Begins Sunday, June 7, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Google Meet on Sundays, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET

🌍 Class Times by Time Zone: Los Angeles (PDT): 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM / Chicago (CDT): 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM / New York (EDT): 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM / London (BST): 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM / Berlin (CEST): 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Now Enrolling! Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.

Instructor Bio

Instructor Shonda Buchanan is a PEN Emerging Voices Fellow and PEN America Mentor. An Associate Professor in the Department of English at Western Michigan University and Alma College's MFA Program in Creative Writing, Shonda is editor of two poetry anthologies, author of three collections of poetry, The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, Who's Afraid of Black Indians?, Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country, as well as the award-winning memoir, Black Indian, chosen by PBS NewsHour as a "Top 20 books to read to learn about institutional racism." Shonda has published in The Mississippi Review, TAB Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, LA Times Magazine, AWP's The Writer's Chronicle, Indian Country Today, Red Ink Journal, LA Parents Magazine and freelanced for The International Review of African American Art, Westways, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Daily Press and Sisters of AARP. Shonda's forthcoming essay collection, Children of the Mixed Blood Trail, explores mixed-race migration in North America. A descendant of the African Mende nation of Sierra Leone, and in North America, the Coharie, Choctaw and Eastern Band Cherokee, and Europeans, Shonda writes on Chumash/Tongva lands in Los Angeles and in the Midwest on Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, Ottawa and Potawatomi lands. Shonda has taught creative writing, research and BIPOC/American literature for the past 27 years.

Who is this class for?

This course is for all writers interested in exploring new ways to write beautiful poems about family, heritage, and ethnicity. Whether you're a seasoned poet or writing your first verse, this online poetry workshop is open to all levels.

What to expect:

After songs, poems are one of the first ways we were taught to receive, understand, and access our culture, heritage, and inheritance. Heritage can be found in how we interact with spouses, loved ones, and society, and what we've been taught and what we teach our children. In this poetry writing workshop, students will explore the cultural heritage poems of published, award-winning poets, as well as respond to in-depth writing prompts to help find, access, recover, and harness elements of culture, heredity, and identity to write your poetry.

We'll unpack your rituals, memories of home and neighborhoods, your religious practices and ceremonies that your family kept, or in some cases, ignored. Using the senses and sensory details, the workshop prompts will help you unearth these hidden memories or current experiences to craft, hone, and polish poems that sing of your family heritage, culture, and inheritance. This online writing class creates a supportive, generative space where your story—and your family's story—takes shape on the page.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will explore the language of cultural heritage poems and generate 6–10 poems for a chapbook or book. Students will receive both verbal and written feedback from the instructor in class.

Readings

Students will be reading online excerpts of poems. Students may also purchase the text 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Introductions / Prompts: What Makes a Cultural Heritage Poem? Where Do You Come From?

Week 2: Writing Open Verse Poems / Uncovering Childhood Secrets

Week 3: Writing Sonnets / Learning Constraints and Poetic License 

Week 4: Writing Language Poems / Writing Landscape and Memory

Week 5: Writing Healing Poems / Forgiving Our Trespassors

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Learn, explore, and implement the tools of poetry
• Construct and write cultural heritage poems in various poetic forms and styles
• Explore poetic forms and styles including open verse, sonnets, and language poems
• Produce poems that reflect and represent you, your parents, siblings, grandparents, your blood-related or adopted family members, your town, neighborhood, city/region, or country
• Learn how to start crafting a book of poems

TESTIMONIALS:

"Working in the nonfiction cohort with Shonda Buchanan allowed me to step back from chapter one of my manuscript and view it with a critical eye. As nonfiction writers, we have a unique ability to focus on the details of everyday life. Yet, this focus can also be a weakness because we are often blind to our forest while we write about the trees. Shonda guided the participants in my writing group to study how the details in our writing were effectively or ineffectively creating the bigger picture. While guiding with her adept talents as an instructor of creative writing, she offered insights from her experience as a writer of memoirs, essays, poetry, and fiction. Ms. Buchanan doesn't solely bring her wealth of artistic and intellectual talent to the creative writing table; she also shares her woman's wisdom gained from a multicultural lifestyle and extensive travel. She encourages us to read our work, the work of our group members, and to offer supportive opinions. And she, in turn, listens, meditates on what she hears, and offers much-needed, sound advice that pushes us steps further in our development as creative writers." — Audrey Shipp

"Shonda Buchanan was my workshop leader at PEN America's Emerging Voices workshop, and she is a stellar teacher and presence. It's clear that she has honed her craft over many years, and in the classroom, she skillfully lends this insight. Her marketing expertise is equally as strong as her literary knowledge, and I fully recommend her as a guiding force behind any manuscript from conception to publication." — Jessica

"As a participant in Shonda's PEN America Emerging Voices workshop, I witnessed firsthand her extraordinary ability to pinpoint themes and provide transformative solutions for any piece of writing. Her generous spirit and deep wisdom make her an invaluable mentor who truly elevates every writer she teaches." — Yvonne L.

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $395 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.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Shonda Buchanan
• Begins Sunday, June 7, 2026
• Class will meet weekly via Google Meet on Sundays, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET
• Tuition is $395 USD.