Writing into Your Family Archive Through Poetry

We all have inheritances. For some, these inheritances are tangible—journals, quilts, recipes, letters, jewelry, garments, photographs, even the gift of caring for the same land one’s ancestors once walked. For others, inheritance is found in memory—stories told (or overheard) about elders or family rituals like putting blankets over windows during thunderstorms. The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) is pleased to offer an interactive virtual writing workshop instructed by L. Renée, winner of the 2021 “Emerging Poet” fellowship. “Writing into Your Family Archive Through Poetry” will guide writers of all backgrounds, genres, and levels of experience in creating a family history, a meaningful inheritance for their ancestors, through the art of poetry.

The workshop will be Friday, March 25th, from 12:00 to 2:00 pm CST on Zoom. Participants will be given the link upon registration. The class fee is $35 per person and all proceeds benefit the WCDH scholarship fund. Register at www.writerscolony.org/events, email director@writerscolony.org, or call 479-253-7444.

In this generative workshop, participants will explore the tangible and intangible forms of what we’ve inherited, discover craft elements/strategies to write about these inheritances by reading model poems, and generate new work from writing prompts. L. Renée said, “By the end of our time together, I hope that participants lean into the silences and omissions—both intentional and unintentional—that come with families and family histories and imagine possibilities for, or stumble upon revelations from, these relationships. This workshop is open to writers at every stage of their writing journey. We will all learn from each other.”

Participants should bring to the workshop one tangible item that was “inherited” from a family member to use for a writing exercise. There are no guidelines for what that item should be. It may have been a gift, something pilfered, or something abandoned after an unexpected loss. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to share the work created during class, but it is not a requirement.

L. Renée is a poet and nonfiction writer from Columbus, Ohio. Her work, nominated for Best New Poetsand a Pushcart Prize, has been anthologized in Women of Appalachia Project's Women Speak: Volume 6 and Volume 7, as well as the forthcoming I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices. She is the recipient of the Indiana University Guy Lemmon Award in Public Writing, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Alumni Award, Appalachian Review’s Denny C. Plattner Award, 2021 RattlePoetry Prize finalist, and second place for PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture and New Limestone Review’s Crystal Wilkinson Creative Writing Prize. Her poems have been published or forthcoming in Tin House Online, Obsidian, Poet Lore, the minnesota review, Southern Humanities Review, Water~Stone Review, and elsewhere. In addition to winning the “Emerging Poet” fellowship at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, she has received support from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc., Oak Spring Garden Foundation, The Peter Bullough Foundation for the Arts, Lafayette Flats’ New River Gorge Creative Residency, the dots between, The Watering Hole, Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Indiana University, where she was Nonfiction Editor of Indiana Review and Associate Director of the Indiana University Writers’ Conference, and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University, where she was a Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Moore Fellow. Learn more at lreneepoems.com.

The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow 2021 “Emerging Poet” fellowship was for writers assembling their first published book of poems. Two winners, L. Renée and Seif-Eldeine Och, were selected from over 40 applications received from writers across the U.S. Their writing samples ranked highest with the judges for literary merit and the promise of publication in book form.  The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow would like to thank author and WCDH alumna, Linda Leavell, and her husband, Brooks Garner, for developing and generously funding the “Emerging Poet,” 2021 and 2022 “Illuminating Black Lives,” and “Humor Me” fellowships.” For more information about funding a fellowship supporting the genre and/or area of interest you are passionate about, visit www.writerscolony.org/sponsor-a-fellowship.

The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is a 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission is to nurture writers of all genres, backgrounds, and levels of experience in a supportive environment that builds community, energizes creative expression, stimulates new thinking, and optimizes productivity. Since opening its doors to writers in 2000, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow has made a lasting impact on the arts and literary communities hosting over 1,700 writers from 48 states and 13 countries. For more information, please call Michelle Hannon or Jeanne Glass at (479)253-7444.