In the Poetry Classroom, you are invited to discuss the poems—their forms, images, sounds, meanings, surprises—and write your own poems along the way.
Infographic: Poetry at Work Day
Chickens, chocolate chip cookies, writing poetry on the clock? Must be our Poetry at Work Day infographic.
Taking Poetry to Work: A Few Good Tricks
Poetry at Work Day? It doesn’t need to be elaborate. Here are a few ideas you can use to make it happen in your workplace.
Poetry Classroom: Public Safety Film
In the poetry classroom, you are invited to discuss the poems—their forms, images, sounds, meanings, surprises—and write your own poems along the way.
Announcing Our 2013 Poetry Workshop!
Tweetspeak introduces our first poetry workshop. Anne M. Doe Overstreet will take you through an 8- or 12-week workshop she titles ‘Writing Your Environment.’ Come and be enchanted.
The Novelist: Fiction with Character(s)
Readers want to know who the various characters in The Novelist represent. LW Lindquist wants to know who the tea basket represents. Join us for week two of our book club discussion.
The Novelist: What’s the Big Idea in Fiction?
How long must you lie on the floor staring at the ceiling before you’re ready to write that story? We’re discussing The Novelist by L.L. Barkat in our new Tweetspeak Book Club. Come on in and join us.
Ordinary Genius: Rhythm, Rhyme and the Sonnet
Kim Addonizio says writing form poetry can teach you economy and structure and take you unexpected places. But what if you have no sense of rhythm? Can you still write a sonnet? LW Lindquist wraps up our Ordinary Genius book club this week with enough iambic pentameter to make you scream.
Ordinary Genius: Myths and Fairy Tales
Terrible things happen in fairy tales. Even in the watered-down Disney versions, stepmothers try to poison their stepdaughters, children are lost in the woods and captured to be eaten, young women are imprisoned in towers. LW Lindquist leads our latest book club discussion on Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius.
Literary Citizen, Hug a Writer!
As I sip a dark red vanilla rooibos in a Seattle teahouse and type these words, I am feeling rather smug. Today is Hug an Author Day. Already, I have hugged fourteen dead writers (via Facebook, of course. I didn’t exhume them or anything. That’s just creepy). I have also hugged five living writers, among […]
Ordinary Genius: Why the Chicken Crossed the Road
By this time, I’m ready to ask the chicken question. I’ve been scratching around for an angle, and even as I type this, I don’t have one. But Kim Addonizio tells me I don’t have to know where I’m going when I start writing, and even goes so far as to say it might be […]
Ordinary Genius: Entering Poetry (part 2)
Poetry asks for your intelligence and spirit. It is hard work, but good work. Come along with Kim Addonizio and enter poetry by working on your lines…
Ordinary Genius: Entering Poetry
The other day I stumbled onto an old Google Talk conversation with a friend, from about a year ago. The conversation went something like this: Friend: I lurked at the Tweetspeak Twitter party last night. Me: I can’t do the Tweetspeak. Too confusing. Friend: I was lost. I’m too literal. Me: L.L. tagged me on […]
Poetry Classroom: Hard Road by Li Bai
Li Bai was one of China’s most important poets. Read about his intriguing life and experience one of his insightful, even subtly witty, poems.
Ordinary Genius: Book Club Announcement
You could say I’m playing around with writing a sonnet today, as long as your definition of “playing around” is broad enough to include tapping aimlessly on my desk to The Guess Who’s Bus Rider. Our Canadian columnist Matthew Kreider loaned me one of his famous Ticonderoga pencils this weekend. It keeps a terrific desktop 70s beat, […]
Laugh and Learn to Write Fiction
There’s a new book on the street. (And in the pink limo.) The Novelist, a novella that will teach you how to write fiction, even as you get lost in a story of one big challenge, an elusive cup of tea, and a ruminating poet’s attempt to break free. “Hilarious protagonist, ” says one reader. […]
The Sacred Tree
What happened to me on that blustery afternoon fifteen years ago cannot be explained. Four hundred miles from home. Bancroft, Nebraska. The area formerly inhabited by the Omaha Indians is now this small town of fewer than five hundred. Ninety-eight percent of European descent. I am ready to meet Hilda Neihardt, the author of Black […]
Bored by Your Apps? There’s an Oprah Book App for That
Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago at the Midwest Writers Workshop, I was fortunate to work with Kathleen Rooney, an extraordinary poetry teacher. This literary superhero somehow got each member of her workshop to produce and/or revise about a half dozen poems in just as many hours. She also spoke on writing memoirs and getting published […]
The Novelist: You Could Learn to Write Fiction
In our upcoming title, The Novelist, you can follow copywriter and poet, Laura, as she tries to figure out how the hell to write a novel to meet Megan Willow’s challenge: a book by September. Megan has a thriving tea business and does everything in a big way. To her, the idea of writing a […]
For the Thirsty Writer in You
August is Rain month here at Tweetspeak Poetry. So you’ll be treated to posts featuring Rain or Water, from some wonderful fiction and non-fiction writers, as well as poetry writing projects, like our Rain/Water Book Spine Poetry Project. And, of course, we’d love to remind you to quench your writer’s thirst with a copy of […]