Loss, Memory, and Mortality: A Mixed Genre Workshop with 2023 Texas Poet Laureate ire’ne lara silva

Saturdays, March 2, 9, 16, & 23, 2024, 10am-12pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: ire’ne lara silva
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Educator/Military $75

*EARN CPE’S

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. 

CLASS FULL. To have your name added to the waitlist, email joshua@geminiink.org. 

Our lives are marked by losses small and great. Dreams that don’t materialize; relationships that fail; bodies that age and get sick; friends, spouses, parents, children, and other loved ones that die. In these turbulent times, the world seems filled with tragedy and death. Few have the tools to handle these losses as individuals, much less as artists, yet many of us are expected to ‘move on’ from our grief without having the space to process what happened.

In this four-week workshop, we will read and discuss grief-focused poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written by ire’ne lara silva. We will explore strategies for writing about loss, memory, and mortality and apply them when responding to on-theme writing prompts. This workshop will create an open and empathetic space to discuss loss in our lives, so we can move forward with acceptance.

This course is open to writers of all genres, backgrounds, and skill level, 18+. 

By the end of the class students will: 

• study grief-focused poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written by ire’ne lara silva
• explore strategies for writing about loss, memory, and mortality
• respond to 3-4 writing prompts per class regarding our workshop themes

ire’ne lara silva, the 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of four poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, and FirstPoems, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán.ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine and is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. A new poetry collection, the eaters of flowers, is forthcoming from Saddle Road Press in January 2024.

Parking at Gemini Ink
Gemini Ink offers free parking along the back wall of our downtown offices. Please access this parking lot from Augusta St and first park in any of the 12 spots along the back wall. Only when these 12 spots are full do we ask that you park elsewhere in our lot. We now rent our offices from UTSA and are collaborating with them to create a secure and accessible parking lot for our community of writers and readers.