Events
Each session, MTSU Write hosts events that nurture the writing community and celebrate literary life. We also are adding facilitaed writing groups to our list of offerings. Check here for updates as events and writing groups will change from season to season.
Throughout the year, MTSU co-sponsors Poetry in the Boro, a monthly reading and open mic event. Follow the schedule and learn more about featured writers here: https://www.facebook.com/PoetryInTheBoro/
Stay up-to-date with MTSU Write events by signing up for our newsletter!
Writing Groups
MTSU Write is pleased to offer writing groups for writers who want community and accountability. These writing groups are facilitated by one of our mentors, who acts as an organizer and co-participant, sharing their work alongside other members of the group. We will announce group openings in late spring 2023 for summer 2023 registration.
The registration fee is $75 per semester, which aligns with our mentorship session
schedule.
If you’d like to join one of the groups, email mtsuwrite@mtsu.edu. Please share your genre of choice, a short description of the project you’re working
on, and a 1-2 page writing sample. Upon acceptance to the group, you will be given
a link to pay the registration fee.
Spring Saturdays
Each spring, we are pleased to offer a series of master classes, across genres, that are FREE and open to the public, though seating is limited and preregistration is required. Register here!
February 25, 2023, 10am-noon, MT Center: Kickstart Your YA Novel with Julian R. Vaca
(FULL: USE REGISTRATION LINK TO JOIN WAITLIST)
In this two-hour workshop, join Young Adult author Julian R. Vaca as he details five key components to writing an impactful YA novel. He’ll break down everything from critical steps needed to complete a first draft, to industry insights. Most importantly, you’ll gain the needed encouragement and confidence to get a completed story on the page.
Julian R. Vaca's writing has appeared in The Nerd Daily, Writer’s Digest, and more. He is a PEN/Faulkner Writers in School author, a member of the SCBWI,
and a Hey! Young Writer mentor. The Memory Index (HarperCollins imprint) is his debut novel. He lives in Nashville with his family
and is hard at work on his next book.
March 25, 2023, 2pm-4pm, MT Center: Freelancing 101 with Jennifer Chesak (FULL: USE
REGISTRATION LINK TO JOIN WAITLIST)
Jennifer Chesak is the author of the forthcoming book The Psilocybin Handbook for Women: How Magic Mushrooms, Psychedelic Therapy, and Microdosing
Can Benefit Your Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Health (Ulysses Press, distributed by Simon & Schuster, June 2023). She is a Nashville-based
freelance journalist, editor, fact-checker, and adjunct professor with almost two
decades of experience and a Master of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University's
Medill. Her byline appears in several national publications, including the Washington Post.
Saturday, April 15, 2023, 9am-noon, MT Center: Packing Your Trauma - a Generative
Workshop with Allison Blevins (FULL; use registration link to join waitlist).
This generative workshop will discuss how and why writers explore traumatic experiences. You will look at examples, write, and have an opportunity to share your work in a supportive environment. The workshop will provide you with techniques you can use in both prose and poetry to begin the process of writing and pack trauma into various forms and styles. You will leave with new written work and concrete tips to help you move forward on your writing journey.
Allison Blevins is a queer disabled writer and the author of Cataloguing Pain (YesYes Books, 2023), Handbook for the Newly Disabled, A Lyric Memoir (BlazeVox, 2022) and Slowly/Suddenly (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2021). She is also the author of four chapbooks. Allison
is the Director of Small Harbor Publishing and the Executive Editor at the museum of americana. She lives in MN with her husband and three children.
