Prof. Laura Mullen to teach Master Class in Poetry at NC Writers’ Network’s spring conference

Laura Mullen, Kenan Professor of the Humanities in the English Department’s Creative Writing Program, will teach the Master Class in Poetry at the North Carolina Writers’ Network Spring 2022 Conference.

The NCWN spring conference will take place virtually and in person at UNC Greensboro on Saturday, April 23, and offers classes, workshops, readings, and community for North Carolina writers. The three Master Classes in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction are capped at 10 participants each and allow experienced writers the opportunity to delve more deeply into a particular genre.

Prof. Mullen’s Master Class is titled “River of Time and Art”:

Poetry Master Class: River of Time and Art 
We feel ourselves to float now, precariously, uncertainly, in a river of time that seems rapid, forceful, and unruly—it’s all too easy to fear we’ll be thrown out of the boat and submerged. “Poetry,” writes Joy Harjo in her memoir Poet Warrior, “is a tool to navigate transformation.” What better way to move through these straits than with(in) art? This workshop will be generative, there will be exercises and prompts, productive of new poetry, and then (looking at previous work) will also offer strategies for revision, grounded in a recognition of your singular and special powers, with a focus on self-awareness and self-acceptance, as we learn to go with the creative flow and move fearlessly toward the wide open.

Laura Mullen is the author of eight books; recognitions for her poetry include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Award. Recent poems have appeared in Fence, Together in a Sudden Strangeness, and Bettering American Poetry. Her translation of Veronique Pittolo’s Hero was published by Black Square Editions, and her translation of work by Stephanie Chaillou has just appeared in Interim. A collection of poems is forthcoming from Solid Objects Press in 2023. She is Kenan Professor of the Humanities here at Wake Forest.

The full conference schedule, registration information, and guidelines for applying for Master Classes can be found online here.