february 2025
introducing the seed scholarship
hi!
before the grand announcement, a couple of quick notes:
you can now find the newsletter archive in the website. it will be updated a week or so after the newsletter goes out at the beginning of each month.
this only the second newsletter, and we already have over 120 subscribers! thank you! please consider forwarding this newsletter to at least one writer/artist-friend. i’m trusting in word of mouth to help this newsletter grow and make a greater impact.
this month’s newsletter comes to you with a special gift: the every-now-&-then seed scholarship, a microscholarship intended to go toward one of the workshops listed in this newsletter (or a previous one).
this offering is really important to me because my ability to participate in a workshop has often been dependent upon receiving a fellowship or scholarship. i’m honored to make this little contribution toward creating access for more artists & writers and funding the beautiful lives and work of teaching artists.
i am working on figuring out a sustainable way to fund these scholarships, but for now, i am happily offering the funds that i received from my Substack at the beginning of this year: $65.
you can apply here. the application is pretty chill and only for subscribers. if you forward this to a friend, just remind them to subscribe before filling in the application.
deadline: saturday, february 15
the recipient will be notified by sunday, february 23.
now, let’s get to the heart of this thing…enjoy!
my deep appreciation,
yoyo
upcoming workshops
The Lore of a Life Story with Rios de la Luz
A workshop focused on hybrid stories that interweave fact & fiction and explores dreamscapes, your origin story, rebirths, fictionalizing personal memories into speculative stories, & creating legends on liminal spaces in your neighborhood or city.
When: Saturday, April 12 | 9am - 1pm PST
Payment: $40 - $60
Relief Printing Anywhere with Beth Sheehan
Students learn the basics of relief printing at home. We discuss ways to create relief blocks from materials around your house as well as more professional materials like wood and linoleum. We also cover a few tricks for printing including registering multiple colors and spoon-printing.
When: Mondays, March 10 - 17 | 6 - 8pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: Pay What You Can
Through the Back Door: Writing the Hybrid Memoir with Kristen Martin
When we break away from what’s going on inside our heads, we just might see our own lives in a new light and discover something universal. This is the foundation of a “backdoor memoir”: a work that seems at first to focus on an outside phenomenon—the love letters of a Southern Gothic novelist, or the oil-and-gas industry in the North Sea—but ends up revealing just as much about its author as it does its topic. In this 6-week class, students will read excerpts from memoirs such as Jenn Shapland's My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, experiment with prompts, and then write a final piece that uses research, reporting, and/or criticism to open the door to the self.
When: Wednesdays, March 5 – April 16, 2025 | 6:00 – 8:00pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $360 (aid available)
The Hidden Library with Shirin Salehi
In this virtual workshop for all experience levels, Instructor Shirin Salehi invites the participants to reflect on the poetics of the hidden in the conception of an Artist’s book project, raising questions on how we connect to the notion of the unseen, the silent and the subtleties of language in our current visually overexposed times.
When: Wednesdays, April 16 - May 7 | 10:00am - 12:00pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $185
Getting Started in Literary Translation with Rosalind Harvey
In this workshop, Spanish to English literary translator Rosalind Harvey will offer participants practical advice on how to break into and survive the profession of literary translation, including choosing a project, pitching to publishers, negotiating contracts, and other tips you can use right away.
When: Sunday, April 13 | 1:00 - 2:30pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $50 suggested donation to the Sameer Project
Advanced Narrative Techniques with ZZ Packer
Join us for the third iteration of Making and Breaking the Zine, where we will be examining the history and form of self-published zines while producing our own expressions of the art form. Over the course of 7 weeks, we will learn more about the revolutionary roots of independent publishing, and learn how to design and make physical zines.
When: Mondays, April 7 & April 21 | 7:00 - 9:00pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $150
Digital Archiving: Gallery of Anonymous Memories with Alexa Ann Bonomo
Anonymous or known, memory serves us as a biological archive of moments in our mind and stored into bytes of data stored on a computer. This course offers a dedicated space to collect and organize a digital archive of your own. Work alongside others to preserve a physical or digital artwork, tell the story of an internet rabbit hole you find fascinating, or collect relics of your own virtual dreamscape. You will learn research-based methods in digital archiving, participate in daily journaling and documentation via photo/video/audio recordings, and engage in class discussions about previous works in digital preservation and community memory.
When: Wednesdays, March 5 - April 9 | 6:30 - 8:30pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $175 (scholarships available; deadline to apply is February 26)
Emotional Geography with Dantiel Moniz
Some of the most effective written works provoke real feeling inside us–jar memories or sensations we thought we’d forgotten–all this transferred to us by a two-dimensional medium by a stranger, even if we’ve never lived the experience of the characters or people we’re reading about. How does that work? In this generative craft intensive, we’ll practice building seemingly small, particular details into scene to create and layer emotional resonance sentence by sentence while having the opportunity to explore how this operates in published works.
When: Saturday, March 8 | 11:00am - 2:00pm PST
Where: Online
Payment: $75 (scholarship lottery available)
The Confessional Poem with Nicole Tallman
What makes a poem “confessional”? In this exploratory, generative workshop, we’ll read, discuss, and practice writing poems that bend and blend the lines between diary and poem. We’ll read poems aloud together by living poets who may or may not consider themselves “confessional,” including Diane Seuss, Alex Dimitrov, Jericho Brown, Richie Hofmann, and Victoria Chang. Please come prepared to read, write, and share space actively with this community.
When: Saturday, March 22 | 12:00 - 2:00 pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $75
More Info Here (scroll down)
Finding Your Way Back to Joy with Jenny Tinghui Zhang
In this class, we'll navigate ourselves back to a place of joy in our writing and writing practices. Through class discussion, excerpts from essays and interviews with other writers and artists, and generative writing prompts, we will share and learn practical strategies for maintaining a sustainable, joyful writing practice that feels rejuvenating, rather than punitive. This class aims to center writers who may have fallen off from writing, who feel like writing isn't fun or joyful anymore, or who feel deflated by their project or by the business/industry of writing and publishing.
When: Thursday, March 6 | 7:00 - 9:00 pm ET
Where: Online
Payment: $75
Expressing Journaling with Erin Nolan
This March, transform your journal into a vessel for your unique expressive voice. You’ll come away with an artifact to mark this moment in time and tools for shaping the life you dare to imagine.
When: Fridays, March 7 - 28 | 8am - 9:20am PT
Where: Online
Payment: $500
