The Edge of the Sea is a Strange and Beautiful Place: Hybrid Poetry & Prose Experiments with Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Saturday, April 13, 2024 10:00am-1:00pm CST, in-person at Gemini Ink
Instructor: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Nonmember: $145; Member: $125; Student/Educator/Mil $75

*EARN CPE’S

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. 

Building upon writer and marine biologist Rachel Carson’s famous maritime observation, we will investigate and interrogate the “strange and beautiful place” of genre-blurring work—work that melds elements of creative non-fiction and poetry. 

In this one-session, cross-genre workshop, participants will focus on generating new work that builds upon Audre Lorde’s idea that “the sharing of joy…forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.” We will spend our time generating work that sings and celebrates the various big and small delights of this earth. We will also learn several craft practices to help keep us generating new work long after returning home. 

Come prepared to roll up your sleeves and dig in! We’ll have plenty of time for in-class craft analysis, discussion, and writing prompts galore that will send you home with several solid drafts of new work. Ideal for writers at any level of experience looking for a vibrant shake-up to their writing practices long after the workshop is over.

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

Students will leave this class with:

• An understanding of how to blur genres effectively in writing
• Several drafts of new pieces
• Craft tips for continuing to write independently

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS. She also wrote four previous poetry collections including OCEANIC. Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. She is poetry editor for SIERRA magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program and her forthcoming book of food essays is called BITE BY BITE (Ecco, May 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.