In 2025, Writer’s Workshop at Interact added a second weekly creative writing workshop on Thursday mornings in addition to the long-running Wednesday Writer’s Workshop. In these Fiction & Memoir workshops, writers have been crafting short stories and exploring writing from their lived experiences. Topics covered have included writing description, dialogue, world building and how to reimagine past experiences to create engaging memoir or autofiction. In both weekly sessions, we have written together from various prompts, read and discussed poems, stories and essays, and shared our own works-in-progress with each other. An illustrated selection of poems and stories is compiled in our the zine, I Belong in the World, was released in November with a reading at the Great Big Holiday Sale event.
In the pilot episode for the Interact podcast Work With Your Quirk, Interact visual artists and creative writers Kandis and Cyrus spoke about how attending Writer’s Workshop at Interact has opened up new avenues in their writing practice. Cyrus also read two of his poems. The podcast, which is currently on hiatus, seeks to provide another avenue for showcasing writing by artists at Interact by providing a venue for reading and discussing their work.
In 2026, Writer’s Workshop will shift the Thursday weekly session to focus primarily on in-depth group critique, so that writers can get the editing feedback necessary for creating polished final drafts of their stories and poems. We are excited to announce that Interact visual artist Davida Kilgore (D.D.) will be co-facilitating Writer’s Workshop along with Visual Arts Instructor Jonas Specktor. She brings a wealth of literary experience as a published poet, short story writer, editor, teacher and playwright. She will be encouraging our writers who are interested in pursuing opportunities to publish their work in literary magazines by hosting a monthly info session in which our writers will get an overview of upcoming opportunities to submit their work. We will assist writers interested in pursuing these opportunities with setting up Submittable accounts. We will also provide the tools necessary for our writers to self-publish their own work by creating their own handmade zines and learning how to set up a poetry blog or Substack site. Look for another compilation of creative writing by Interact writers to be released later in 2026.
Visiting poet Marie Olofsdottor plans to host another series of poetry workshops (following her previous work with Interact artists) in the coming year, and we hope to bring in other visiting poets and writers. We will also be exploring opportunities to bring Interact writers to local literary events, including readings, open mics and lectures, with the goal of fostering more connections in the robust Twin Cities literary scene and pursuing opportunities for collaboration and engagement with kindred organizations.