3:00pm-4:30pm PT / 6:00pm-7:30pm ET
How to Write Annotations, with Lorinda Toledo
*Required for the Bluebell cohort*
Check Brightspace announcements and Student Google Calendar for links.
How to Write Annotations
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 3:00pm-4:30pm PT / 6:00pm-7:30pm ET
Lorinda Toledo
Required for the Bluebell Cohort.
As literary artists, annotations offer students an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with the stories and poems they read in ways that nurture the stories and poems they write. But what exactly are annotations? How to begin? And what could we possibly have to say?
This workshop will take a hands-on approach to address these questions and explore critical review. You’ll leave with a more efficient approach to writing annotations that bring value to your work, and a better understanding of potential topics that most intrigue you.
3:30pm-4:45pm PT / 6:30pm-7:45pm ET
Designing a Flexible Workshop Syllabus, with Joshua Roark
*Required for Post-MFA students*
https://antioch.zoom.us/meeting/register/vfkDG4fIS_ShInBs36Z25w
Designing a Flexible Workshop Syllabus
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 3:30pm-4:45pm PT / 6:30pm-7:45pm ET
Joshua Roark
Designed for all students who are interested in teaching creative writing, this seminar includes an overview of virtual teaching opportunities, the pedagogical strategies of a successful workshop, methods for decolonizing your learning environment, and an examination of model syllabi that meet the contemporary demands of a writing teacher. Attention will be given to tools writers can employ to sell their services virtually in a startup of their own or through a community organization.
Required for all incoming Post-MFA Certificate Students
12:00pm-1:15pm PT / 3:00pm-4:15pm ET
Creating Romantic Tension on the Page, with Natashia Deón
https://antioch.zoom.us/meeting/register/mt9ZB_ebSSyz8yPUP0T_LQ
Creating Romantic Tension on the Page
Saturday, August 1, 2026 12:00pm-1:15pm PT / 3:00pm-4:15pm ET
Natashia Deón
A little embarrassing, right? A teacher teaching students to write...intimacy. Let's start by calling it chemistry. How do you write chemistry? Not just flirtation. Not just banter. Not just two hot people standing near each other under a moonlit sky. How do you create that charged, swoony, can’t-look-away feeling on the page and make it feel real?
That pulse of attraction is part of what keeps readers turning pages. It’s why romance works. It’s why intimacy matters. But while chemistry can feel magical, it’s not beyond the reach of craft. There are ways to build it, shape it, and deepen it so the emotional and physical stakes feel true.
Because romantic tension does not appear automatically. (OK, I'll say it: Do not assume that the situation automatically evokes the mood). A kiss is not chemistry. Proximity is not chemistry. Even desire, on its own, is not chemistry. The real work happens below the surface, in what the characters want, fear, notice, avoid, misinterpret, and risk.
In this workshop, we’ll break down the craft of writing attraction and emotional tension so that your romantic scenes feel grounded, believable, and impossible to resist.
10:00am-11:00am PT / 1:00pm-2:00pm ET
Community Open Mic, hosted by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
Check Brightspace announcements and Student Google Calendar for links.
4:00pm-5:00pm PT / 7:00pm-8:00pm ET
Community Writing Circle, hosted by Terry Wolverton
Characters Have a Lot to Say
Some writers struggle to invent character’s motivations and actions. But why not just ask those characters? This is a free writing workshop that will be guided by a few prompts aimed at enticing your characters to speak to you and through you. This practice can be applied to fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing.
Check Brightspace announcements and Student Google Calendar for links.
4:00pm-5:15pm PT / 7:00pm-8:15pm ET
Whatever is Lost is Worshipped, with Safia Elhillo
https://antioch.zoom.us/meeting/register/wQ3ZcIOmR1GlxLJYb0R56g
Whatever is Lost is Worshipped
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 4:00pm-5:15pm PT / 7:00pm-8:15pm ET
Safia Elhillo
In this seminar, we will consider Mahmoud Darwish’s assertion that “whatever is lost is worshipped” and examine poems that take on the elegiac form, filling an absence with language and elevating what is lost to the realm of the eternal, the divine.
3:00pm-4:15pm PT / 6:00pm-7:15pm ET
Let’s Get Lyric! (It’s Not Just for Poets), with Terry Wolverton
https://antioch.zoom.us/meeting/register/YDa8VdCFTJe4HcvwiM4fsA
Let’s Get Lyric! (It’s Not Just for Poets)
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 3:00pm-4:15pm PT / 6:00pm-7:15pm ET
Terry Wolverton
When we think of “lyric writing,” our minds go to poetry, but the lyric impulse is alive in all creative writing genres. The human brain processes lyricism “outside the window of conscious awareness,” so it provides the reader a palpable experience as they read.
We’ll look at how techniques of lyricism infuse fiction, creative nonfiction, and dramatic writing, as well as poetry—syntax, sonic techniques, rhythm and cadence, white space, associative leaps, structure. I’ll provide presentation; you’ll offer up discussion, and we’ll practice at least one exercise of lyric writing.
6:00pm-7:30pm PT / 9:00pm-10:30pm ET
Experience a Real Writer's Room, with Mark Hudis, moderated by Colette Freedman
https://antioch.zoom.us/meeting/register/PFZydrrPQZCbuy4QDZjeDQ
Experience a Real Writer's Room
Saturday, October 8, 2026 6:00pm-7:30pm PT / 9:00pm-10:30pm ET
Mark Hudis, moderated by Colette Freedman
There are a lot of “how to write for television” books and classes. Most of them are terrible. Why? Because most of them are authored or taught by people who’ve never been within 100 miles of an actual writers’ room. This class is different. Long-time TV writer Mark Hudis (whose credits include That ’70’s Show, True Blood, Nurse Jackie, Elementary) will create an actual writers’ room and show you how a story is broken, outlined and scripted. It’ll be fun, useful and best of all, authentic.
4:00pm-5:00pm PT / 7:00pm-8:00pm ET
Community Open Mic, hosted by Francesca Lia Block
Check Brightspace announcements and Student Google Calendar for links.
11:00am-12:00pm PT / 2:00pm-3:00pm ET
Community Writing Circle, hosted by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
Community Check In & Writing Circle: For this community check in, participants will have the first 10 minutes to share project period setbacks and successes, ask any writing or program related questions, or request help on such things as resource recommendations or beta readers. Participants will then turn off cameras and quietly cowork for 40 minutes. The final 10 minutes will be left open for sharing passages from the writing and a check out.
Check Brightspace announcements and Student Google Calendar for links.