Reproductive Rites: Writing the Right to Choose – A Series of 4 Generative Writing Workshops Presented on Zoom by CALYX Press, Facilitated by Laura Rosenthal
This series of four generative writing workshops and a final group reading will support participants interested in writing about reproductive choices and experiences, regardless of genre. We invite both experienced writers and those interested in using writing as a tool for exploration. Each session will be presented by a different writer, and will include a talk, one or more writing prompts, off-screen writing time, and group sharing in a safe and accepting space rooted in deep listening. Sessions will run approximately 2½ hours. Enrollment is limited to 12 in order to support the intimacy and safety of our connection. Participants who are unable to attend a session will have access to a recording of the talk and the writing prompt for that session. Group sharing will not be recorded. Laura Rosenthal, a poet and former public interest attorney, will facilitate the series.
Dates: Five Sundays – October 5, October 19, October 26, November 2, November 16, 1:00-3:30 PM Pacific time.
Series fee: $150-$250 sliding scale, scholarships available.
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Session 1 | October 5th, 1:00-3:30 PM Pacific
Sounding Like Ourselves – Laura Rosenthal
Description: Mary Oliver defines “voice” as “the agent or agency…speaking through the poem.” In this session we will discuss a group of first-person poems about abortion, and will explore what the very different voices of these poems can teach as we find our own agency to write about themes related to reproductive choices or experiences.
Bio: A public interest attorney before returning to her first love, writing, Laura Rosenthal has published, or has poems forthcoming, in Driftwood Press, Chicago Quarterly Review, Raleigh Review, Tampa Review, CALYX Journal,, and other journals. Laura leads workshops on writing and spiritual practice. She holds degrees from Cornell University and Stanford Law School as well as an MFA from Pacific University.
Session 2 | October 19th, 1:00-3:30 PM Pacific
Voice and Form/Finding Our Way In – Maureen D. Hall
Description: This week we will concentrate on honing our topic and will discuss how to deal with blocks or other issues that may get in our way. We will explore how Voice and Form help us express our stories, both fiction and non, on the page.
Bio: Maureen D. Hall is a writer/poet whose work has appeared in numerous publications including, Paterson Literary Review, Hospital Drive, Journal of New Jersey Poets, American Journal of Nursing, Vineyard Poets, Island Quintet. Her short fiction has appeared in CALYX Journal,, Isele Magazine, Alma Magazine, Halfway Down the Stairs, Sunspot Literary, After Dinner Conversation, and The MacGuffin. She has a BS in Nursing from The College of New Jersey and resides in the Hudson Valley. Her fiction and poetry have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Session 3 | October 26th, 1:00-3:30 PM Pacific
The Language of Flowers: Encoding the Feminine Erotic Experience for Purposes of Pleasure and Survival – Beth Russell
Description: In a cultural landscape where market forces privilege the confessional mode yet punish transgression, who is made vulnerable? How do women speak the truth about their bodies when personal or political forces forbid such conversations, reacting in ways that might endanger self or others? Rooted in the Victorian “Language of Flowers” and the Sapphic fragmentary tradition mapped by Mary Barnard, this multi-genre workshop offers strategies for reclaiming a mode of discourse that is simultaneously public and protected, exploring the myriad ways in which both hard and soft truths regarding lived experiences of fertility and desire have been—and may continue to be—transmitted across space and time.
Bio: Raised by wolves on an island in the Salish glacial carve, Beth Russell now writes, lives and teaches at the heart of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where she practices permaculture and applied poetics and serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors at CALYX, Inc. Her work has been published in Threads, The Neighborhood Naturalist, CALYX Journal, The Fishtrap Anthology, Cloudbank Magazine, and The Oregon Literary Review.
Session 4 | November 2nd, 1:00-3:30 PM Pacific
What’s Left Unsaid: Writing the Spaces Loss Creates – Alexandra Lytton Regalado
Description: Loss resists language. And yet, poetry is where we go when ordinary speech fails us. This class examines how metaphor, image, and silence can function as tools of transformation. Drawing on Keats’ notion of negative capability, we’ll explore how poems hold contradiction, uncertainty, and emotional complexity without demanding resolution. We’ll read work by poets from El Salvador, the U.S., and across the Latinx diaspora whose poems address loss through the lens of reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, and gendered experience—subjects that are often silenced, stigmatized, or legislated. In such cases, metaphor and figurative language become essential, not only as poetic devices but as necessary means of survival and resistance. Through archetypal and personal symbols, poems can name what is unsayable, shield what is forbidden, and reveal the deep emotional truths that lie beneath what has been prohibited.
Bio: Alexandra Lytton Regalado is a Salvadoran-American author, editor, and translator. Her recent works include Relinquenda (Winner of the National Poetry Series, Beacon Press, 2022) and Matria (Winner of the St Lawrence Prize, Black Lawrence Press, 2017). She is co-founding editor of Kalina Press in El Salvador (est. 2006), president of the board of directors of the Salvadoran Cultural Institute, and associate editor at SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami). www.alexandralyttonregalado.com
Workshop Reading | November 16, 1:00-3:30 PM Pacific
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