Celebrate Native American Indian Heritage Month with YpsiWrites! Participants in this workshop will learn about Indigenous understandings of the universe which influence the art of storytelling and narrative through various examples of poems and stories by Native American authors. With Ypsi Yaqui poet, Michelle Lietz, this workshop will explore ways of ethically engaging in cultural exchange while giving participants a chance to try out poetic and fiction forms and devices that make use of repetition.

Round out the season with this final “campfire”! During this session, participants will explore devices and forms to think about radical revision (significant changes in form) and basic editing (to strengthen poetic images or lines). Feel free to attend one, or all, of this season’s campfires!

Come to Black Stone Bookstore for a poetry workshop exploring downtown with fellow youth poets. Meet up and finish at Black Stone. FREE for all high-school aged teens.

Come sit by the metaphorical “fire” with YpsiWrites as we explore poetic devices through thoughtful and (sometimes) challenging poetry! Participants in this session will read poems, explore poetic devices and forms, and use those devices and forms to write lines that keep the fire burning. Feel free to attend one, or all, of this season’s campfires!

Come to NZ for a poetry workshop exploring downtown with fellow youth poets. Meet up and finish at Neutral Zone. FREE for all high-school aged teens.

Join YpsiWrites as we kick-off this season’s “campfires” (poetry workshops)! During this session, participants will learn about different types of poetic projects by reading examples (a series, a long poem, a suite, and an occasional poem), and will plan out a poetic project they can work on across and beyond the season’s poetry events. Feel free to attend one, or all, of this season’s campfires!

Explore the living world through activities that cultivate new perspectives, spark your imagination, and inspire your writing. lisa eddy, author of YpsiWrite's first book, Write Outside: Investigations of the Living Land, invites participants to explore the natural world through writing, drawing, and photography. Learn new ways to look at, think about, and reflect on the life going on all around us in the natural world. 

Wrap up National Poetry Month with this intermediate-level poetry workshop! Featuring Ypsilanti poet Michelle Lietz, author of Occasionally Petty, this workshop will introduce intermediate poetic devices, give writers time to try out those devices, and challenge writers to imagine a suite of poems they can write after the workshop that allows them to process and grow from significant life experiences. No poetry experience is necessary, and all skill levels are welcome.

If you have thought about blogging, or even if you’re a seasoned blogger, join us to explore a way to share your thoughts, creativity, ideas, and passions with the world by creating a blog. Writers of different types of blogs will be on hand to share strategies and approaches they use in their own blog writing, including designing a site, finding a host, and ideas on how to best reach your intended audience. This ninety-minute workshop will give you space to think and write about what your future blog might look like!

For Women's History Month, be inspired by BIPOC Women Writers who have written on receipts, and envelopes, anywhere and everywhere in order to get their message out and their voices heard!  Learn how to make writing a short, daily practice and how to carve out space for yourself and resist by slowing down in a demanding world.

Join us for the second of two virtual writing workshops exploring intersections of writing, mental wellness, and self-care. In this second workshop, poet and clinical social worker David Boeving will work with participants to explore everyday approaches to self-care - and how taking care of oneself is a story worth writing. This workshop reflects our theme of Writing for Change, in this case on a personal level. For teens and adults.

Join YpsiWrites and EMU Professor of Africology and African American Studies Toni Pressley-Sanon in a morning of reading, reflection, and writing. In this virtual workshop we will consider how all of us as writers can inspire change and make a difference in our communities and our world through our creative expression. Through the reading and contemplation of African American women's poetry, we will learn how to listen more deeply to our own voices and to the voices of others. We will then practice using our writing as a tool to expand our collective hearts and minds. For teens and adults.

Join us for the first of two virtual writing workshops exploring intersections of writing, mental wellness, and self-care. In this first workshop, poet and clinical social worker David Boeving will guide participants in a meditation and journaling exercise that allows participants to explore and expand their feelings and thoughts with open hearts and minds. This workshop reflects our theme of Writing for Change, in this case on a personal level. For teens and adults.

Writing a news story takes a keen eye and a lot of listening. Get guided practice interviewing your sources and tips on incorporating their thoughts into your story.

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

Zoom information will be sent out prior to the Writers Room meeting

Join us for a hands-on virtual writing session to learn about and create different types of writing gifts for loved ones. Join our YpsiWrites facilitators and choose between holiday letters, recipes, and telling stories about favorite holiday traditions and memories.

Ponder gratitude as we approach Thanksgiving. Recent research indicates that gratitude journals lower blood pressure and can lengthen and improve life. We'll explore what happens when we share those feelings with others.

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time virtually.

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

Zoom information will be sent out prior to the Writers Room meeting

We will have a quiet writing space at our event gathering in Ypsilanti District Library Whittaker.

To be human is to love. We’ll explore some of the great exchanges of adoration across the centuries, then write our own expressions to friends, families, and lovers.

A tone-poem. A haiku. A shopping list. We will winnow down our thoughts into the briefest of sentiments. And talk about art — is it important?

This in-person session will encourage all to write Love Letters to Ypsilanti, an YpsiWrites celebration of the city’s bicentennial.

Join YpsiWrites and our leaders, volunteers, and 2022 Writers of Ypsilanti to celebrate our third anniversary. We will celebrate our 2022-2023 YpsiWrites’ theme: Write for Change. Join us for writing activities and a chance to create a piece of writing that advocates for and/or brings about change at any level––personal, local, state, national, global.

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time during our anniversary celebration.

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

We will have a quiet writing space at our event gathering in Ypsilanti District Library Whittaker.

Join YpsiWrites and our leaders, volunteers, and 2022 Writers of Ypsilanti to celebrate our third anniversary. We will celebrate our 2022-2023 YpsiWrites’ theme: Write for Change. Join us for writing activities and a chance to create a piece of writing that advocates for and/or brings about change at any level––personal, local, state, national, global.

How do we improve the human condition, advance art forms, or do something as simple as review a thing you bought? This conversation will show how letters aren't just a quaint old way of communicating, but in fact are part of how we communicate all the time.

Learn how to write a letter so your voice is heard on political topics and/or social change.

We’ll explore how conflicts and opposing views can be addressed through the writing of a letter. Join YDL and YpsiWrites for a virtual session on crafting letters focused on political topics and social change. Let your voice be heard!

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time in YpsiWrites' brand new virtual Writers Room!

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

The Zoom link will be sent to you a few days before the Writers Room event.

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time in YpsiWrites' brand new virtual Writers Room!

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

The Zoom link will be sent to you a few days before the Writers Room event.

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time in YpsiWrites' brand new virtual Writers Room!

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

The Zoom link will be sent to you a few days before the Writers Room event.

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time in YpsiWrites' brand new virtual Writers Room!

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

The Zoom link will be sent to you a few days before the Writers Room event.

Write with Us! Join other writers for open writing time in YpsiWrites' brand new virtual Writers Room!

If you're seeking inspiration, we'll provide a prompt. We'll also make time for writers wishing to share their work and get feedback.

The Zoom link will be sent to you a few days before the Writers Room event.