Winter 2025 Resident
Anesce Dremen
Anesce Dremen is a nomadic U.S. writer and educator. A first generation college student and domestic violence survivor, Anesce Dremen studied in four cities in China with the support of the Critical Language Scholarship and the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship. She was a 2022-23 Fulbright-Nehru ETA in India. Her work has been published in Stillhouse Press, SPAN Magazine, Persephone’s Daughters, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Tea Journey, Tiny Spoon, and Shanghai Poetry Lab, among others. An excerpt of her memoir was a finalist for the 2024 Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship. Anesce is often found with a tea cup in hand, traveling between the U.S., China, and India. AnesceDremen.com
Poetry Plucked from the Tea Gardens. How does poetry exist alongside the tradition of tea? Through an immersive overview of the tradition of Chinese tea ceremonies, participants can steep themselves within translations and a brief overview of two thousand years of tea-inspired writing. Participants will appreciate excerpts of the first book written about tea (“The Classic of Tea” Lu Yu), learn about literary traditions of tea, as well as listen to a tea plucking opera (with lyrics in translation). Participants can contrast the workshop to their experience of drinking or preparing tea by brewing the same or their own tea. Using sensory descriptions, participants will then write about tea and have the option to share their writing.
The workshop will be held March 1 & 2: 3-5 PM MST via Zoom. Register now!
Spring 2025 Resident
Lyn Patterson
Lyn Patterson is a storyteller and visual artist who lives in Oakland, CA. She is a deeply invigorated poet, specifically inspired to write about Black diaspora and those who have been systematically marginalized in society as a means of empowering future generations with their stories. For Patterson, storytelling is a sacred ancestral endeavor which can be used as a tool for paying homage and building future communities. Patterson often uses visual mediums to encapsulate her words and elevate the ways in which texts exist in conversation with one another. Her work has been published in Popshot Magazine, the Berkeley Review, and has been featured on KQED.
Worlds Between Worlds. This course is for poets who see language as a tool for disruption, transformation, and revolution. During our time together, we will explore the blurred boundaries between the surreal and the speculative, where radical imagination shapes reality and myths become blueprints for the future. We will engage in creative writing exercises that challenge linear thought, drawing from Afro-surrealism and Afro-futurism to craft poems and stories that exist in the liminal space between memory, fantasy, and possibility. By studying visionary writers and experimenting with genre-bending techniques and world building, we will tap into the deep well of speculative writing to unveil the absurd truths of our present and conjure liberated futures.
The workshop will be held April 26 & 27: 11 AM-1 PM MST via Zoom. Register now!
Summer 2025 Resident
Maggie Dillow
Maggie Dillow grew up writing an embarrassingly prolific amount of terrible teen poetry in Chicagoland, primarily inspired by the private perils of suburban girlhood. She is the founding member of the Post-apocalyptic Poets for a Pre-apocalyptic World, a collective dedicated to community care, elevating the work of emerging artists, and performance-based poetics. She is also the co-host of Girlhood Movie Database, a podcast deconstructing depictions of girlhood in film. Some of her words can be found in The /temz/ Review, Hot Pink Magazine, Blue Earth Review, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University and is the 2024 recipient of the Anne Spencer Memorial Award through The Poetry Society of Virginia. When she’s not writing, teaching, or performing, you can find her in the woods.
Mourning Papers: Writing the Future into the Present. In this workshop, we will be writing post-apocalyptic poems for a pre-apocalyptic world. Participants will be encouraged to write from the future for the future, guided by the varying axiom that a better world must be imagined before it can be built. The abstract goal of this workshop is to inspire participants to create what is most urgent to their imaginations. The concrete goal of this workshop is to help writers continue or begin creative practices that lead us most urgently towards our shared liberations, community-building beyond the workshop space, and an anthologized zine.
The workshop will be held August 23 & 24: 11 AM-1 PM MST via Zoom.
Fall 2025 Resident
R. K. Sandhu
R. K. Sandhu currently lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband. Her short stories have been published in The Offing, Vagabond City Lit, Gordon Square Review, and Roots Quarterly. Find her on Instagram at Ravneet_recommends.
Exploring the Collective Unconscious: Jungian Archetypes and Dream Interpretation. Interested in using your unconsciousness as a source of creativity? Come tap into the shadowy world of Jungian symbols in this two-day generative workshop. Explore a corner of the collective unconscious where common archetypes and symbolic dreams reside. We will look at case studies, analyze popular media, and indulge in some personal myth-making.You can hope to leave with a personal list of symbols to use in your writing practice and a deeper understanding of the recurring dream you’ve had since childhood.
The workshop will be held October 4th and 5th: 10 AM – 2 PM MST / 12-2 PM EST. Register today!