Looking back on the spring Poetry Society of SC Writers' Group workshop: Apr. 23

The second of three 2016 workshops of the Writers' Group of The Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) was held about a month ago, and it was another stellar group. How I enjoy teaching these workshops! Below are the particulars about the logistics of the event and what we focused on while gathering for it:

Saturday, April 23

10 a.m. - noon

Charleston Library Society

Susan Laughter Meyers, instructor

164 King St., Charleston, SC 29401

Free for PSSC/CLS members & CofC students; $15 for all others 

(PSSC membership, $25 annually; new memberships welcome)

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Poetry Workshop: Revision, Nuts & Bolts

A continued study of revising the poem, including both large and small issues. Taking time to draw back and ask why the poem exists and what it’s doing. Moving in close to look at all the movable parts, stanza to syllable, molding and shaping to give the poem its art. Discussion, revision activities, workshop packet.

Bring 2 or 3 copies of a relatively short poem of yours that is ready for revision. The extra copies are to allow you to mark up your poem for editing. Let’s spend time trading tips on revising and editing, learning strategies from one another.

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The final 2016 workshop will be on Saturday, October 29.

Remembering Carrie Allen McCray Nickens -- posted in the SC Writers' Workshop blog

Thank you to the South Carolina Writers' Workshop for asking me to be a judge for their Carrie McCray Poetry Award this year and for posting a piece I wrote about Carrie, remembering a special visit with her. Carrie Allen McCray Nickens, we still miss you!

Remembering Carrie McCray

Carrie

PSSC Writers' Group workshop, Sat., Feb. 27: "Digging Deeper--Revision"

If you're a poet and will be in the Charleston, SC, area on February 27, please join us for the Poetry Society of SC (PSSC) Writers' Group workshop. Be sure to bring the draft of a poem you're working on and would like to deepen as you revise. 

Here are the details:

Saturday, February 27

"Digging Deeper: Revision"

PSSC Writers' Group Workshop

(bring a poem in progress)

Susan Laughter Meyers, instructor

10 a.m. - noon

Charleston Library Society

164 King St., Charleston, SC

Free for PSSC/CLS members

& CofC students; $15 for others

(PSSC membership, $25
annually; new memberships welcome)

Digging Deeper

A workshop on revising a poem by exploring its possibilities to the fullest. The goal is to reopen the poem, to peel away its limitations and move beyond whatever is obvious, to stutter over and over at crucial points in the poem—drilling down, homing in from numerous angles, flying blind to work toward the poem’s deepest mystery. 

It will help me to plan if you can let me know that you're coming. Please leave me a quick comment at one of these places:

• here on the blog
• Facebook, on the page "Writers' Workshop Series"
• Poetry Society of SC 

Thanks!

Deckle Edge Literary Festival, Feb. 18-21, Columbia, SC

I'm honored to be a participant in the first Deckle Edge Literary Festival, the newly envisioned annual festival that came into being after the SC Book Festival announced last year that it would no longer be held. Bravo for the new tea--headed by Annie Boiter-Jolley and Darien Cavanaugh--who jumped in to serve the state's readers, book buyers, writers--the whole literary community!

Feb. 18-21

Deckle Edge Literary Festival

Columbia, SC

http://deckleedgesc.org

I'm participating on Feb. 20

"Found Anew" panel, 3:30 p.m.

Read all about the 2016 Deckle Edge Literary Festival. Come join in the celebration of books and literature!

Furman University visit -- Nov. 3 and 4, 2015

A huge thank you to professor and poet Bill Aarnes for inviting me to Furman University last fall to give a reading and visit with his poetry class for a discussion. The reading was held on the evening of November 3 in McEachern Lecture Hall. Besides students (whose presence is always a joy), I was delighted to see in the audience several good friends, who were so kind to come out for the reading: Nancy Dew Taylor & Maggie, Claire Bateman, Terri McCord & Brian Slusher, Gil & Barbara Allen--my gratitude to you all. 

The class visit the next afternoon was another joy. The students were eager to participate and had astute questions to ask me about my collection My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, which they had read for the course. It was a class of about ten or eleven students, the perfect size for having a lively poetry discussion--and for learning from one another. Bill Aarnes has done an excellent job of bringing the class together into a close-knit group, which made my visit all the more enjoyable. Thank you again, Bill and student poets!

Looking back on the Queens Univ. MFA alumni weekend, Oct. 8 - 11, 2015

What a treat to return to Queens University of Charlotte campus for an alumni weekend this fall. I was pleased to be in a manuscript workshop masterfully taught by Jon Pineda, who teaches in the Queens MFA program. In the workshop with me were three other poets, with whom I enjoyed exchanging book manuscripts and feedback: Torie Dailey, Geoffrey Hall, and Lee Stockdale. We were a close-knit fivesome, learning much from Jon and his good advice for our manuscripts.

I also enjoyed being on a publishing panel with two other alumni, as well as running the open mic after dinner on Friday night. Here was the weekend's schedule:


Thur., Oct. 8  Evening alumni reading: Clifford Garstang, Rebecca Gummere

Fri., Oct.    9  Publishing Panel: Clifford Garstang, Rebecca Gummere, 
                     Susan Laughter Meyers  
                     Craft Seminars  
                     Reception & dinner, open mic 

Sat., Oct. 10  Seminar
                     Workshops, 2 sessions
                     Book publishing seminar

Sun., Oct 11  Individual conferences
                     Lunch

A look back at the fall PSSC Writers' Group workshop, Oct. 24, 2015

What a smart group of poets were a part of the fall PSSC Writers' Group workshop! We meet 3-4 times a year to study craft issues and work on our own poems.

Saturday, Oct. 24

"The Path of Surprise"

PSSC Writers' Group Workshop

Susan Laughter Meyers, instructor

10 a.m. - noon

Charleston Library Society

164 King St., Charleston, SC

Free for PSSC/CLS members & CofC students; $15 for others

(PSSC membership, $25 annually; new memberships welcome)

  

The Path of Surprise

Writing poems should be more than telling anecdotes from a life you already know or describing something you’ve seen. It should take you down a path of surprise. “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,” Robert Frost wisely noted. In this workshop we’ll use writing activities and handouts of published poems, as well as discussion, to take us farther down that serendipitous path. We’ll study poems that leap, swerve, and follow their particular logic—then we’ll write our own.

Looking back--fondly!--on the 2015 Carolina Mountains Literary Festival (CMLF)

What a wonderful weekend the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival was back in September--the 11th and 12th--in charming Burnsville, NC. The groups in my two discussion sessions, as well as the poets in my poetry workshop, were bright and eager to participate. Each person there made the time with the groups that much more special. And what talent in the poetry workshop!

I'm grateful for being one of the presenters for this beautiful festival. The highlight was Saturday night's on-stage conversation between Ann Patchett and Barbara Kingsolver. So entertaining, memorable, and wise! If you have a chance to go next fall, don't miss it.