P&W–supported writer Asia Rainey is a spoken word artist, vocalist, actor, and educator. She is the author of the book Soul Chant (2005) and a poetry CD compilation, No Rainbows for the Colored (2007). She premiered her one woman play, "Shut Up and Fly," to rave reviews in 2010, and has been welcomed as a speaker/performer at numerous events and educational institutions. Rainey has produced poetry events from spoken word open mic nights to the Write, NOLA Poetry Festival and the New Orleans Youth Slam Festival (NOYS Fest). She is presently working on her first novel with Chin Music Press and is working on a new CD, which will include her original music and spoken word. She continues to broaden her role in education as a Master Teaching Artist with Young Audiences Charter School, an innovative arts integration academic program in New Orleans.

Can you tell us about your organization WordPlay?
I adapted the model and curriculum of a sister organization, WordPlay Baton Rouge, in 2007 after returning to the city post-Katrina. When I came home, I saw a need to help rebuild the spoken word community and support the next generation of poets.

WordPlay New Orleans became the vessel for that work via workshops, connecting with schools, community events such as the Write, NOLA and NOYS (New Orleans Youth Slam) festivals, and poetry open mics. Working with libraries in New Orleans, including the P&W–supported workshops at the Algiers branch, was a natural part of that work, as they provide safe spaces for people of all ages to be exposed to spoken word poetry.
 
How do you get shy writers to open up?
My belief is that no matter how shy or lacking in confidence a person may be, we all have something to say. I have done my best to first help people connect with themselves and find the voice within them that needs to be heard. Once that first step is made, there is something that compels a person to move past fear and finally be heard. The freedom and connection felt from sharing that writing makes most people open, even anxious, for the experience.

What is your writing critique philosophy?
If you are writing to simply express yourself, and you are giving your truth, who am I to say that it is wrong or not good enough? After I have given the tools I can to improve that writing, my "critique" becomes the questions: "Have you said what you need to say?" and "Is this the best way you feel you can express it?"

If you are writing for an audience (even if that reason is coupled with the first motivation)—meaning you want to move into paid performance, publish, or even compete as a slam poet—I believe the writer is asking me for a different mode of feedback. Then I am looking for form and flow, the way the work engages and connects, and the development of strong performance.
 
What do you enjoy most about teaching writing?
That moment of self realization, when a person of any age finds the power in their own voice. I love to see the beauty that comes when someone of any age is transformed by their own writing. It is a blessing to play any small part in that.
 
The piece “Shotgun” on your website reminds one of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and the bluesy “Fiyah,” melds spoken word and song. Who and what are some of your influences?
Music—from the strings of a symphony performing Scheherazade to the earthiness of India Arie—can make my pen move. My writing is influenced by poets from Gil Scott-Heron to Sonya Sanchez, Harlem Renaissance to the Last Poets, MC Lyte to Common, the vast number of phenomenal spoken word artists I've met across the country to the youth poets, who've taught me I still have much to learn, to the poet who poured her heart out on stage for the first time.

How does teaching inform your art and vice versa?
Teaching is part of understanding what I have learned. Breaking down what may come naturally or intuitively to you into learn-able parts brings greater understanding. The teacher becomes the pupil.

Additionally, your pupils, and their successes or setbacks, are your constant mirror. One of the young poets I worked with struggled to find his voice, telling us what he thought we wanted to hear. I called bull****. He was shocked that I would say that about his work, but I told him that I needed him to find the truth in whatever he had to say, and if he could do that, he would get where he wanted to be. He did it and has written beautiful work since. I have called bull**** on my own writing many times since then, simply because I have to practice what I preach.

Photo: Asia Rainey. Credit: Gus Bennett Jr.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in New Orleans is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

P&W-funded Jo Scott-Coe is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Riverside City College in Southern California. Her memoir in essays, Teacher at Point Blank (Aunt Lute), was listed as a “Great Read” by Ms. Magazine. In 2009, she won the NCTE Donald Murray Prize for writing about teaching. Her nonfiction and interviews have appeared in many publications, including Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and Narrative. She is currently at work on a collection of lyric meditations about American public performances of violence since the UT Austin shooting in 1966.

Workshops can be fantastic tools for writers: They can facilitate new writing, help with honing a current project, and provide forums for professional advice and opportunities for networking.

For many writers workshops can also feel disappointing or desperate, even subtly (or not-so-subtly) savage. Informal editing or writing groups formed independently by a few folks who know each other can be fantastic, but even these ventures can begin with high energy that ultimately fizzles due to mismatched expectations about goals, commitments, and organizational styles.

When looking for a workshop or retreat, new writers may find the scope of options intimidating. Should you spend a lot of money? Do you choose a program based on location and potential inspiration, or aim for a particular aesthetic or pedigree?

Fortunately, anyone can survey hundreds of options for free via online resources at Poets & Writers, Newpages, and The Association of Writers and Writing Programs. There are also regional listings, such as Poetix and Independent Writers of Southern California. Probably nothing beats word-of-mouth testimony. However, you’ve got to tap into workshop and readings circuits in order to hear those words. You’ve got to put yourself into the mix, and then see where you want to go. This means taking some risks.

It helps to refrain from idealizing any one workshop session, series, program, or facilitator as the solution to all your writing needs. It also helps to avoid believing in an unrealistic outcome as the measure of value of a particular workshop (“If I serve the right tables at Breadloaf, I’ll get published in the New Yorker!” or “Just meeting with X will get me a job!”). Investing too heavily in a narrow outcome can distract from the focus of one’s goals—to keep writing, to get better, to fail better—and wastes valuable time and creative energy.

Remember that even great workshops can have “off” seasons, and facilitators are human beings, not magicians or saviors. Some workshop experiences are simply unpredictable. For example, I had the chance to work as an undergraduate in a college composition course at USC with Sandra Tsing Loh, who was a graduate student in the Professional Writing Program at the time. She continues to be a transformative influence on me and my writing, but being in her class was an accident.

I met poet Jack Grapes when, on a fluke, I attended the fantastic Conference of the Living Tree at Ojai as a first-year English teacher in 1992. Afterwards, I attended Jack’s The Deep Voice process workshops for nearly a decade. I drove my Nissan from Riverside out to Jack’s house in Los Angeles’ Wilshire District after a full day of working with fifteen-year-olds. I loved every minute of the trip. In Jack's workshops, I met writers who also had day jobs and were looking to cultivate literary spaces: Larry Colker (founder of Redondo Poets), Chiwan Choi (founder of Writ Large Press), and Mifanwy Kaiser (founder of Tebot Bach Books).

You get the idea: those unplanned, wonderful experiences were the result of my commitment to one central goal: to learn and absorb as much as possible. Attending workshops shouldn't be a passive exercise.

Of course, when researching workshops there are practical and philosophical questions everyone has to consider. First the practical ones: Are you looking mostly to generate new work, or to revise longer writing? Are you interested in genre experimentation, or do you want to hunker down with short stories or poems or memoir work exclusively? Do you want to compete for a place in the workshop based on a writing sample, and is there a fee to enter the competition? How far are you willing to travel? How many sessions do you want, and how much time and money can you budget? If you’re considering an online option, how much do you know about the structure regarding participation and feedback?

The philosophical questions may be even more important: Do you have any “hot spots” or “triggers” when it comes to receiving or providing feedback? If so, can you identify them so that they don’t impede your ability to participate openly? Are you willing to collaborate with people who may have vastly different levels of skill, or would you rather work in a more homogenous group? How important to you are the history of the workshop and/or the creative output of instructors or former students? How willing are you to risk and to fail in this workshop alongside other people—or is your main goal to get some basic human affirmation?

Ultimately, no workshop can substitute for reading and writing as much as possible. And the best measure of value for any workshop may not be whether you received praise from a mentor or an “A” in the course—or even whether you publish the piece over which you agonized so much. If the experience leads to more writing, a wider understanding of the marketplace, more endurance for challenges and a more focused understanding about what you’re doing and/or why you bother, that’s the long game. That’s always a win.

Photo: Jo Scott-Coe. Credit: Wes Kriesel.
Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.