I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be teaching at this summer’s virtual Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing June 6-13! LOOK at this list of my fellow instructors: Alexander Weinstein, Adrian Matejka, Tia Clark, Britton Shurley, Amelia Martens, Wendy Rawlings, Joshunda Sanders, Elizabeth Schmuhl, Keith Taylor, Matthew Gavin Frank, Phong Nguyen, and John T Howard. Register now and join us!!!
https://www.mvicw.com/
Hey all writers everywhere! The deadline for this is tomorrow, July 10! Want a little of that Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing experience? This summer the Institute is offering virtual one-on-one manuscript consultations with some of the regular faculty (including me!). Each session includes a generous review of your work, including line edits, written feedback, and a 40-minute Zoom meeting to discuss your manuscript! The cost is $200. Visit this link to register by July 10. I’d love to see what you’ve been writing!
https://mvicw.submittable.com/submit/166759/mvicw-summer-one-on-one-manuscript-sessions
Today the good folks at The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing have shared a writing prompt of mine about Welcoming Surprises in your poetry. You can read it online for free-sies!
This is just a reminder that I’m teaching a free online creative writing class tomorrow, Wednesday July 1, from 10-12 Eastern Time. It’s a creative nonfiction class on Hermit Crab essays, a kind of lyric essay. They’re fun! No need to register or anything, just use the Zoom link below and join us! It’s part of this week’s virtual 11th year of Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and it’s hosted by the Oak Bluff’s Public Library on Martha’s Vineyard. I can’t take you all out for a cup of chowder afterwards, but we should have a lovely digital time together! 🙂
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Weds July 1: 10am-12: Christopher Citro: Zoom Lyric Essay Writing Workshop:
The Hermit Crab Essay
In this class we’ll explore the hermit crab essay, a hybrid form of the lyric essay which uses the shell of an existing form of writing, such as a recipe or questionnaire, in which to write our own personal essay. We’ll gain an acquaintance with this popular new form of the personal essay, then use prompts to inspire us in our own writing journey. Previous writing experience welcomed but not required. Free and open to all writers.
https://oakbluffs.zoom.us/j/98698055535?pwd=K2NSaU1NYlBqWUtqajg4VnZhNktKdz09
I’m teaching two 6-week creative writing workshops (poetry & creative nonfiction) this summer via The Downtown Writers Center in Syracuse. Anyone anywhere can sign up to take them cuz online! Yay! Registration is inexpensive and open to the public — you don’t need to be a Y member! To learn more about The Downtown Writer’s Center, download the summer class schedule with all its awesome class offerings, and register for these workshops, visit the Center’s website HERE. Feel free to share with anyone who might be interested!
P.S. classes cap at 10 students, so if you are interested, register early! 
This is happening online next week! All free! 🙂 Workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Readings in the evenings! I’m teaching a generative workshop on Hermit Crab Lyric Essays on Wednesday morning, July 1, and I’m giving a reading on Friday July 3 at 7 pm. It’s all free and organized through the Oak Bluffs Public Library on Martha’s Vineyard. Tune in and join us!
The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, where I’ve taught seven of the last ten years, has begun sharing writing exercises as part of their new online content. The Institute won’t be happening in person this summer, for obvious reasons, but anyone can now enjoy free weekly writing prompts from the faculty. Today they’ve posted an exercise I created.
It’s a prompt to guide you in writing a lyric essay, specifically one of the fragmented/collage type lyric essays which I love so much. Happy writing!
To get the writing exercise, click HERE!
Thank you so much to all the great folks who came out to my class on the hermit crab essay and my poetry reading yesterday at the Oak Bluffs Library on Martha’s Vineyard! It was such a treat! Thank you to Carolina and Marco for hosting me at the library. Thank you to Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing for bringing me to the island as part of the year-long visiting writers series!
I’m delighted to announce that I’m returning to Martha’s Vineyard at the end of this month! I’ll be teaching a 2-hour writing class on the Hermit Crab Essay and then giving a poetry reading at the Oak Bluffs Public Library on Feb 29. It’s all completely free and open to the public. Dag! This event is part of the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing’s Year-Round Writers Series. I did it last year, too, and we had a great time. If you’re in the area, please come on by!
More info HERE.
Thank you to Mark Montgomery and Richard Bower for inviting me to be this fall’s Visiting Writer at Cayuga College, a tradition going back more than 30 years and including the likes of writers like George Saunders and Robert Bly. I had a blast reading my poems for the students, responding to their thoughtful questions, sharing a craft essay, talking about publishing, and doing some writing together. Such a full and inspiring experience. Thank you most of all to the students of Cayuga Community College, at both the Auburn and the Fulton Campuses. Your smiles and generosity warmed my way through this early winter deep freeze!
