Winter/Spring 2026 Semester Learning Activities

How to Write Annotations

Wednesday, January 7, 2026 3:00pm-4:30pm PT / 6:00pm-7:30pm ET

Lorinda Toledo

Required for the Zinnia 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.

Designing a Flexible Workshop Syllabus 

Wednesday, July 16, 2025 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.

Private Pain, Public Testimony: The Story as Activism 

Saturday, January 24, 2026 10:30am-11:45am PT/ 1:30pm-2:45pm ET

Reyna Grande

This seminar aims to empower students to transform their most personal experiences into powerful public narratives and explore ways to control their story and make it a catalyst for change. We will focus on the craft of using your emotional truth to humanize vast political issues and make a singular experience feel universal. Whether you are writing a personal essay, an opinion piece, or a column, you will learn a practical structure for taking your story from an intimate "I" to a collective "We," effectively turning private pain into public testimony. We'll explore how this process moves you from feeling Voiceless to becoming Vocal and from Helplessness to Activism, all while navigating the Vulnerability and Risk inherent in this brave work. We will discuss how to find political “hooks” in the current moment, how to weave a political argument (or theme) into your story, and how to pitch your work for publication.

The Art of Subtext: The Unspoken Soul Matter

Tuesday, February 10, 2026 3:00pm-4:15pm PT/ 6:00pm-7:15pm ET

Piotr Florczyk

While it’s true that the creative process contains an element of mystery and that it’s best not to know where poems come from—not all of them, or always, at least—it is equally true that writing is hard work. Indeed, one of the hardest things about writing poems is figuring out if what we’ve written is done and/or ready to be shared with the world. Why are we happy with the piece? Why aren’t we happy with it? If we feel like tinkering with it some more, how do we go about that? Keeping Samuel Beckett’s mantra—“Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.”—in mind, we will discuss and practice various strategies for (re)working our poems (and, time permitting, other texts). The goal of this seminar, which will include prompts, is to offer all participants the intellectual and creative guidance for revising their work and for sustaining a dialogue with other writers and critics.

Cutting Through The Noise

Saturday, March 14, 2026 10:00am-11:30am PT / 1:00pm-2:15pm ET

Paul Sloop, moderated by Colette Freedman

As a Programmer and Executive director for three film festivals, Paul has screened over 100,000 short films and knows “what it takes” to cut through the noise. A moderated Q and A as Paul talks about his long experience as a festival programmer and how to make films that can make a splash on the circuit (hint, it's always story).

The Ins and Outs of Book Proposals

Saturday, April 11, 2026       10:00am-11:15am PT / 1:00pm-2:15pm ET

Edgar Gomez

Working on a memoir? Essay collection? Book of narrative journalism? There are many paths nonfiction writers can take towards publishing. One of the most shrouded in mystery is the book proposal. A book proposal is a document writers use to pitch their books to publishers. But what goes into a proposal? Is it true that you get paid to finish your project? And what if you already have a finished memoir/essay collection/nonfiction work? In this seminar, I will break down everything writers need to know about book proposals, from sample pages to comps and marketing, and personally walk you through the proposal that landed them their own book deal. This seminar is geared towards nonfiction writers, but all are welcome. No required reading.

At the Intersection of the Personal and Political: Poetic Interventions in Given Text

Thursday, April 30, 2026 3:00pm-4:15pm PT/ 6:00pm-7:15pm ET

Francesca Lia Block

Are you interested in adapting your fiction into a screenplay or turning your screenplay into a book? In this seminar, we will look at various ways to master both forms with an emphasis on structure, character development, setting and themes, as well as format differences!