{"product_id":"writing-the-monstrous-poetry-writing-workshop-online","title":"Writing the Monstrous: Fear, the Body, and the Grotesque in Poetry 6-Week Zoom Workshop with Bianca Alyssa Pérez starts on Thursday, January 21st, 2027","description":"\u003ch2 dir=\"ltr\"\u003eBegins Thursday, January 21, 2027\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ch2 dir=\"ltr\"\u003eClass will meet weekly via Zoom on Thursdays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e🌍\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e Class Times by Time Zone: \u003c\/strong\u003eLos Angeles (PST): 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM \/ Denver (MST): 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM \/ Chicago (CST): 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM \/ New York (EST): 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eNow Enrolling! Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInstructor Bio\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eInstructor Bianca Alyssa Pérez is a poet, educator, and editor from South Texas. Her chapbook, \u003cem\u003eGemini Gospel\u003c\/em\u003e, was the winner of Host Publication's Chapbook Contest in Spring 2023. Her debut poetry collection, \u003cem\u003esnake breath\u003c\/em\u003e, is the winner of Hub City Press' 2026 Deep Line Poetry Prize and is forthcoming in Spring 2027. Her work is published in these beautiful places: \u003cem\u003ePorter House Review, Infrarrealista Review, New York Quarterly, Poetry Daily, Praisesong for the People Anthology\u003c\/em\u003e (edited by Amanda Johnston), \u003cem\u003eThe Texas Observer, The Baltimore Review, the Bangalore Review\u003c\/em\u003e \u0026amp; forthcoming in an anthology from The University of Nevada Press. She is the co-host of the horror podcast, \u003cem\u003eBasement Girls\u003c\/em\u003e, with writer Steph Grossman. She is also the Director of the Katherine Anne Porter Visiting Writers Series at Texas State University.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho is this class for?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThis online poetry workshop is for poets drawn to the places where fear lives in the body—beneath the skin, at the edge of desire, inside inherited wounds, in the transformation of the familiar into the strange. Open to writers at all levels, from those new to horror poetics to poets deepening an existing practice. If you want to turn what frightens, unsettles, or repels you into poetic material, this class is for you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat to expect:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eWriting the Monstrous is a six-week generative poetry workshop that explores what happens when we write from the places where fear meets the body. We will examine the monstrous not simply as one sole creature or figure of horror, but as a poetic language for transformation, excess, vulnerability, desire, inheritance, memory, and the parts of ourselves that resist being made legible. Through close reading and generative exercises, students will experiment with grotesque imagery, bodily detail, sensory distortion, metaphor, myth, persona, fragmentation, and the uncanny.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eEach week, students will encounter poems and other texts that use horror and the grotesque to unsettle conventional ideas of the body, the self, and the familiar. Writing exercises will invite students to excavate personal and cultural archives, transform memories into monsters, monsters into memory, inhabit unfamiliar bodies and voices, and approach fear as both subject and compositional force. We will pay particular attention to how poets create tension through image, sound, syntax, withholding, juxtaposition, and surprise. Students will receive peer feedback in a workshop format during Weeks 2, 3, and 5, with a dedicated revision workshop in the final stretch of the course.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThis creative writing course emphasizes experimentation over polish and discovery over predetermined meaning. Drawing on Bianca's practice at the intersection of horror, poetry, memory, and the body—informed by her work as co-host of the horror podcast Basement Girls and her horror poetics workshops for the Desert Nights Rising Stars Conference and Write About Now—this Zoom writing class treats the monstrous as a poetic framework for excavating embodied memory, inherited fear, and cultural mythology. Students will leave with a portfolio of new poems, a collection of generative practices they can return to in their writing, and a deeper understanding of how the monstrous can become a tool for making poems that are strange, embodied, unsettling, and alive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat are the writing goals?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eIn this course, students will produce:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e6–8 new poems or substantial poem drafts, generated through the course's weekly prompts and exercises\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e3 revised and polished poems: approximately 1–3 pages each, incorporating feedback and focused revision on image, sound, syntax, structure, and the use of the grotesque\/horror poetics\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e1 longer-form or sequence poem: approximately 3–5 pages, that develops one of the course's central concerns—fear, the body, memory, inheritance, transformation, and\/or the monstrous\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA personal, poetic archive of 12–15 generative writing exercises, including prompts exploring bodily memory, personal and cultural mythology, monsters, fear, distortion, and the uncanny, which students can continue using after the course\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA final 5–8 page mini-portfolio containing the student's strongest revised work from the course, accompanied by a brief 1-page reflection on their use of horror, embodiment, and the grotesque as poetic strategies\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents will receive peer feedback in a workshop format during Weeks 2, 3, and 5 (revision workshop), along with instructor feedback on revised poems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReadings\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eReadings may include excerpts from Saul Hernandez, \"How to Kill a Goat \u0026amp; Other Monsters\"; Natalie Diaz, \"The First Water Is the Body\"; Franny Choi, \"The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On\"; Richard Siken, \"Dirty Valentine\"; Ada Limón, \"The Leash\"; Louise Glück, \"The Drowned Children\"; Natalie Shapero, selections from Hard Child; Jackie Sabbagh, \"Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately\"; Laurie Ann Guerrero, \"Where I Will Not Let You Take Me\"; jj pena, \"Fragments\" and \"We Carry the Dead\"; Maria Esquinca, \"I Stepped into a Series of Colored Rooms\"; Melissa Lozada-Oliva, selection from Dreaming of You; Vanessa Angelica Villarreal, \"Malinche\"; Analicia Sotelo, \"Virgin\"; Laura Villareal, \"(My)thology\"; Gris Munoz, \"Alter is Me\"; Laura Villareal, \"I Still Check for Monsters Before I Go To Bed\"; and Deborah A. Miranda, \"Advice from La Llorona,\" along with traditional and contemporary monster\/myth narratives and horror and speculative poetry featuring nonhuman or transformed speakers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eHorror films discussed: The Substance (2024), The Babadook (2014), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCOURSE OUTLINE\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeek 1: The Body Is the Monster — Fear, Embodiment, and the Uncanny\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCraft focus: Establishing the body as a site of fear, vulnerability, desire, memory, and transformation. Students will examine how poets make the familiar body strange through precise sensory detail, metaphor, distortion, and shifts in perspective.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eMain activity: The Body Remembers — Students select a body part, sensation, scar, illness, gesture, or physical memory and write from it without initially naming or explaining it. A second exercise transforms the familiar body into something uncanny or monstrous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTexts discussed: Saul Hernandez, \"How to Kill a Goat \u0026amp; Other Monsters\"; Natalie Diaz, \"The First Water Is the Body\"; Franny Choi, \"The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On\"; Richard Siken, \"Dirty Valentine\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents produce: 1–2 new poem drafts centered on the body and a short generative exercise transforming an ordinary physical experience into something uncanny.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeek 2: What Frightens Us — Fear as Poetic Material\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCraft focus: Moving beyond simply writing about fear to making the reader experience fear through tension, withholding, sound, repetition, pacing, image, and the strategic revelation of information.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eMain activity: The Anatomy of Fear — Students identify something they fear and separate the experience into its sensory, emotional, environmental, and imaginative components. They then write a poem in which the source of fear is never directly named, allowing image and implication to create the threat. Workshop pieces from last week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTexts discussed: Ada Limón, \"The Leash\"; Louise Glück, \"The Drowned Children\"; Natalie Shapero, selections from Hard Child; Jackie Sabbagh, \"Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents produce: A poem that creates fear through withholding, repetition, sonic pattern, and escalating imagery, rather than explicit explanation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeek 3: The Grotesque — Distortion, Excess, and the Unbeautiful\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCraft focus: Using grotesque imagery, bodily distortion, excess, abjection, juxtaposition, and sensory discomfort to disrupt the reader's expectations of beauty and coherence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eMain activity: Make It Strange — Students begin with an ordinary object, person, memory, or domestic scene and progressively distort it through three drafts: exaggeration, bodily transformation, and surreal disruption. The exercise asks students to consider when an image becomes grotesque and what that transformation makes possible. Workshop pieces from last week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTexts discussed: Laurie Ann Guerrero, \"Where I Will Not Let You Take Me\"; jj pena, \"Fragments\" and \"We Carry the Dead\"; Maria Esquinca, \"I Stepped into a Series of Colored Rooms\"; Melissa Lozada-Oliva, selection from Dreaming of You\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents produce: A 2–3 page poem using grotesque imagery and distortion to transform an ordinary experience into something unsettling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeek 4: Monsters We Inherit — Myth, Memory, and the Personal Archive\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCraft focus: Using mythology, folklore, family history, cultural memory, and personal archives to create monsters that carry histories beyond the individual speaker. Students will explore how inherited stories can be rewritten, embodied, or transformed through poetry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eMain activity: Build Your Monster — Students create a monster from materials in their own personal archive: a family story, photograph, object, phrase, place, childhood fear, cultural myth, or inherited belief. They then write the monster as both character and archive, asking what it carries and what it protects.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTexts discussed: Vanessa Angelica Villarreal, \"Malinche\"; Analicia Sotelo, \"Virgin\"; Laura Villareal, \"(My)thology\"; traditional and contemporary monster\/myth narratives\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents produce: A new poem or sequence that transforms an element of their personal or cultural archive into a monstrous figure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeek 5: Becoming the Monster — Persona, Voice, and Transformation\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCraft focus: Writing through persona and altered perspective; inhabiting voices that are nonhuman, monstrous, fragmented, or otherwise outside the conventional lyric \"I.\" Students will experiment with voice, pronouns, syntax, diction, and dramatic monologue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eMain activity: The Monster Speaks — Students rewrite an existing poem from the perspective of its monster, wound, body part, fear, ghost, or other nonhuman presence. They then create a second version in which the speaker and monster begin to blur.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTexts discussed: Gris Munoz, \"Alter is Me\"; Laura Villareal, \"I Still Check for Monsters Before I Go To Bed\"; Deborah A. Miranda, \"Advice from La Llorona\"; horror poetry and speculative poetry featuring nonhuman or transformed speakers\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents produce: A 2–3 page persona poem written from the perspective of a monster or transformed\/nonhuman speaker, plus a revision of one earlier course poem using techniques of voice and perspective. Students will select two earlier drafts for substantial revision and participate in guided peer feedback.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWeek 6: After the Transformation — Revision, Resonance, and the Unresolved Ending\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eCraft focus: Revising poems so that horror and the grotesque operate at the level of form as well as subject. Students will examine endings, lineation, image patterns, repetition, silence, fragmentation, and ambiguity, with particular attention to what remains unresolved after the poem ends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eMain activity: The Cut \/ The Afterimage — Students bring one poem from the course through a structured revision process: identify the poem's central image or disturbance, cut explanatory language, intensify its strongest images, experiment with line breaks and stanza structure, and develop an ending that leaves an emotional or imagistic residue rather than explaining the poem. Student\/instructor feedback on revised poems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eHorror films discussed: The Substance (2024); The Babadook (2014); Pan's Labyrinth (2006)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStudents produce: A final 5–8 page mini-portfolio containing 3 polished poems, including at least one poem substantially revised from an earlier week, plus a 1-page reflection identifying the craft strategies they used to transform fear, embodiment, memory, or the grotesque into poetic form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCOURSE TAKEAWAYS:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA portfolio of 6–8 new poems and 3 polished, revised poems built through six weeks of generative prompts and focused revision\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA 3–5 page longer-form or sequence poem developing one of the course's central concerns—fear, the body, memory, inheritance, or transformation\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA personal archive of 12–15 generative writing exercises you can return to long after the workshop ends\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eConcrete revision strategies for making horror and the grotesque operate at the level of form—lineation, image patterning, repetition, silence, and the unresolved ending\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePractical techniques for creating tension and fear on the page through image, sound, syntax, withholding, and juxtaposition\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eExperience with persona and altered perspective, including writing through nonhuman, monstrous, and fragmented voices\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWorkshop experience giving and receiving peer feedback in a supportive online writing class for poets at all levels\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePAYMENT OPTIONS:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTuition is $445 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInstructor: Bianca Alyssa Pérez\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBegins Thursday, January 21, 2027\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eClass will meet weekly via Zoom on Thursdays, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTuition is $445 USD.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Writing Workshops Org","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50454884679928,"sku":null,"price":573.0,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0287\/3917\/4532\/files\/BiancaAlyssaPerezHeadshot.png?v=1788727348","url":"https:\/\/writingworkshops.com\/en-sg\/products\/writing-the-monstrous-poetry-writing-workshop-online","provider":"Writing Workshops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}