Register Now for Sense of Place: An Online Writing Workshop in Two Parts with Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Join Oklahoma writer and former Oklahoma State Poet Laureate Jeanetta Calhoun Mish for a two-part online writing workshop exploring the concept of sense of place on Tuesday, September 13 and Thursday, September 15. Registration is required, and registrants should register for both sessions of the workshop.

What is this “sense of place” we keep hearing about? What gives a piece of writing—poetry, fiction, nonfiction—a sense of place? Is it just setting or is there more to it? Is sense of place restricted to “regionalist” writers? Why should you care about a sense of place? We’ll tackle all these questions and more in this workshop intended to help poets and prose writers alike ground their writing in place. Please have pen and paper at hand, or a document ready for typing.

Part 1: Tuesday, September 13, 5:30-7:30 pm (MDT) / 7:30-9:30 pm (EDT)

Part 1 will include an introduction to the topic, examples of literary pieces with a strong sense of place, in-class exercises, and a writing assignment. Participants will receive a summary of the ideas presented during the first session to read before starting their writing assignment.

Part 2: Thursday, September 15, 5:30-7:30 pm (MDT) / 7:30-9:30 pm (EDT)

During Part 2, participants will share their work, and we will have time for questions and conversation.

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish’s most recent books are What I Learned at the War, a poetry collection (West End Press, 2016), and Oklahomeland: Essays (Lamar University Press, 2015). Her 2009 poetry collection, Work Is Love Made Visible (West End Press), won an Oklahoma Book Award, a Wrangler Award, and the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West. Her first collection, a chapbook entitled Tongue Tied Woman, won the 2001 Edda Poetry Chapbook for Women Competition. Mish served as Oklahoma State Poet Laureate from 2017-2020 and, in 2019, she was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets.

Mish has published poetry in This Land, Naugatuck River Review, Concho River Review, LABOR: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, World Literature Today, San Pedro River Review, About Place Journal, Mojave River Review, Halvard-Johnson’s Truck, Sundress Best Dressed, and Yellow Medicine Journal, among others. Essays and short fiction have appeared in Oklahoma Today, Sugar Mule, Crosstimbers, Red Dirt Chronicles, Hard Crackers, and The Emily Dickinson Society International Bulletin‘s essay series, “Poet to Poet.”

Dr. Mish is a faculty mentor for The Red Earth Creative Writing MFA @ Oklahoma City University, where she teaches criticism and theory, poetics, poetry craft, and research for writers. For more information, visit jeanettacalhounmish.com.

Sense of Place is facilitated by Dr. Mish, moderated by Laura Marcus Green (Communal Pen), hosted by the American Folklore Society, and sponsored by the AFS Creative Writing and Storytelling Section and Local Learning.

This pre-conference program, part of the 2022 AFS Annual Meeting in Tulsa, is free and open to the public, but registration is required. The workshop will be limited to 20 participants to allow for all to fit on one Zoom screen. Registration is on a first come, first served basis.