DATE: JANUARY 19TH & 201TH, 2019 from 11:00 PM – 2:00 PM
LOCATION: THE LIGHT BOX @ GOLDMAN WAREHOUSE @ 404 NW 26TH ST, MIAMI, FL 33127. Map here.
COST: ALWAYS FREE. Donations appreciated. Donate here
Start the year off queer and motivated with Reading Queer’s annual “‘Boot Camp for Queer Writers’ with Jan Becker!” Becker lovingly propels participants to unapologetically, persistently, and creatively write through stimulating prompts. The source text for this year’s Boot Camp will consist of poems from Reading Queer’s debut anthology Reading Queer: Poetry In A Time of Chaos (Anhinga Press, 2018). Please join Reading Queer and Jan Becker for the fourth season of the RQ Writing Academy. You won’t leave with a single blank page.
“Boot Camp for Queer Writers” is open to all writers of any age, writing experience, and sexual orientation. As Jan puts it: individuals can attend “…to get in touch with their own queer identity. Even if it just means you feel you’ve been left out. No one gets left out.”
DESCRIPTION: Lace up your combat boots; we’re recruiting for an army of fierce writers. “BOOT CAMP FOR QUEER WRITERS” with Jan Becker is an intensive, prompt-driven poetry and flash nonfiction workshop. The term ‘boot camp’ may sound intimidating, but the only real order is, “permission to write freely.” This workshop is designed to liberate writers from their individual closets and get their words down on the page. The fast-paced writing drills disengage writers from that nagging, negative voice that plagues and prevents us from accessing what poet Maria Mazziotti-Gillan calls “the wise person who lives within our bellies.” Join us for the fourth iteration of what has proven to be a productive, empowering experience for writers from beginning level to published.
Reading Queer: Poetry In A Time of Chaos (Anhinga Press, 2018) brings fifty LGBTQ poets together in the spirit and solidarity of poetry at its finest and fiercest. Edited by Neil de la Flor and Maureen Seaton, Reading Queer: Poetry in a Time of Chaos is vulnerable, sexy, heartbreaking, revolutionary. It’s poetry that pushes against and beyond boundaries in both form and content.
DISCLAIMER: Participants are free to attend both dates or either one.
RSVP HERE:
MATERIALS: Please bring own writing utensils and papers.
JAN BECKER is from a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania. She didn’t stay there very long. She grew up in a Marine Corps family, on military bases all over the United States. She is currently an MFA candidate at Florida International University, and has taught courses there in composition, technical writing, creative writing and poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Jai-Alai Magazine, Colorado Review, Emerge, Brevity Poetry Review, Sliver of Stone, and the Florida Book Review. She is the 2015-2016 Writer in Residence at the Girls’ Club Collection in Fort Lauderdale, and winner of the 2015 AWP Intro Journals Award in Nonfiction.
ANTHOLOGY FEATURES: Thalo Kersey, Aaron Smith, Bryan Borland, Caridad Moro-Fronlier, Cathleen Chambless, Celeste Gainey, cin salach, Collin Kelley, Eduardo C. Corral, Elizabeth Bradfield, Ellen Bass, Farah Milagros Yamini, Gem Blackthorn, Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Gregg Shapiro, Holly Iglesias, James Allen Hall, Jan Becker, Jason Schneiderman, Jen Benka, Jim Elledge, JV Portela, Joseph O. Legaspi, JP Howard, Julie Marie Wade, Julie R. Enzer, Justin Torres, Kevin Simmonds, L. Lamar Wilson, Lori Anderson, Megan Volpert, Meredith Camel, Phillip B. Williams, Qwo-Li Driskill, Ruben Quesada, sam sax, Samiya Bashir, Samuel Ace, Seth Pennington, Shane Allison, Stacey Waite, Stephanie Lane Sutto