Past Events
Virginia Voices Podcast Sessions with PWC Poets Laureate and Poet Laureate Circle Members
ScribbleCon24 is an annual writing workshop that welcomes students of all levels [middle school and above] and anyone [parents and guardians] who loves writing. It is a creative hands-on experience led by writing professionals. Students write alongside professional writers, authors, poets, and teachers. Students engage in the writing process by selecting topics, drafting, revising, and editing their original work.
ScribbleCon 2024
Crowning of PWC Poet Laureate 2024-2026
Art Factory’s Off the Wall Open House 2024
Off the Wall High School Art Exhibit & Competition
Local area high school students participate in a high school art exhibit and competition presented by ARTfactory. Awards Ceremony: Saturday, January 13, 2-4 pm
In the Company of Laureates 2023
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Roscoe Burnems, also at https://roscoeb.webs.com
Kelly Cherry, in memoriam
Claudia Emerson, in memoriam
Chad Frame, also at https://ovunquesiamoweb.com/masthead
Alexandra “Zan” Delaine Hailey, in memoriam
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Saturday, October 7th
11 a.m.-12 p.m.
PERFORMANCE POETRY, SLAM, DIGITAL AGE, Roscoe Burnems
Poetry Goes Viral? Page poems in a slam? “Slam poems” get published? How?! Join Richmond’s Poet Laureate Douglas Powell/Roscoe Burnems for a fun, quick, comprehensive dive into the world of poetry as a performance art. This workshop will discuss reach, impact, and turning masterpieces on page into stage ready performances.
THE ART OF MARRIAGE: WORDS AND IMAGES/WORDS AND MUSIC, Rich Follett
Have you ever imagined yourself inside a picture or wanted to dive into a beautiful song? Explore the rich and varied world of ekphrasis – the marriage of words to images and/or words to music – with Strasburg Poet Laureate Rich Follett, author of Photo-ku: Kigo and Satori at Play in Pixel Land (NightWing Publications). Experience poetry in new, multi-sensory ways!
WRITING THIS MOMENT: POEMS FOR CURRENT EVENTS, Chad Frame
In this workshop, we’ll discuss poetry written about major world events, pop culture, and other public things experienced in the private space of the speaker’s world. We will explore recent news articles and attempt to write a poem about a chosen story. Finally, we’ll explore submission opportunities for these poems – which journals are printing them, and which are tailored specifically for them.
1:00-2:00 p.m.
VISUAL FORM POETRY: VISUALIZING THE WORK, JoAnn Balingit
If you’re looking to disrupt the conventional narratives handed down by family members, connect with ancestral histories, or speak to the insistence of war and climate crisis, hybrid forms can take your poetry and CNF a step deeper. By de-centering language, Visual form poetry, #VisPo, elicits unsettling and powerful responses. It can help you find subconscious hot spots. Practitioners of VisPo often combine text with the patterns and movement of image. We’ll experiment with uncommon sources to locate new structures for poems and flash pieces. JoAnn will share hybrid works of her own and examples by Monica Ong, Diana Koi Nguyen, Lynda Barry and others. Bring a copy of a photograph or image of any beloved object for the prompt.
BORROWING FROM REAL LIFE, Bill Glose
This session will describe how to frame a poem based on personal experience and how to insert specific moments from your life to make your writing richer. Examples will be given to showcase how this can be done, followed by a practical exercise.
Sunday, Oct. 8th
1:15-2:15 p.m.
MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE: DETAIL AND RECOLLECTION IN CREATIVE WRITING, Marc Harshman
For this workshop Harshman will invite participants to pursue a written exploration of a landscape through a series of prompts encouraging them to draw upon memories and senses in the creation of a short story, reminiscence, or poem. A discussion of detail and free writing will precede the group activity and techniques for revision will follow.
PUNCTUATING THE POEM, Natalie Potell
Using creative punctuation and space to enhance the flow, meaning, and appeal of a poem.
SO TO SPEAK: A POETRY WORKSHOP ON LANGUAGE, HUMANENESS, AND FORM, Evan Wang
Lan·guage (noun), the principal method of human communication. In poetry, we strive to be overwhelmingly human, and in doing so, we reconfigure language itself. Through a series of prompts that, in their attempt to look inwards on language, look outwards as well, we will analyze poems by Ada Límon, Ellen Bass, Hua Xi, and more, dive into language, and write poems that are made mosaics by it.