Jessica Barksdale

The most painful experiences are often those we truly want to write about. But how do we approach hard topics without sinking our poetic ships with excess melodrama and pathos? How can we invite our readers in and ask them to stay and bear witness without them running from our poems as if their hair were on fire?

In these two sessions, we will look at examples of how other poets have found ways to write about life’s most difficult challenges. Humor, hyperbole, specificity, detail, tone, voice, narrative all provide ways into profound writing about loss and grief.

The first session will focus on craft and studying examples as well as some brainstorming for our own work. And the second session will be dedicated to workshopping poems together.

SESSION 1
Thursday, October 14
7-8:30 p.m.

The session is free, but we do ask that you register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvd--hpj0pGNcWSHEO_fQwwVfzPqi3Xmed

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The second session is Thursday, November 11, 7-8:30 p.m. Please register in advance for that workshop, too.

Jessica Barksdale’s fifteenth novel, The Play’s the Thing, and second poetry collection, Grim Honey, were both published Spring 2021. Her novels include Her Daughter’s Eyes, The Matter of Grace, and When You Believe. A Pushcart Prize and Best-of-the-Net nominee, her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in the North American Review, Salt Hill Journal, Tahoma Review, and So to Speak.

Recently retired, she taught at Diablo Valley College for thirty-two years and continues to teach novel writing online for UCLA Extension and in the online MFA program for Southern New Hampshire University.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. Learn more on her website.