Taking inspiration from the diptych and triptych panel paintings first popularized more than 600 years ago, this generative creative writing class will have you thinking big and writing more by leaning into what really fascinates you.

 

Three poets will walk you through writing three poems or flash memoir pieces that belong together. We'll start by brainstorming a list of obsessions--those unanswered questions we keep returning to and the recurring signs and symbols that seem to keep finding us. What do these things mean in our lives, and how can we use them in our creative work? We'll explore intertextuality (how texts talk to each other), repetition of themes and imagery, call and response, and other strategies for envisioning a larger body of work and recognizing what makes you, as an author, unique.

 

The three teaching artists are experienced in building triptychs as well as book-length projects from subjects they just couldn't let go. And they're ready to share tips for cultivating new obsessions.

 

Class meets in person Tuesday, May 25, 6 - 8 pm.

 

Member discount: Members of Write On receive a 10% discount on all classes and workshops. To become a member, please click here. To receive the discount, members must log in to the website using their unique password and enter member10 in the promotion code box. The code is case sensitive.

 

Teaching Artists:

Kate Gaskin is the author of A Red Knock-Knocking Like a Heart (LSU Press 2026) and Forever War (YesYes Books 2020), winner of the Pamet River Prize. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Southern Review , and Ploughshares , among others. Currently, she serves as the director of The Adroit Journal 's Summer Mentorship Program, and is an assistant poetry editor for TRP: The University Press of SHSU.

 

Cynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently the OCD memoir in prose poems, Exploding Head. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Poems have appeared in Electric Literature , The Believer , The Los Angeles Review , and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in Time , The Sun , Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a prose memoir in ten songs on coming of age in the late 80s and early 90s as a guitar-toting Gen X metalhead with then-undiagnosed OC. Cynthia lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Angela Voras-Hills's first book, Louder Birds (Pleiades 2020), was awarded the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize. She holds a PhD from UW-Milwaukee and an MFA from UMass Boston. Her work has appeared in The Sun , Kenyon Review Online , Prairie Schooner , Tupelo Quarterly , Best New Poets , and New Ohio Review, among other journals and anthologies. She has received support from Ragdale, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Key West Literary Seminar, and Writers' Room of Boston. She lives with her family in Milwaukee, where she teaches community workshops and runs The Book Drop Reading Series.