more about the Wet Ink platform by Watching a Class Demo.
ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:
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Instructor: Holly Lyn Walrath
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Starts Thursday, April 4th, 2024
- Course is fully ONLINE; students can work according to their own schedule within weekly deadlines. Once you have enrolled the instructor will send you a link to our online classroom, provided via Wet Ink.
Instructor Holly Lyn Walrath is a freelance editor based out of Houston, Texas. She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Analog, Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, and in the Other Terrors anthology from the Horror Writer's Association, among many more publications. Holly is the author of the collection The Smallest of Bones, published by Clash Books in 2021 and Glimmerglass Girl, winner of the SFPA Elgin Award. She is the managing editor of Interstellar Flight Press, an indie press for underrepresented voices and genres. Visit Holly's website here.