Writing the Visual at Southwestern College

Writing the Visual | Story Box | Speculative Studio Archeology

I've posted three new workshop proposals on my website. They all engage with visual narrative, sequence, and collage as they incorporate elements of both creative writing and the book arts. They are adapted from classes I've taught at Mills College, the University of Iowa Center for the Book, and Iowa City Poetry's monthly Free Generative Writing Workshop. Click HERE to learn more!

Artist's Books this Saturday at Prairie Lights

I've been lucky to work with an exceptional group of students this semester in my Creative Writing for Book Arts class. They've been working hard on their final projects, artist's books that will be on display this Saturday night from 7 - 9 pm at Prairie Lights. Come see their work, which includes the following intriguing tag lines: 

A look into Plato's cave. An epic take on the lowly shrimp. Eye-test poems. Forty thoughts from a forty-passenger tour bus. Emails from The City of Love. All this and more ...

Writing for Visual & Material Genres

I'm really excited to teach a class at the UI Center for the Book this Spring: Creative Writing for Book Arts: Writing for Visual & Material Genres. The interdisciplinary class is for both writers and visual artists, and asks how material and visual forms present, comment on, and/or merge with textual content. In what ways do we balance readability and individual expression when writing and designing published forms? The class will emphasize tactility and mark making, looking at literature as a physical process, as well as a material product. It will explore a variety of book-related genres and media, including broadsides, chapbooks, concrete poetry, comics, zines, and artist’s books.

Above is a poster I letterpress printed to promote the class. I used craft foam, a scratch-negative photopolymer plate, a found copperplate block, and metal type (see the lockup below, thanks to Pamela Olson!).