Creative Writing Workshops
Creative writing workshops for hospitals, veterans, seniors and people in custody
Small, structured writing groups led by a working writer, including weekly sessions at a California state psychiatric hospital. Free for participants. Your organization hosts and covers the fee.
In the room.
Who it's for
Running now
Mental health and inpatient care
Weekly groups inside a California state psychiatric hospital, planned around the setting: calm themes, a clear structure, and nothing that asks people to relive what they've been through.
Now booking
Veterans
For VA centers and veteran service organizations. Reading and writing about service, home and memory, at whatever distance each writer chooses.
Now booking
Prisons and reentry programs
The same structure, adapted to your security rules and what can come into the room.
Now booking
Senior centers
Readings chosen to be read aloud together, and prompts that draw on a long life.
What happens in a session
01
Read together
We read one poem or folktale aloud, in parts for three to six voices. I've used Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Joy Harjo and Gary Soto, and stories from Ghana, Ethiopia, China and Mexico and from Cherokee and Haudenosaunee tradition.
02
Write
Everyone gets four prompts, and one ties directly to the reading. Every prompt comes with sentence starters, so nobody is left staring at a blank page.
03
Reflect
Themes follow the season and the holidays, and they leave room for reflection, pause and peace. Nobody is asked to go back through the hardest thing that happened to them.
Pricing
Free for participants. The host organization pays. Each session includes the reading and two printed worksheets.
One session
$125
One 90-minute session. A good way to try it with your group.
Six sessions
$750
A six-session series, with themes planned across the run.
Eight sessions
$1,000
An eight-session series, with themes planned across the run.
Who leads it
I'm a writer first. I read my poetry and prose to live audiences, and I publish essays on this site.
In these rooms I'm a facilitator, not a clinician. This is creative writing, not therapy. I follow your facility's rules and work with the staff you assign.
For contracting offices
Contracted through Latimer Enterprise LLC, a California-certified small business with general liability coverage of $1M per occurrence. References on request.
Writer. Facilitator.
Request a series
Tell me about your group and your setting. I reply within two business days.