Class Schedule

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Gemini Ink
Spring 2016 Readings & Events
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis (Art is long, life is short!)
Open Writers Lab
Mon, Jan 25, Feb 29, Mar 28, Apr 25, May 30, June 27
6:30–8pm, Free to members, Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St
This peer-driven workshop, held the last Monday of each month, is open to all writers.
Facilitated by Gemini Ink volunteers Dario Beniquez and John McLennon.
Join our Monthly Book Club Meetings
Fridays at noon, Free, Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St
1111 Navarro St , San Antonio, Texas 78205
geminiink.org
Jan 29, M Train, Patty Smith
Feb 26, Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich
Apr 29, A House of My Own, Sandra Cisneros
May 27, Reality Hunger, David Shields
June 24, The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
Catch author interviews, readings, live recordings,
and more at soundcloud.com/gemini-ink.
South Texas Literary Culture Live.
Inkcast
From the left; Cyra S. Dumitru, Veronica Golos, Debra Monroe, Jim LaVilla-Havelin,
David Shields, Bárbara Renaud González, Billy Taylor, and Urayoán Noel.
Gemini Ink programs are supported by the Albert and Bessie Mae Kronkosky Foundation,
Brown Foundation, Catto Charitable Foundation, Faye L. and William L. Cowden Charitable
Foundation, Edouard Foundation, Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation, Frost
National Bank, theFund, H-E-B, Hixon Properties, Humanities Texas, Myra Stafford Pryor
Charitable Trust, Najim Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New Image
Dentistry, John and Florence Newman Foundation, Palo Alto College, The Peter Ray
and Deborah Sultemeier Hope Fund, Rackspace Foundation, Alice Kleberg Reynolds
Foundation, Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts, Ruth Lang Charitable Fund and Dan and
Gloria Oppenheimer Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, San Antonio Department
for Culture and Creative Development, Texas Commission on the Arts, Shield Ayres
Foundation, The Twig Book Shop, Valero Energy Foundation, and Viva Tacoland.
Chicana Great Books Series
Tue, 6:30–8pm, Free, Moderated by Patricia Portales, PhD
Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St (except for Apr 5)
Feb 9, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
Mar 8, Under the Feet of Jesus, Helena María Viramontes
*Apr 5, Chicana Falsa and Other Stories, Michele Serros
May 10, Sonnets to Human Beings, Carmen Tafolla
*Barrio Barrista Coffeehouse, 3735 Culebra Rd
Michele Serros
The Autograph Series
Engage the Active Imagination: Writing as Activism
Writing Lab with René Jaime González
Thu, Feb 18, 25; Mar 3,10, 17, 24, 31; Apr 14, 21, 28; May 5, 12
6:30pm–8:30pm, Free to members, Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St
Tactics to engage the active imagination using influences from Sufi poetry, eco-poetics,
multicultural studies, and more.
March 26 & 28, 2016
2015 Mentorship Celebratory Reading & Wine Reception
Sat, Feb 27, Reception 6pm, Reading 7pm, Free
Featuring Carrie Fountain, John Phillip Santos, Danielle Sellers, Chris Yan, Joshua Levine,
and Amanda Harr.
Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St
Sandra Cisneros
geminiink.org
Spring Workshops
Literary Talk by Urayoán Noel
“Was There a Latin@ Sixties Poetry?”
Wed, Mar 2, 7pm, Free
Our Lady of the Lake University, Providence West Social Room
411 SW 24th St
Urayoán Noel Poetry Reading/Book Signing
Thu, Mar 3, 7pm, Free
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center
723 S Brazos St
Around the World with the Novel
Tue, Jan 19, Feb 16, Mar 15, Apr 19, 6:30-8pm
$60 for all 4 classes, or $20 for a single class
Jim LaVilla-Havelin
Level: All
Urayoán Noel
Gemini Ink at Viva Tacoland
Viva Tacoland, 103 W. Grayson St.
Fri, Mar 18, 6:30pm, Debra Monroe, Ben Olguín, Frances Santos
Fri, Apr 15, 6:30pm, Vincent Cooper, Victoria Garcia-Zapata Klein, Laurie Clements Lambeth
Fri, May 20, 6:30pm, J. R. Helton, Billy Taylor, Todd Wright
All readings are free followed by open mic.
Laura Van Prooyen & Students Celebrate Their Poems
Poetry Reading from the 2015 Gemini Ink Poetry Manuscript Workshop
Thur, Apr 7, 7pm, Free, Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St
Texas Meets New Mexico: Two Women Poets
A Reading & Book Signing with Sharon Olinka and Veronica Golos
Fri, May 6, 6:30pm, Free,
The Twig Book Shop, 306 Pearl Parkway, #106
Two Nights of Chekhov, Wine, & Cheese with Professor Bonnie Lyons
Wed, May 11, 25; 6:30–8:30pm; $15 for one night/$25 for both
May 11: Chekhov & Three Classic Short Stories; May 25: Chekhov &
“The Cherry Orchard,” Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St
David Shields: Reading and Q&A
Genre-Bending Author of Reality Hunger
Fri, May 13, 7pm, Free, Trinity University, Chapman Center Auditorium,
1 Trinity Pl
Jan 19, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan
Kundera / Czechoslovakia; Feb 16, My Name is Red
by Orhan Pamuk / Turkey; Mar 15, The Inheritance of
Loss by Kiran Desai / India; Apr 19, Garlic Ballads by
Mo Yan / China
Poet, editor, and educator Jim LaVilla-Havelin is an avid
reader. Recently retired as Director of the Young Artists
Programs at the Southwest School of Art, LaVilla-Havelin
is the author of four books of poetry. His most recent
collection, Counting, was published by Pecan Grove Press
in 2010.
Autograph Reading with Sandra Cisneros
Sat, Mar 26, 7pm, Free
Palo Alto College Performing Arts Center
1400 W Villaret Blvd
Autograph Luncheon with Sandra Cisneros
Mon, Mar 28, 11:30am, $75
McNay Art Museum, 6000 N New Braunfels Ave
Stop at a different country each month in this yearlong literary tour. Gather for a lively conversation on
LaVilla-Havelin’s personal selection of world novels.
From revolutions––Velvet and sexual––to a murder
mystery in late sixteenth-century Istanbul, discover
new literary wonders at each port of call.
Stories of the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives
Sandra Cisneros
Performalist Poetics:
An Exploratory Workshop
Across the Seasons: Cultivating Deep
Listening to Poetic Voice for a Year
Wed, Feb 3, 17; Mar 2, 16; Apr 6, 20; May 4, 18; no
classes in June; July 20, Aug 3, 17; Sept 7, 21; Oct 5,
19; Nov 2, 16; Dec 7, 6–8pm, $650
Preliminary writing samples required*
After acceptance to the workshop, you may pay and
ask about our payment plan.
Cyra S. Dumitru
Class Limit: 10
Level: All
Are you surrendering to the call of your poetic
mind? Need guidance with shaping your emerging
poems? Or the support and inspiration of other
emerging poets? This yearlong course is designed
to develop sustained inner listening and focus on
the craft of poetry. Respond to others’ poems and
receive feedback on your own. Explore the flexibility
of the lyric and the narrative, as well as the defined
structures of haiku, sestina, and the villanelle.
Complete course assignments, and maintain a
required personal journal throughout the year as a
seedbed for poems, as well as for cultivating selfunderstanding.
Wed, Jan 27; Feb 3, 10, 17, 24; Mar 2, 9, 16
6:30–8pm, $135
Bárbara Renaud González
Level: All
*To apply: Submit 8–10 pages of original poems, all
in one Microsoft Word or PDF file.
Submit at: geminiink.submittable.com/submit
Deadline: Jan 20, 2016
Create compelling memoirs by examining the ghosts
that haunt you: untold tales of parents, ancestors,
relationship ghosts, ghosts of guilt and shame, ghosts
of betrayal, ghosts of fear, and the soulless ghosts of
modernism. Find a way into your most vital personal
stories by addressing the ghosts in the room.
Cyra S. Dumitru is a poet and an author of memoirs and
meditative essays. Her three poetry collections are Remains
(2008) and What the Body Knows (1999), both from Pecan
Grove Press, and Listening to Light (River Lily Press 2003).
She teaches poetry writing and literature at St. Mary’s
University. She is also certified in Poetic Medicine through
the Institute for Poetic Medicine based in Palo Alto, CA and
administered by John Fox, CPT.
Bárbara Renaud González is a freelance writer, activist, and
journalist. For five years, she was a columnist for the San
Antonio Express-News. Her novel Golondrina, Why Did You
Leave Me? (2009) earned her the honor of being the first
Chicana author published by UT Press. González also wrote
the first children’s book on the life of voting rights pioneer
Willie Velásquez, called The Boy Made of Lightning (2014).
*All weekend 10am–3pm workshops include an hour break
for lunch.
Members, please sign up by phone at 210.734.9673 to
receive 10% discount on class registration.
View our cancellation policy at
geminiink.org/cancellation-policy.
Copy edited by Rose M. Glennon.
Connect with us!
Register at
geminiink.org
210.734.WORD (9673)
Sat, Mar 5, 10am–3pm*, $95
Urayoán Noel
Level: All
Blues poems, corridos, the décima, rap, walk poems,
the bop, the sound poem, and the found poem—
discover and expand your knowledge of performance
poetry with NY/Puerto Rican poet and SLAM expert
Urayoán Noel. Examine poetic form and performance
across cultures and contexts, exploring form as a
point of departure for writing personal and social
histories.
Author, literary critic, translator, performer, and Assistant
Professor of English and Spanish at New York University,
Urayoán Noel recently published a new collection of poems,
Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (University of
Arizona Press, 2015). Other poetic works include Los días
porosos (2012), Hi-Density Politics (2010), Boringkén
(2008), and Kool Logic/La lógica kool (2005). He is the
author of the critical study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican
Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (University of Iowa Press,
2014), winner of the Latina/o Studies Book Prize.
Life Becomes Art:
Form in the Essay & Memoir
Sat, Mar 19, 10am–3pm*, $95
Debra Monroe
Level: All
Life is a mass of details and distractions. Personal
essays and memoirs are selections and arrangements
of those details. Writing from memory involves
leaving out the irrelevant or distracting and focusing
on the essential. Explore what form is, then build it
with blocks of carefully selected details. Read two
short essays and write short pieces to generate new
work.
story. Learn to reveal characters through action,
heightening conflict, and story structure.
Billy Taylor is the author of Based on the Movie, a comic
novel inspired by his years of working in the film industry,
and Thieving Weasels, a YA thriller to be published in 2016
by Dial Books for Young Readers.
Reading Deeply/Writing Deeply:
Talking Back to the Gods
Sat, May 7, 10am–3pm*, $95
Veronica Golos
Develop your craft and technique and challenge
your usual paradigm, by throwing yourself into
deep discussion and deep writing through a close
look at three poets (Louise Glück, Lucille Clifton,
and Yusef Komunyakaa). These poets talk back
to God, sometimes questioning the supreme
being’s authority in dirty, sassy tones, and doing it
masterfully. Exercise your ability to talk in poems by
using a persona, playing with stanza lengths, and
implementing unexpected rhythm and beat. Explore
a vast sea of poetic realms that will enliven your art.
Veronica Golos is the author of A Bell Buried Deep, cowinner of the Sixteenth Annual Nicholas Roerich Poetry
Prize (Story Line Press, 2003), Vocabulary of Silence (Red
Hen Press, 2011), and Rootwork (3: A Taos Press, 2015).
Golos’s work is widely published and anthologized. An
accomplished writing teacher, she has taught poetry and
multi-genre writing nationwide.
Literary Collage:
An Evolution Beyond Narrative
Lecture. Exegesis. In-Class Writing & Critique
Sat, May 14, 10am–3pm*, $95
David Shields
Level: Geared to Intermediate but all welcome
Debra Monroe is the author of six books, most recently
My Unsentimental Education (2015). A “fierce” writer who
presents “ever-hopeful lost souls with engaging humor
and sympathy” (Kirkus Reviews), she has won the Flannery
O’Connor Award. She’s published four novels and two
memoirs. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times
and Salon.com. Monroe lives in Austin and teaches at Texas
State University.
Is the novel dead? What can replace it or evolve
beyond it in the twenty-first century? With acclaimed
genre-bending, nonfiction writer and essayist David
Shields, explore the anti-novel and collage. Create
prose built from scraps and fragments, see what
literary art forms emerge, and happily abandon any
clear line between fiction and nonfiction.
Turning Your Personal History into Fiction
David Shields is the author of sixteen books, including War
is Beautiful (2015); The Thing About Life Is That One Day
You’ll Be Dead, a New York Times bestseller, and Reality
Hunger: A Manifesto, a culmination of Shields’s life-long
exploration of mass culture, nonfiction, genre-blur, and
reality. His essays and stories have appeared in the New
York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Salon, and Slate.
Wed, Mar 23, 30, Apr 6, 13, 6:30–8pm, $70
Instructor: Billy Taylor
Whether writing a short story, screenplay, or
novel, mine the richest material you have: your
personal history. Complete short assignments and
in-class exercises, taking a memory from your life
and transforming it into a scene, chapter, or short
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