Workshops
Our popular workshops give members and nonmembers a chance to develop their craft. We offer workshops in a variety of genres (poetry, prose, memoir, plays, etc.) and on a variety of topics — all with experienced, published workshop instructors.
We offer our popular Three-in-a-Row online workshops for three consecutive for three consecutive Saturdays in January, plus additional workshops in the Spring
and Fall.
Upcoming:
Spring Workshops
April 6, 10 a.m. to noon on Zoom
Attention & Astonishment:
Poems Inspired by Mary Oliver
Registration Opens March 1.
Members: $15, Nonmembers: $25
Generative Workshop
Recurring Monthly, 2nd Wednesday
Forsyth County Central Library Reading Room
660 W. 5th Street, Winston-Salem, NC
Generative Workshop is Free and Open to All.
No Registration Required.
Generative Writing Workshops (Recurring)
Monthly, 2nd Wednesday | 6:30pm-8:00pm EST
by Barbara Greenbaum
These new workshops meet on the second Wednesday of every month and are meant to give writers of any genre and experience level a time to generate new writing together. Bring a piece you are working on or start something new. This isn’t a critique session but a
Our hope is you’ll come away with a piece you can develop, but if nothing else, this is a time for us to practice and to share ideas and our passions for the work we do. Please bring your preferred method of writing. All writers welcome, including non-members of WSW. This workshop can be attended in person at Forsyth County Central Library Reading Room.
For Generative Workshop questions, email Barbara Greenbaum at barbarapgreenbaum@gmail.com.
Barbara P. Greenbaum has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine, Stonecoast and a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Hartford. She taught creative writing at a public magnet arts high school in Willimantic, Connecticut for twelve years and served as an adjunct professor at Eastern CT State University. In 2011, she was awarded a Teaching Arts Fellowship from Surdna. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have been published in American Writer’s Review, Eclectica, Forge, Hog River Review, and others. She is the author of The Last Thing, a book of poetry published by Main Street Rag Publications in November 2022. A long time Connecticut resident, she now lives in Winston Salem, North Carolina with her husband. More information and links to her work can be found on her website, barbaragreenbaum.com.
Upcoming Workshops
“Attention & Astonishment: Poems Inspired by Mary Oliver” with Sarah Ann Winn
Saturday, April 6, 2024 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
WSW Members: $15
Nonmembers: $25
Deadline to Register: 5pm, Thursday, April 4th
Limited to 40 Participants
“Pay attention, be astonished & tell about it.” Writes Mary Oliver in her beautiful poem, “Sometimes.” In this interactive and generative workshop, we’ll use Mary Oliver’s work for inspiration, instruction, and as a starting point to “tell about it” in our own poems. We’ll consider brief readings by Mary Oliver, placed in conversation with equally brief works from a variety of other writers and artists. Expect to draft poems inspired by and in a state of interbeing with the natural world.
Sarah Ann Winn’s first book, Alma Almanac (Barrow Street, 2017) won the Barrow Street Book Prize, judged by Elaine Equi. She is also the author of five chapbooks, most recently, Ever After the End Matter (Porkbelly Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in Five Points, Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, Quarterly West, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. Sarah has led workshops at the Poetry Foundation, the Writer's Center in Bethesda, and the Loft Literary Center. In 2022, she was awarded the MISA Excellence in Teaching Fellowship. In 2015 she founded Poet Camp, a creative community where she leads online classes, jumpstarts and cozy writing retreats. Join her at http://PoetCamp.com.
Prior Workshops
Joining a Critique Group
with Kat Bodrie
Saturday, January 6, 2024 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
WSW Members Only: Free
Being in a critique group is one of the best ways to get feedback on your work. So what goes on in a critique group? How do you find one you click with, and how do you know you’re ready for one? We’ll talk about how to join a WSW critique group, when to join one, how to give effective feedback to others, how to accept feedback, and what it’s like to lead a group. Our Critique Group Coordinator, Shannon Golden, will be present to answer all your questions!
Kat Bodrie is a writer and editor in Winston-Salem. She is President of Winston-Salem Writers, Book Editor for BleakHouse Publishing, and Host City Coordinator for Poetry in Plain Sight. Her poetry has appeared in North Meridian Review, Poetry South, Rat’s Ass Review, and elsewhere. She has also written for Winston-Salem Monthly and Triad City Beat. Her poem “Injections” was a finalist for the NC Poetry Society’s Poet Laureate Award, and her chapbook When the River Takes Us was a finalist in Black Mountain Press’s quarterly chapbook contest. Kat also works with incarcerated individuals on their creative pieces and often collaborates with George T. Wilkerson, who lives on Death Row. More at katbodrie.com.
Finding a Story Worth Telling
with Joseph Mills
Saturday, January 13, 2024 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
WSW Members: Free, Nonmembers: $25
Stories are rarely conceptualized whole. Most writers find them as they write them. In this workshop, we’ll consider what that means. For example, what makes a story different from an anecdote, a Facebook post, a diary entry? What should we consider as we shape a piece of writing? The focus will be on narrative, so writers of all genres — fiction, non-fiction, poetry — are welcome.
A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills has published eight volumes of poetry, most recently Bodies in Motion: Poems about Dance. His book This Miraculous Turning was awarded the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for its exploration of race and family. In 2019, he published his debut collection of fiction, Bleachers, which consists of fifty-four linked pieces that take place during a youth soccer game. More information about his work is available at www.josephrobertmills.com.
Action Out Loud: Dialogue and Character
with Jacob Paul
Saturday, January 20, 2024 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
WSW Members: Free, Nonmembers: $25
Dialogue is the rare instance in which character action is relayed directly, and yet its power comes from the use of the sound-based tools common to poetry. In this two-hour workshop, we’ll begin by thinking about how a character's line of dialogue constitutes an action they've undertaken in pursuit of a specific objective in a scene and what that means for character conflict. We’ll then explore how to pattern character lines both to build tension and perform characters' relative power towards each other. From there, we’ll move on to the ways the development of a character’s phrasing and word choices — what I like to call the character's figurative palette — brings the character and the character's objectives into focus. Finally, time allowing, we’ll talk about some special cases of dialogue, such as the uses of elliptical structures and soliloquies.
Jacob Paul is the author of Last Tower to Heaven (C&R, 2019) and two previous novels, A Song of Ilan (Jaded Ibis, 2015) and Sarah/Sara (Ig, 2010), which Poets & Writers named one of 2010’s five best first fictions. His collaborations have led to the fine art books, Home for an Hour (Otherwise, 2014) and Feed Mayonnaise to Tuna (Otherwise, 2016). His work has also appeared in Hunger Mountain, Western Humanities Review, Green Mountains Review, Massachusetts Review, Seneca Review, Mountain Gazette and USA Today’s Weekend Magazine as well as on therumpus.net, fictionwritersreview.com and numerocinqmagazine.com. He teaches creative writing at High Point University. More at www.jacobgpaul.com/bio.
Submitting Your Work to Journals, Agents, and Publishers
with Julia Ridley Smith
Saturday, January 27, 2024 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
WSW Members: Free, Nonmembers: $25
You’ve been working really hard on your short stories, essays, or poems, and now you feel ready
to start sending them out to literary journals. Or you’ve got a book-length manuscript — or a
fantastic idea for one — and want to know how to find the right agent, contest, or publisher. In
this workshop, I’ll give you a quick overview of the publishing world, then show you how to
figure out where and how to submit your work. Among the topics we’ll discuss are journals,
contests, cover letters, querying agents, and book proposals. There will be time for Q&A.
Julia Ridley Smith is the author of a story collection, Sex Romp Gone Wrong (Blair, forthcoming
2024), and a memoir, The Sum of Trifles (University of Georgia Press, 2021). Her fiction and
essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, Ecotone, and elsew recognized as notable in Best American Essays and supported by the Sewanee Writers Conference, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro, and other arts organizations. She is former associate editor at Bull City Press, where she was the editor of Inch magazine, and she has nearly twenty-five years of experience working with university and independent presses, newspapers, magazines, and journals as a freelance writer and copyeditor. Currently, she teaches creative writing and publishing courses at UNC Chapel Hill. Find her at juliaridleysmith.com and @JuliaTrifles.
Discovering Your Monologue
with Quinton Cockrell
Saturday, October 14, 2023 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
Members $15, Nonmembers $25
Creating monologues can be one of the most satisfying forms of creative writing. While taking a relatively short amount of time, monologue writing requires communicating solely in a character’s voice, allowing for exploration and expression of a wide range of perspectives. This workshop — perfect for writers of any genre — will cover idea generation, character creation, character development, and dramatic structure.
Quinton Cockrell is a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College and The Alabama Shakespeare Festival's Professional Actor Training Program. He has worked with numerous theatres throughout the United States as an actor, director, and playwright, including Riverside Shakespeare Company, Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, Heritage Repertory Company, and The Barter Theatre. His writing has been selected as a finalist in Oregon Shakespeare’s Ashland New Play Festival and The O’Neill Center’s National Music Theater Conference. Quinton is an Associate Professor of Performance at Troy University. He is a member of Actor’s Equity Association and The Dramatists’ Guild of America.
Racial Politics in Toni Morrison’s Work
with Mark Dudley, Details/Cost: TBA
Saturday, October 21, 2023 | 10 a.m. to 12 noon EST
On Zoom
Members $15, Nonmembers $25
Toni Morrison wrote about matters of race in America in her first novel, The Bluest Eye, as well as in her final novel, Home, some five decades later. Truthfully, Morrison wrote about American racial politics her entire literary career, and she celebrated the African American experience her entire life. Join Professor Marc Dudley, a specialist in American and African American literature, for a discussion of “Recitatif,” Morrison’s only piece of short fiction, along with one of her most compelling essays, “Home.” Together, some four years after her death, we will explore the motivation and the artistry of one of America’s most-prized and revered writers.
Marc Dudley is Professor of English and Africana Studies at North Carolina State University, with specializations in 20th Century American and African American literature(s). He has spoken widely on such authors as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Baldwin. He has been featured in the Hemingway Review, in the collections Teaching Hemingway and Race (Kent State University Press, 2018) and the New Hemingway Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and in the recent Ken Burns documentary Hemingway. He is the author of Hemingway, Race, and Art: Bloodlines and the Color Line (Kent State University Press, 2012) and Understanding James Baldwin (University of South Carolina Press, 2019). Marc is the editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (2023) and co-editor of the forthcoming Teaching Hemingway and Film (Kent State University Press).
Memoir: Bringing Past Worlds to Life
Julia Ridley Smith is the author of a memoir, The Sum of Trifles (University of Georgia Press, 2021), and a story collection, Sex Romp Gone Wrong (Blair, forthcoming). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, Ecotone, Electric Literature, the New England Review, and The Southern Review, among other places. Her work has been recognized as notable in Best American Essays and supported by the Sewanee Writers Conference, the United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, and other arts
When writing a memoir or personal essay, how do we bring our past worlds—and selves—to life on the page? For this class, we’ll read a couple of short, memoir-based essays that illuminate how to give readers a rich sense of places that have played important roles in our lives. Together, we’ll do several writing exercises designed to help us see those places with fresh eyes and describe them in vivid language.
Participation limited to first 40 registrants.
Saturday, April 29, 2023 | 10am-12noon EST
by Julia Ridley Smith
organizations. She teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Find her at
juliaridleysmith.com and @JuliaTrifles.