EVENT HEADER IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Left Side: The Poet, Susan Nguyen, in a blue denim button-up and coral earrings smiles slightly at camera; she wears red lipstick and her hair is loosely curled. Photo by Susan Nguyen. Right side: The words "Open Mouth Presents A Workshop With Susan Nguyen February 13 2022" in bold black superimposed over a light blue background.

Dear Futures: an Epistolary Workshop with Susan Nguyen

EVENT HEADER IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
Left Side: The Poet, Susan Nguyen, in a blue denim button-up and coral earrings smiles slightly at camera; she wears red lipstick and her hair is loosely curled. Photo by Susan Nguyen.

Right side: The words "Open Mouth Presents A Workshop With Susan Nguyen February 13 2022" in bold black superimposed over a light blue background.

Join us on Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 2:00pm Central for a generative workshop with featured poet Susan Nguyen.

Dear Futures: An Epistolary Workshop

When was the last time you received a letter in the mail that wasn’t from your internet company? When was the last time you wrote one? These days, letters can come in many forms, from a physical letter to an email or text to a stamped potato. (Yes, you can send potatoes! Praise the USPS.) What kinds of magic happen when we write directly to our fears, obsessions, or abstract futures? What can be said or gained that couldn’t be expressed without such a direct address?

In this workshop, we will read and discuss epistolary poems, expand our understanding of what may count as a letter, and begin writing our own letter-poems through guided writing exercises. 

Recommended for participants 16 years and above.

ACCESS NOTES: The workshop will take place virtually via Zoom with Zoom auto captions. An ASL interpreter will be present. Access copies of workshop materials will be made available via Google Docs.

Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART) service will be provided with advance request. To ensure that we have enough time to book and allow captioners to prepare, please reach out to the Open Mouth team through Eventbrite or via email at [email protected] by January 30th to request CART service. 

Register for the virtual workshop by clicking on the “Registration” button on the Eventbrite page, donating any amount you can, and entering the required fields. You will receive an email with the Zoom information.

Suggested donation of $5.

NOTE: If you are unable to donate at this time, simply enter $1.00 as your donation amount (not zero because Eventbrite won’t let you continue unless you type something other than zero) and click “check out,” then click “pay at the door” as your payment option. Once you have filled out all required fields, you will still be able to register, and you can keep your dollar.

Every donation to Open Mouth Literary Center supports our programming, ASL interpreters, and feature poets. Become a monthly patron on Patreon or make a one-time donation at our PayPal.

Sponsors for this program include our Open Mouth supporters on Patreon and the ARt Connect program. The ARt Connect program is generously supported by the Walmart Foundation and implemented by Mid-America Arts Alliance in partnership with the Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) of the Northwest Arkansas Council. Additional support for Mid-America Arts Alliance is from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. 

Support for Open Mouth Literary Center is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

FEATURED POET:

Susan Nguyen‘s debut poetry collection, Dear Diaspora, won the 2020 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published by the University of Nebraska Press in Sept 2021. Nguyen’s poetry is often interested in the body: how geography, history, and trauma leave markers, both visible and invisible. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize and have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Tin House, Diagram, and elsewhere. Her hobbies, beyond reading and writing, include photography, zinemaking, hiking, and otherwise being outdoors.