Please join us, Monday, February 11, 2024, for the IWWG Play Lab Monologue Showcase, featuring monologues written during the Winter 2024 Play Lab. These brand new monologues, written by Play Lab participants, will be performed by actors, live, on Zoom, followed by a Q&A. More details about writers and actors will be announced soon.

Please e-mail kellydumar@kellydumar.com to pre-register or learn more.

On Wed. Jan. 10, 2024, I’m hosting the Journal of Expressive Writing monthly OPEN MIC series featuring author Amy Ferris from 7-8:30 p.m. ET

SIGN UP for one of the 15 slots to read your work for 3 minutes in the OPEN MIC portion of this event. First come, first served + waiting list or register to listen here.

Writing Monologues for Healing & Transformation: Making the Leap from Page to Stage:  In this writing generative workshop, you will learn how writing for the stage differs from writing a memoir or personal essay. You’ll see how your personal experience of healing & transformation can be crafted into a short monologue to be performed as a theatrical experience that engages an audience. Stella Adler called theater the “seeing place”––the place we come to see the truth about our lives and social situation. And August Wilson was “fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.” One monologue writer from Kelly’s workshops has described the impact of memoir-inspired performance monologues in her own words: “To write a monologue where someone else can perform the story and the knowing of my lived experiences…well that is a transcendent experience."

Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from the Boston area. She’s author of four poetry collections, including jinx and heavenly calling, published by Lily Poetry Review Books in March 2023. Her poems are published in Bellevue Literary Review,Tupelo Quarterly, Thrush, Glassworks and more. Kelly teaches creative writing workshops, in person and online, and runs Play Labs with online performance showcases for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. For twelve years, Kelly produced the annual Our Voices Play Festival for Boston Women Playwrights at Wellesley College. Her plays are published by dramatic publishers and performed around the world. Reach her at kellydumar.com, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook 

Online Webinar with Kelly DuMar

September 20, 2023, 7-9:00 p.m. on Zoom

Member Tuition: $70.00  

Non-Member: $85.00  

Skill Levels: All Levels

The photos we save and the photos we take show what we care about and hope to preserve, what moves and mystifies us, the people, places, stories and experiences that bring meaning into our lives. Writing from photos allows us to approach our pictures as works of art, with an artist’s perception of revelations worthy of development into creative prose and poetry. Writing from personal photos allows us to express the truth of what we feel––and know––and haven’t said, as we capture the beauty and deeper meaning of an image. Whether you’re writing poetry or prose, memoir or a blog, family history or a monologue, your personal photos will be an excellent prompt to compelling writing. Bring a personal photo to write from. 

SIX WEEKS Starts Sept. 20, 2023

Writing Generative groups are dynamic experiences where you generate writing and there is deep sharing. Writers tend to write powerful drafts of new writing in prose, memoir, poetry.

Space is limited. Please contact Kellydumar@kellydumar.com for more info and to register.

SIX WEEKS Starts Sept. 19, 2023

Writing Generative groups are dynamic experiences where you generate writing and there is deep sharing. Writers tend to write powerful drafts of new writing in prose, memoir, poetry.

Space is limited. Please contact Kellydumar@kellydumar.com for more info and to register.

Please contact me to register and learn more about joining the Charles River Writing Collective.

SPACE IS LIMITED.

Please join us, Sunday Sept. 10, 2023, for the IWWG Summer Play Lab Monologue Summer Showcase, featuring monologues written during the IWWG Summer Conference, 2023. These brand new monologues, written by Play Lab participants, will be performed by actors, live, on Zoom, followed by a Q&A. More details about writers and actors will be announced soon.

Thursday, September 7, 2023

7:00-8:30 p.m.

With: Kelly DuMar

On Zoom, Sponsored by the Franciscan Center of Tampa

Our personal photos show what we care about and hope to preserve––the people, places, and experiences that bring meaning into our lives. Your photo stream is an excellent source of inspiration for writing rite-of-passage stories. A Rite of Passage story is a gift that keeps on giving. It can be about a transformation you, or your character, experiences at any age, from birth to elderhood, that involves a transformation from a younger innocent self to a new more experienced self. In this webinar, you will explore an experience that causes you (or your character) to learn something about the world around you that you were once naïve to. Whether you’re writing poetry or prose, memoir or a blog, family history or a monologue, your personal photos will be an excellent prompt to compelling writing.

Bring a photo that feels connected to any rite of passage you have experienced.

Fee: $20.00

On Wednesday, Septemeber 6, 2023, I’m hosting the Journal of Expressive Writing monthly OPEN MIC series featuring poet Olga Livshin from 7-8:30 p.m. ET

Excerpt from A Life Replaced

TRANSLATING A LIFE

            for O.M. and M.R.

Someone spread a blanket of wild buckwheat

over a meadow. Someone tucked puffball pillows

in each corner of the purple-green sheet.

It is summer everywhere, except war.

War, where it used to be home,

and now, war by government, here.

And what does it matter that the meadow

seduces the bees in pollen, or me in lines

of a poem, or that I hear perfectly good

Russian names for plants and translate them

into You-and-Me-ish? . . .

~ Olga Livshin

SIGN UP for one of the 15 slots to read your work for 3 minutes in the OPEN MIC portion of this event.

First come, first served + waiting list or register to listen here.

Deep thanks, Kelly , for an outstanding workshop! I appreciated your enthusiasm, nurturance, creative flare, clear direction, and attentive listening. You gave me delightful new tools for writing!

~ Tasha Paley

On Tuesday, August 22, 2023, I’m hosting the Journal of Expressive Writing monthly OPEN MIC series featuring a Panel of Authors, all of whom have either published their work in our online journal, participated in our OPEN MIC series, and/or are faithful friends of the Journal of Expressive Writing. 7-8:30 p.m. ET

SIGN UP for one of the 6 slots to read your work for 3 minutes in the OPEN MIC portion of this event. First come, first served + waiting list.

REGISTER TO ATTEND

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

7:00-8:30 p.m. EST

On Zoom, Sponsored by the Franciscan Center of Tampa

With: Kelly DuMar

...a letter is a joy of earth — it is denied the gods.

~ Emily Dickinson, 1885

We rarely communicate with actual mailed letters today. And yet many of us have access to family archives containing rich personal histories of intimate and compelling relationships. This workshop springs from Kelly’s process of developing a poetry collection from letter archives through the form of erasure. She will illuminate the creative process of developing new writing and meaning from personal archives and guide you to explore the exciting multi-generational impact of this dynamic form. New and experienced writers are welcome, as well as writers working in memoir and other genres.

Erasure poetry, also known as blackout poetry, is a form of found poetry wherein a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise obscures a large portion of the text, creating a wholly new work from what remains. ~ The Academy of American Poets

PLEASE BRING: A copy of an original letter of any length in your possession that was sent via the mail. You might be, but you don’t have to be the addressee. This letter might be a postcard or other mailed document, typewritten or handwritten. If you have the original envelope, please bring that too. A jpg image of the letter/envelope is fine for this workshop so that you do not alter any originals.

Fee: $20.00 (no refunds)

About Kelly DuMar 

A poet, playwright, and workshop leader, Kelly guides new and experienced writers to generate new writing across genre. Kelly’s fourth poetry collection, “jinx and heavenly calling––I poached a portion of my mother’s love letters to my father, 1953-1954,” was published in March 2023, by Lily Poetry Books. Kelly is also author of Before You Forget— The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children, and many published plays. She blogs her nature photos and creative writing from the Charles River (where she lives) daily, for the past six years, at http://www.kellydumar.com/blog.

...a letter is a joy of earth — it is denied the gods.
~Emily Dickinson

We rarely communicate with actual mailed letters today. And yet many of us have access to family archives containing rich personal histories of intimate and compelling relationships. This workshop springs from Kelly’s process of developing a poetry collection from letter archives through the form of erasure. She will illuminate the creative process of developing new writing and meaning from personal archives and guide you to explore the exciting multi-generational impact of this dynamic form. New and experienced writers are welcome, as well as writers working in memoir and other genres.

PLEASE BRING: A copy of an original letter of any length in your possession that was sent via the mail. You might be, but you don’t have to be the addressee. This letter might be a postcard or other mailed document, typewritten or handwritten. If you have the original envelope, please bring that too. A jpg image of the letter/envelope is fine for this workshop so that you do not alter any originals.

The Spiral Bookcase will be hosting Medusa's virtual birthday reading on Monday, May 22, at 7 p.m. Eastern.

Ignatius Valentine Aloysius

Kelly DuMar

Leigh Anne Hornfeldt

Julia Leverone

Victoria Mier

Greg Blake Miller

Medusa!

Event by The Spiral Bookcase

You are cordially invited to the one-year anniversary of Raegen M. Pietrucha’s book, “Head of a Gorgon.” We’ll celebrate Medusa’s first birthday with an evening of poetry and magic! Writers, publishers and booksellers that have helped little Medusa grow big and strong will read from selected works, and the evening will conclude with poetry from Raegen herself. We encourage anyone with an interest in poetry, Greek mythology and feminine rage to join us! This event is free to attend and will be hosted on Zoom. Pre-registration on Eventbrite is required.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS:

RAEGEN M. PIETRUCHA writes, edits, and consults creatively and professionally. Head of a Gorgon is her debut full-length poetry collection. Her debut poetry chapbook, An Animal I Can't Name, won the 2015 Two of Cups Press competition, and she has a memoir in progress. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University, where she was an assistant editor for Mid-American Review. Her writing has been published in Cimarron Review, Puerto del Sol, and other journals. Connect with her at raegenmp.wordpress.com and on Twitter @freeradicalrp.

GREG BLAKE MILLER, Ph.D., is an award-winning writer and editor who teaches literary nonfiction and media studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is also the editorial director of rjmagazine and director of Olympian Creative, a coaching and mentoring service for creative professionals. Honored as Nevada’s Outstanding Journalist, Miller also writes fiction; he is the author of the illustrated short-story collection Decemberlands, and his recent work appears in Red Canary’s Eco Lit series. He is a former staff writer for The Moscow Times and is currently completing a novel set in the 1960s Soviet Union. Learn more at GregBlakeMiller.org.

LEIGH ANNE HORNFELDT’s work has appeared widely in journals including New Southerner, Lunch Ticket, and Spry. She has written three chapbooks, most recently Fleshed (Winged City Press). She is the recipient of the Kudzu prize in poetry as well as the Juliette Miller Scholarship from SAFTA. She lives and writes in North Carolina.

KELLY DUMAR is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of four poetry collections, including jinx and heavenly calling, published by Lily Poetry Review Books in March 2023. Kelly teaches a variety of creative writing workshops and runs Play Labs for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. Kelly produces the Featured Open Mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing. Reach her at kellydumar.com

JULIA LEVERONE is a comparatist who has taught writing, literature, culture, and Spanish. Her debut full-length poetry collection, Duo, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her book of translations of selected poetry of Francisco “Paco” Urondo, Fuel and Fire, won a grant from the Argentine government, and her second poetry chapbook, Little Escape, won the 2016 Claudia Emerson Prize from JMWW. She holds a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from the University of Maryland at College Park. She currently lives in the Appalachians, but is native to northeastern Massachusetts and has lived in Dallas. She has served on the editorial staffs of Smartish Pace, Sakura Review, and Asymptote, and is the founder and editor of AzonaL, the online magazine of poetry in translation. Her website is julialeverone.com and she can be found on Facebook and Instagram (@julia.leverone).

IGNATIUS VALENTINE ALOYSIUS earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University, where he won the Distinguished Thesis Award for fiction and is currently a lecturer in writing and experimentation there. He is the Twice Pushcart nominated author of the literary novel Fishhead. Republic of Want (Tortoise Books, 2020), and his prose and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming in Cold Mountain Review, Tofu Ink Arts Press, Trampset, and the Coalition for Digital Narratives, among other venues. A host and curator of Sunday Salon Chicago, a literary reading series in its 17th year, Ignatius is shopping his second novel, a literary/speculative work, and his two poetry collections are under contract with Tofu Ink Arts Press for release in 2023-24. He is currently finishing a poetry collection collaboration with David Allen Sullivan, recent Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz, CA.

FREDDY LA FORCE is the founder and editor of Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, an independent publisher with over thirty books in print, including “Head of a Gorgon.” Learn more at http://vegetarianalcoholicpress.com.

VICTORIA MIER is a disabled writer, independent bookshop owner and suspected changeling. In Victoria’s work, you’ll find strange doors, spilled cups of tea, star-crossed souls, and gloomy train stations. You can read their writing in Del Sol SFF Review, Fifth Wheel Press, Vulnerary Magazine, SORTES Magazine and Luna Luna Magazine. She’s currently working on a full-length manuscript. Learn more at victoriamier.com and follow along on instagram at @victoriamier.

The Journal of Expressive Writing invites you to attend, on May 18, 2023, 7:30 p.m. ET, our monthly OPEN MIC series that will feature Tommy Archuleta, a mental health and substance abuse counselor for the New Mexico Corrections Department and author of the HOT OFF THE PRESS collection entitled, Susto, "a whittled bone of a book, seething with marrow."

Sign up to READ your writing (3 mins max) in the Open Mic here.

Sign up to ATTEND here.

About Susto:

Surreal yet earthbound, orphaned yet mothered more than most, comforting yet disturbing— Tommy Archuleta’s Susto surveys many settings: the body, the soul, the terrain the soul encounters upon leaving the body. But the setting is also the high desert landscape that is the poet’s northern New Mexico home, a land whose beauty today is as silencing and brutal as was the colonization of the region and her Anasazi descendants by Archuleta’s Spanish antipasados.

In Susto, loss is everywhere to be found, though this work is not merely a concerted meditation on lament. Rather, it is part unearthed family album; part unlocked diary; part ode to motherhood and her various forms; part manual on preparing for a happy death; and part primer on the ancient art of curanderismo, whereby plants and roots are prepared for treating all manner of ills a mind and body might face.

About Tommy Archuleta:

Tommy Archuleta's poems have appeared in the New England Review, Laurel Review, Lily Poetry Review, The Cortland Review, Guesthouse, and the Poem-a-Day series sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. His debut full-length collection entitled, Susto, (Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University Press), and his debut chapbook, Fieldnotes (Lily Poetry Review & Press) were both release in April 2023. He lives and writes on the Cochiti Reservation.

In addition to our featured writer, 15 other pre-registered writers will read their work. Each of our contributing authors will have 3 minutes to read their best expressive writing, poetry, stories, free writing, non-fiction, personal essay, memoir, reflective essay, prose, contemplative discourse, and creative non-fiction.

Come listen to Tommy Archuleta and 15 other amazing authors read their work LIVE!

The Journal's OPEN MIC series is FREE to attend and OPEN TO ALL, but you do need to Pre-Register through eventbrite to get the live Zoom link.

The OPEN MIC series is produced and hosted by Kelly DuMar.

Learn more about the Journal of Expressive Writing, Founded and Edited by Jennifer Minotti here.

FREE EVENT

ALL WELCOME

REGISTRATION IS OPEN!

Kelly’s PLAY LAB writers will share brand new Monolouges for Healing and Transformation at this FREE online event. All Welcome!

MONOLOGUE SHOWCASE
SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2023, 7-8:30 p.m. ET

The IWWG is proud to host a special theatrical event, showcasing Voices for Healing and Transformation. On Sunday, May 7, 2023, from 7-8:30 p.m., ET, writers from Kelly DuMar's Play Lab will present monologues for the stage, performed by actors.

In writing monologues for the stage, a story begins as words on the page. The next stage of development is to have the monologue performed by an actor in front of an audience. In this monologue showcase, class participants who have been developing monologues over six weeks will have the chance to see their writing performed by an actor for an audience—you.

Stella Adler called theater the “seeing place”—the place we come to see the truth about our lives and social situation. Oscar Wilde called theater “the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” And August Wilson was, “fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.” We invite you, our audience, to share in making dynamic theater with us, by being present for this showcase of brand new stage monologues. This intimate and powerful experience will present writing by class participants—read by actors—is part of the critical page-to-stage development process that all new plays need. Please join us, and share the vitality of your presence and your witness as our much-appreciated audience.



This event will take place via the online video conferencing platform Zoom. A link to the show will be sent out the day before the event.

Featuring monologues by members of the Play Lab 2023, including:

• Sharon Blumberg

• Grace Calder

• Beverly Reed Scott

• Hazel Aranha

• Ann Quinn

• Leslie Neustadt

• Susan Vilardo

• Sharon B.

Performed by guest actors, including:

• Tonia Pinheiro

• Tonya Quillen

• Jamila Capitman

• Franci DuMar

Directed and produced by Kelly DuMar. Hosted by the International Women’s Writing Guild

WRITE WITH ME AT THE MASS POETRY FESTIVAL '23

Your Pictures As Poetry & Prose In-Person Workshop

MAY 5, 2023, 4:45-5:45 p.m. ET

LIVE, IN PERSON, Salem, MA

REGISTER HERE for the Mass. Poetry Festival